The worry in Richard's eyes was real, raw, human, and unguarded. But beneath that concern lingered something far more dangerous. It pulsed just under his skin, a wild, consuming desperation. He looked like a man who had almost lost the one thing tethering him to sanity, and found it again only to fear it might vanish once more.
How did he become like this?
The emotions he's showing can't be faked.
Why is he so vulnerable?
Ahce felt her chest tighten under the weight of that gaze. His arms trembled faintly as they held her, as if the restraint it took to be gentle was costing him every ounce of control.
"Richard…" she breathed.
"Don't disappear from me again," he said hoarsely, his voice cracked open by emotion. "I won't survive it."
What is he talking about?
Why is he so afraid of losing me?
Moonlight streamed through the half-drawn curtains, painting silver across his features. For a moment, Ahce couldn't tell if she was staring at the boy she had once loved and forgotten or the man capable of consuming her whole.
His grip slackened as he exhaled shakily.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, pressing his forehead against her temple. "I didn't mean to frighten you. I just… You have no idea what it does to me when I can't reach you. When I don't know if you're safe."
This is madness...
He must be crazy.
He smiled faintly when he pulled back, soft, apologetic, but the emotion behind his eyes was anything but calm.
"But Richard," Ahce said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her heart, "you didn't have to break into my life like this. You could've waited."
"Wait?" He laughed lightly, but the sound cracked like thin glass. "Boss, I've waited long enough. Years. Do you know how long I've been chasing the day I could stand beside you again? I won't lose another second."
His hand brushed against hers, gentle yet possessive, as if even that small contact was a vow.
"Don't you think this is too much?" she whispered.
He shook his head slowly.
"No. You deserve someone who will never let go, not even when you try to run. Someone who will fight the world just to keep you safe." His voice softened, yet his gaze was a blade hidden beneath silk. "Isn't that what you always wanted?"
Her heart faltered. Those words struck something familiar, something her memory couldn't grasp, but her soul seemed to recognize.
"I won't cage you, Shang," he said, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. "I'll just… follow wherever you go. As long as I can see you, hear you, know you're breathing, I'll be fine."
But Ahce saw it. The tremor in his hand. The shadow flickering behind his tenderness. The quiet warning disguised as devotion. His love wasn't a question, it was a promise that could burn everything it touched.
And yet, against all logic, her heart felt at peace. Not the calm of still waters, but the eerie serenity that comes in the center of a storm. It frightened her how natural it felt, how some buried part of her seemed to crave this kind of love, the kind that teetered between devotion and destruction.
Dinner passed like a dream.
By the time the moon climbed higher, Richard was in her kitchen, sleeves rolled to his elbows, moving through her cupboards as if he'd always belonged there. The soft rhythm of his work, the scrape of a knife, the quiet hum under his breath, filled the small apartment with a domestic warmth that almost felt like a memory she couldn't quite place.
"Sit," he said over his shoulder, his tone light. "I'll cook for us."
Ahce sat silently, watching the way the light touched his profile.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
He didn't look up. "Because you've done enough for me. Because I want to."
Simple words. Yet beneath them lay something unspoken, an unyielding promise that she was his world now, that he wouldn't let her drift away again.
When they finally sat down to eat, the air between them was quiet but heavy with meaning. He smiled at her over the meal he'd made, and for a fleeting second, she almost forgot to be afraid.
Later, as she lay in bed, Richard slipped in beside her. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, and warmth filled the narrow space between them. His skin carried the faint scent of soap and the night air.
"You went home," she murmured, turning to face him. "Why didn't you bring clothes?"
He smiled sheepishly, his hair a tousled mess. "I forgot. I thought something happened to you."
Ahce rolled her eyes lightly, though a smile tugged at her lips. "Bring more next time."
"Boss," he said teasingly, lowering his voice, "wasn't it you who once said you liked men with mermaid lines? Why not check mine?"
She raised an eyebrow at him, amusement flickering through her fatigue. "Are you teasing me?"
The air between them shifted. Playfulness melted into something charged and wordless. Ahce moved without thinking, leaning closer, testing the tension that stretched between them like a live wire.
She pushed herself up and, without thinking twice, swung a leg over him, sitting on his hips purposely. She made sure to shift her weight so that she could feel the hardness pressing beneath her. His sharp intake of breath filled the space between them.
I can feel him hardening more...
The loose shirt Ahce was wearing barely covered her now. The thin fabric clung to her skin and outlined the curves of her breasts and the narrowness of her waist, enough for Richard to notice. His hands, which had been resting on the bed, twitched slightly as if fighting the urge to touch her.
For a moment, the world felt suspended.
Why won't he make a move?
Her hair brushed against his chest as she leaned over him. His eyes darkened, a flicker of something primal hidden beneath the softness he always tried to show her. He licked his lips slowly, his gaze traveling up her body until it met hers. His breath caught, his hands hovering, uncertain whether to pull her close or keep his distance.
"Boss…" he whispered, voice rough, barely restrained. "You're playing with fire."
Her lips curved faintly, her gaze steady. "Am I?"
He groaned low in his throat, his hands finally coming up, but stopping just short of her hips, as though he was fighting himself, fighting the possessiveness that always threatened to spill over. The silence that followed was soft, tremulous, filled with the beating of two hearts that remembered more than their minds did.
He reached for her then, but paused, the gentleness in his touch at odds with the storm in his eyes.
"Tell me to stop," he said quietly, the edge of longing threading through his words. "Or I won't."
But she just smiled and made her move.
The rest of the night dissolved into stillness. The moon watched through the half-open curtains as shadows intertwined, two souls suspended between past and present, between forgetting and the painful ache of remembering.
Outside, the wind whispered against the windows, carrying the sound of a promise neither of them dared to speak aloud.
"How much longer?"
"Halfway through..."
"I feel so full... already."
"Wait for its full length, Boss."