Chapter 1

The doors slid open on the twelfth floor and the past walked in wearing a black coat and the same fucking mouth she used to bite.

Maya’s fingers locked around the strap of her bag so hard her knuckles went white. Two years. Two years of deleting his number, of training herself not to look for his shoulders in every crowd, of telling herself the way he used to ruin her was just nostalgia and bad decisions.

None of it survived the three seconds it took for Cassian Hale to step into the elevator.

He didn’t smile. He never smiled when it mattered. His eyes moved over her once—slow, deliberate, the exact way he used to look at her right before he decided whether to be gentle or not. Dark hair a little longer. Jaw sharper. The same heavy stillness that always made her feel like prey who had already decided to stay.

The doors closed.

Silence pressed in on every side.

Maya kept her eyes on the illuminated numbers. 12. 11. 10. She could smell him. Same cologne, same skin underneath it. The scent that used to cling to her pillows for days after he left her bed.

Cass spoke first, voice low and rough, like he hadn’t used it much lately.

“You’re back.”

Not a question.

She forced her chin up. “Six weeks. Work.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth, then lower, lingering on the place where her blouse opened at the throat. She felt it like a hand. Her pulse kicked hard between her legs, traitorous and immediate.

“Same building,” he said.

“Apparently.”

The elevator hummed downward. Every floor felt longer than the last. Maya’s skin felt too tight. She remembered the last time they’d been this close—his forearm across her throat, her nails in his back, both of them saying things they couldn’t take back while he fucked her through the anger. She’d left the next morning while the water was still running in the shower.

Cass shifted his weight. The movement was small, but it brought the heat of his body closer. She could have reached out and touched the front of his coat. She didn’t.

“You look good, Maya.”

The way he said her name was a problem. Soft at the edges. Familiar. Like he still owned the right to it.

She swallowed. “You don’t get to say that.”

“I just did.”

The elevator slowed at six. Neither of them moved toward the doors when they opened. An older woman started to step in, took one look at the tension crackling between them, and decided the stairs were better. The doors closed again.

Maya’s breath felt shallow. She hated how wet she already was. Hated that her body still recognised him like a fucking brand.

Cass’s voice dropped even lower.

“You still sleep on the left side of the bed?”

The question was quiet. Intimate. Cruel.

She turned her head and met his eyes fully for the first time. The air between them went nuclear.

“Don’t,” she said.

He didn’t look away. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t do that voice. Don’t ask me things you already know the answer to. Don’t stand there like you didn’t—”

“Like I didn’t what?” His mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Like I didn’t fuck you so hard the night you left that you limped to the airport?”

Her face burned. Her cunt clenched around nothing.

The elevator stopped on the ground floor. Doors opened onto the lobby. Neither of them stepped out.

Cass reached past her and pressed the button for the twelfth floor again. The doors slid shut. They began to rise.

He didn’t touch her. Not once. He just stood close enough that she could feel the heat coming off him and watched her like he was cataloguing every tiny betrayal her body was committing.

When the elevator stopped on twelve he stepped out first and waited. Maya walked past him on unsteady legs. He followed her down the hallway without a word, the quiet weight of his presence at her back making her skin prickle.

She stopped at her door—the loft directly above his, because the universe had a vicious sense of humour—and fumbled the key. Cass stood two feet behind her. Still not touching.

She got the door open. Turned.

He was closer than she expected. Close enough that if she leaned forward an inch her chest would brush his.

Cass looked at her mouth one last time.

“Welcome home, Maya.”

Then he turned and walked toward the stairwell without another word, leaving her standing in the doorway with her pulse between her thighs and the taste of him already back on her tongue.

She closed the door, locked it, and pressed her forehead against the wood.

Two years.

And she was already soaked for him.