The night pressed close, thick and suffocating. Merlina laid flat on her back, eyes open, staring at the ceiling as if it might give her answers. The sheets were twisted around her legs, warm with the heat of restlessness.
Every time she shifted, the fabric whispered against her skin, a reminder that sleep wasn't coming. Not tonight.
Not after that.
She touched her lips without meaning to, tracing the faint swell where his mouth had claimed hers just hours ago. For one fragile moment, she'd thought it meant something.
That maybe, after all those years apart, there was still something left to save.
'Easy,' just one word he'd whispered and her whole body had listened. She kept replaying the moment his arm encircled her waist with the ease of old habit, she melted in an instant.
Then came the kiss. Slow, aching, deep. Everything they'd buried coming back in a rush.
It had been real. Or at least she wanted to believe it was.
