The apartment was quiet again.
But not like before. Not like the silence that came from retreat or shame. This one felt warmer, softer. Like the quiet that came after a storm had passed and everything had been picked up and put back in place.
Almost everything.
Maya stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom, watching herself. She wore only a loose cotton tank and black underwear. Her hair was a mess. Her eyes still carried the weight of everything she hadn’t said. But she didn’t look fragile anymore.
She looked real.
She heard Elias shift on the couch in the living room. He hadn’t left since the conversation about the photo. He’d offered. Twice. She said no. Not because she needed him, but because for the first time, she wanted to know what it felt like to choose someone on her own terms.
She walked out and stood in the doorway.
He was lying back, eyes closed, head tipped toward the ceiling like he was thinking too much.
She didn’t say anything.
He felt her before he saw her. His eyes opened slowly.
Then he sat up.
Her skin prickled under his gaze. But it wasn’t fear this time. It was memory. Desire. Heat that built in the space between them but waited for permission.
He stood. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Better.”
“I can sleep on the floor again if you want space.”
“I don’t.”
She crossed the room slowly and stopped in front of him. Her body was trembling slightly, but her voice was calm.
“I want you.”
Elias didn’t move. “Maya, are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“This isn’t about you.”
That made him look at her harder.
She took his hand and placed it on her waist. “I want to remember what it feels like to be touched and not be afraid. To want it. To need it.”
His fingers didn’t grip. They just rested there.
“You lead,” he said. “I’ll follow.”
She stepped closer and tilted her head back. “I want it slow at first.”
He kissed her cheek.
Then her jaw.
Then her lips.
And she sighed into it.
It wasn’t urgent. Not like before. There was no hunger to consume, no panic to fill the silence. It was patient. Every kiss asked a question. Every touch waited for an answer.
Her hands slipped under his shirt and pushed it up. He let her take it off without a word.
Her fingers brushed the scar on his ribs. He didn’t flinch.
She guided him to the bedroom, and he followed.
When he sat on the edge of the bed, she climbed onto his lap, straddling him. Her thighs pressed against his hips. She kissed him again, deeper this time, more sure of herself.
His hands stayed at her waist.
She took them and moved them higher, over her ribs, to the sides of her breasts.
“Touch me,” she said. “All of me.”
His mouth found her neck, slow and warm.
He undressed her like she was a story he didn’t want to rush. Tank top. Then the soft tug of her underwear. Every part of her bared to the air and his eyes.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “You always were.”
She kissed him harder.
When he laid her down, she didn’t tense.
When he spread her legs, she didn’t hesitate.
He moved over her like he belonged there, but still waited.
She nodded.
Then he slid inside her.
And her whole body melted.
Not because it was perfect. Not because it was slow or passionate or any of the things romance novels promised. But because it was hers.
Her choice.
Her timing.
Her control.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him deeper, her breath hot against his ear.
“I want it harder.”
He paused.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He gripped her hips and started to move. Not rough. Not yet. Just with weight. With intent. Her fingers dug into his back.
“Harder,” she whispered again.
This time, he listened.
She arched into him, the ache blooming in her belly, her thighs shaking from the rhythm. She wanted the pain. Not the kind that left bruises, but the kind that reminded her she was alive. The kind that made her forget everything else.
“More,” she gasped.
He gave it to her.
Her body bucked beneath him, sweat slick on her skin, her heartbeat racing in time with his.
When she came, it was like a sob torn from her chest. Raw. Shattering. She clung to him like she was drowning, and he held her like he had no intention of letting her go.
She didn’t cry.
Not this time.
When he collapsed beside her, breathless, their fingers found each other’s without effort.
They didn’t speak for a long time.
Then she turned to him, hair sticking to her cheek.
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”
He touched her face gently. “Then let me keep reminding you.”
She didn’t say yes.
But she didn’t say no either.
The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was thick, alive with everything unspoken.Elias didn’t try to touch her. Not after everything he’d just confessed. He sat beside her on the bed, legs apart, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed like he was bracing for a verdict.Maya had no verdict to give.She stared at her hands, resting in her lap. She could still feel the edges of the photo, the worn paper of the letter, the sharp coldness of the past she’d pried open like a forbidden tomb. Her chest felt too small for her breath. But she didn’t move. Didn’t run.“I’ll stay,” she’d said, her voice rasping in the quiet, and he’d looked at her like she’d split him open again—only softer this time.Now, it was past midnight. The apartment was dim, lit only by a small reading lamp Elias had moved to the living room. They hadn’t said much after that. He offered her tea. She declined. Neither of them touched the food he brought out. The air between them was fragile, like old glass.He gave h
Maya didn’t move when Elias stepped into the doorway.The drawer was still open. The photograph rested in her lap. Her fingers gripped the edge of the paper like it might vanish if she let go. The letters were scattered, creased from her trembling hands. The document lay face up on the floor beside her, the bold black text bleeding into the quiet room.Neither of them spoke.She didn’t try to hide it. Didn’t fumble to close the drawer or scramble to explain herself. She just sat there, eyes glossy, lips parted, breath uneven.Elias shut the door with a soft click. He didn’t come closer.“I asked you to decide,” he said finally, his voice calm but low, strained. “Not to dig through my ghosts.”Maya looked down again at the photo in her hands. Two boys—one clearly Elias, a little younger, sharper around the eyes. The other… she didn’t know him, but the resemblance was impossible to miss. Same dark curls. Same jaw. But softer somehow. Kinder.“You didn’t tell me you had a brother.”Elias
Maya stood at the threshold of Elias’s apartment, the key to the drawer burning a quiet hole in her coat pocket.The place was quiet, too quiet. No fire in the hearth, no lingering smell of his cologne. He’d left that morning with a kiss to her temple, a careful look in his eyes, and the same words echoing now in her chest:"Go if you want. Use the key. If you’re going to decide what you think of me, do it knowing the truth."She had promised herself she wouldn’t go. She had told herself it was a test—just another of his manipulations. But as the sun dipped past the skyline, shadows creeping through her small apartment like fingers, Maya had found herself pacing, restless, drowning in too many possibilities. And eventually, the key found its way into her hand.She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.It smelled like him in here. Woodsmoke and pine. Something darker underneath—leather and secrets. His jacket still hung over the chair, his boots left by the door like he’d just
The sky outside her apartment was a dull, bruised gray, clouds thick with the promise of another storm. Maya sat cross-legged on the floor, sketchpad open in front of her. Her pencil had broken hours ago, but she hadn’t noticed. All she could see were the jagged lines—sketches of metal teeth and broken silhouettes of keys that didn’t fit.Her phone lay silent on the floor beside her. She hadn’t turned it off, hadn’t put it on silent, hadn’t touched it since walking away from Elias. But it hadn’t rung either.That silence felt louder than any argument they had ever had.She glanced at the time. It had been nearly twenty-four hours.Not a word.Maya’s chest felt tight. She hated the way absence hollowed her out. How it made her second-guess everything, as if love had an expiration date measured in hours without contact.She stood up abruptly, pushing the sketchpad aside, and moved to the kitchen. Coffee. Something warm. Something that didn’t feel like waiting.She had just set the kettl
Maya woke before him.The weight of Elias's arm was draped across her waist, heavy and warm. His body molded perfectly to hers, his breath slow and deep against the back of her neck. She should have been comforted. Safe. But the warmth that wrapped around her body didn’t reach the hollow ache behind her ribs.His words from the night before still pulsed through her mind.“It reminds us what we’re risking.”She didn’t know what she was risking. Not really. But she was beginning to fear it was more than just her heart.Quietly, she slipped out from beneath him, careful not to wake him. The floor was cold beneath her feet as she padded into the living room, grabbing one of his button-down shirts from the back of a chair and slipping it on. Her fingers automatically moved to the buttons, fumbling from habit, but her thoughts were elsewhere.The locked drawer.It tugged at her.Calling. Daring.Last time, she hadn’t gotten far before he’d caught her. But he had left her alone in his apartm
The sketchpad lay forgotten on the floor.Maya hadn’t moved in what felt like hours. The keys she kept drawing stared back at her, a hundred versions, all wrong. Elias hadn’t called. He hadn’t messaged. He hadn’t come.And still, she waited.By the time the knock came, it wasn’t gentle. It was firm, impatient. She opened the door without thinking, and there he was, drenched in rain, hair slicked to his forehead, eyes unreadable.“You left,” he said.“You locked me out,” she countered.Elias stepped in without waiting for an invitation, his boots leaving a trail across her floor. He shut the door behind him and turned to face her, his jaw set.“You were looking for something you weren’t ready to find,” he said quietly.Maya's arms crossed. “And you were hiding it.”He stepped closer, hands in his coat pockets. “We all have locks on our lives. Doesn’t mean we want them forced open.”There was silence. Electric. Tense.Then Maya said, “You said not to pretend to want to know you unless I