Chapter 8: The Unraveling Begins (Main Character’s Point of View)

I did not turn.

I did not need to.

The weight of his presence—thick with tension, crackling with the unbearable strain of too much wanting—settled behind me like a storm waiting to break.

He did not speak at first.

But I could hear his breath.

Frayed at the edges. Uneven.

Good.

It had taken longer than expected, but now—he was here.

Now, he understood.

I let the silence stretch, the night pressing in around us, and only then did I grant him acknowledgment.

"A late visit," I mused, tracing my fingertips along the cool stone of the terrace railing. "I imagine you have a reason?"

He exhaled sharply. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sigh.

"I would say I don't," he said, voice rougher than usual, strained in a way that pleased me. "But you would know I was lying."

I smiled.

Slow. Amused. Cruel.

"Lying?" I echoed. "You seem to have been doing quite a bit of that as of late."

A pause.

And then—

A step closer.

Not an aggressive move. Not a challenge.

No, this was something else.

Something like a man reaching for a thing he has no right to touch, and yet—he reaches all the same.

Still, I did not turn.

Still, I let him suffer.

"I don't know what you mean," he murmured. But I heard it.

The lie.

The bitter weight of it clogging his throat.

Because he did know.

And he knew that I knew.

I let the moment breathe between us, tasting his hesitation, his wretched, delicious torment, and only then did I grant him something small.

I tilted my head ever so slightly, just enough for my voice to soften, just enough to make him think, just for a moment, that perhaps I would be kind.

"Shall I tell you, then?" I whispered.

Silence.

But it was not empty.

It was heavy.

Like a rope pulled too tight, like a hand curled into a fist, like a man standing at the very edge of something he did not wish to name.

And then—

"Yes," he breathed.

There it is.

The first crack.

The first surrender.

Not much. Not enough.

But it's a start.

I turned then, at last, at my own leisure. And when my gaze finally found his—the sight of him nearly stole my breath.

Not because he was beautiful.

But because he was wrecked.

Disheveled in a way that did not suit him, tension wound through his posture, hands clenched at his sides as if to stop himself from doing something he shouldn't.

He looked at me like a man on the verge of ruin.

Like a man who had gone too long without air.

Like a man who hated his own hunger.

And still—I did not grant him relief.

Instead, I stepped forward, slow and deliberate, until the space between us was nothing.

Until I could hear the hitch in his breath, feel the way his body betrayed him with its unwilling tremble.

And then, finally—

I touched him.

Not much. Just a single, fleeting brush of my fingers against the side of his throat.

A barely-there thing. A whisper.

But to him?

To him, it must have been devastating.

Because the moment I did—

He broke.

His breath stuttered, and his shoulders tensed, and I felt it—his undoing.

Not complete.

Not yet.

But soon.

Very, very soon.