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His hand slides higher, palm dragging up the outside of my thigh, slow, warm, patient. My skin burns under it, my body arching instinctively closer, a traitor to the logic screaming inside my head.

“I hate that you feel like gravity,” I say, and I mean it. “I hate how easy it is. How natural.”

He leans forward, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear.

“You’ve been circling me since the first night.”

“You’re cocky.”

“I’m right.”

“I could still walk away.”

He hums, slow and lazy. “Then why haven’t you?”

Because his hand is still on my thigh and his breath is still curling down my neck and I’m melting under the weight of this unbearable thing neither of us should want. Because he’s right. I’ve been orbiting him, letting him get closer, watching him sleep, listening to the way his voice curls around my name when he’s not trying to flirt, but trying to ground me.

“Because I’m tired,” I say finally. “And you feel like the only real thing left.”

“Then use me,” he says, voice quiet but not soft. “If that’s what you need, take it.”

I close my eyes. Just for a moment. And then I turn, straddling his lap in one smooth movement, legs braced on either side of his hips, hands on his shoulders. His expression doesn’t change. No shock. No smugness. Just acceptance. Like he’s been waiting for this since the first second we were thrown into this cursed nightmare together.

I curl my fingers into his shirt, knuckles whitening. “If we do this,” I say, my voice shaking, “there’s no undoing it.”

“There never was.”

I kiss him.

It’s not gentle. There’s no hesitation, no testing. It’s teeth and breath and months of craving turned into something ugly and beautiful and immediate. His mouth opens under mine, and his hands find my hips, dragging me tighter, harder against him. I grind down once, slow, deliberate, and his groan curls into my mouth like a brand.

The rain hasn’t stopped. The world outside still pulses, still shifts and moans, but in here, in the dark, under the weight of our choices, it doesn’t exist.

Only us.

I pull back, breath ragged, lips swollen. His eyes burn. Not glowing. Just lit with something too old, too deep, to be lust.

Theo’s smile is slow, and it’s not charming. It’s possessive. Not like a prince. Like a god. Like the kind of man who knows you’ll leave claw marks in the walls trying to crawl back to him.

“I’m yours now.”

His mouth is still on mine when he pulls my shirt up, not tentative, not gentle. Urgent. Hands sliding under the fabric like he’s been dying to touch skin instead of soaked layers andborrowed moments. His palms skim my ribs, hot and solid, and the shirt catches at my arms for a breathless second before he yanks it free, tossing it somewhere behind me into the shadows.

I shiver. Not from cold. From air hitting bare skin for the first time in hours, maybe days, and from the way his gaze drops, deliberate, unapologetic.

His eyes drag over me like he’s trying to memorize the curve of every bruise, every freckle, every scar this place has carved into me since I fell into it.

I should feel self-conscious. I haven’t bathed properly in weeks. There’s grime beneath my nails, blood dried at the edge of my collarbone from yesterday’s fight. Sweat still clings to the small of my back. I smell like earth and rot and smoke and magic that doesn’t work anymore.

But none of that matters.

Not when his mouth finds my neck, lips brushing that spot just below my jaw, then lower, across my collarbone, slow at first, then with a hunger that makes my breath catch.

I tip my head back, arch into him, offering more.

His hands roam now, like he wants to feel every inch of me before the world remembers it hates us. His fingers trace the swell of my hips, the notch of my spine, then rise again to skim the outer curve of my breasts, teasing, coaxing.

“I hate how much I need this,” I whisper, voice thick, shaky.