Blackout: 2

After the Lights💦🫦“We shouldn’t do this again.”Nathan said the words against my mouth even as he backed me into the supply closet on the 27th floor two nights later. The power had been restored the morning after the blackout. The office had returned to its usual rhythm of meetings, deadlines, and polite distance. We had spent the entire next day pretending nothing had happened, passing each other in the hallway, sitting through the same project review, speaking only when the work required it.It had been unbearable.Now it was past nine. Most of the floor was empty again. The city glittered beyond the glass like nothing had ever gone dark. Nathan’s hand was already under my blouse, warm against my skin, and I was already arching into his touch.“I know,” I whispered.He kissed me harder. The door clicked shut behind us. The only light came from the thin strip under the door and the red glow of the exit sign in the hall. He smelled like the same cologne from the night of the blacko

Blackout: 3

Fractures💦🫦“We have to stop.”I said the words against Nathan’s bare shoulder, but they carried almost no force. It was past midnight. We were in his private office on the 27th floor, the city glittering beyond the glass, the rest of the firm long empty. My blouse was open. His shirt was on the floor. He was still inside me from the second time, slow and deep, one hand resting on the small of my back.“I know,” he murmured against my hair. “I’ve been telling myself the same thing for weeks.”Neither of us moved.The affair had settled into a dangerous rhythm. Days spent maintaining careful professional distance, emails, meetings, polite nods in the hallway. Nights when the floor emptied and the pull between us became impossible to resist. We had fucked in the supply closet, on his desk, against the glass wall of the same meeting room where it first happened during the blackout. Each time the guilt grew heavier. Each time the want grew stronger.Tonight Elena had texted him twice wh

Next Door: 1

Moving Day💦🫦“You’re the last person I expected to see getting out of that truck.”The voice stopped me cold on the front walk of the narrow two-story house I had just signed a year-long lease on. I turned, still holding a box of kitchenware, and found Ethan Cole standing on the porch next door like he had every right to be there.Five years. That was how long it had been since I last saw him. Five years since the night everything between us had collapsed without ever fully beginning. He looked older in the way that made him more solid, broader shoulders, a little silver at the temples, the same dark eyes that used to make it hard to think straight. A child’s pink scooter lay on its side in his front yard.“Ethan.” His name came out thinner than I wanted. “I didn’t know you lived here.”“Bought it two years ago.” He stepped down from the porch, hands in his pockets. “After the divorce. It’s just me and Sophie now. She’s six.”The information landed quietly. Divorced. A daughter. Liv

Next Door: 2

Thin Walls💦🫦“Sophie goes to bed at eight. After that the house is quiet.”Ethan’s voice was low as he stood on my front porch the evening after the storm. The power had come back sometime before dawn. The only evidence of the night before was the faint ache between my legs and the way my pulse jumped when I opened the door and found him there.I should have kept the chain on. Instead I stepped aside and let him in.He closed the door behind him and didn’t move farther into the house. The living room still smelled faintly of cardboard and the candle I had burned down to the wick. Ethan looked tired in the way of someone who had been up with a child at first light, but his eyes were sharp when they met mine.“I told myself I was coming over to make sure you were settled,” he said. “That’s not the real reason.”“I know.”Silence stretched. Through the shared wall I could hear the muffled sound of a children’s show playing on the other side, Sophie’s evening cartoon before bed. The awa

Next Door: 3

Place Cards💦🫦“She’s been talking about you all day.”Ethan’s voice was low as he opened the front door on Friday evening. Sophie’s bright pink place cards were already visible on the small dining table behind him, three carefully lettered names in uneven crayon. The house smelled of garlic and tomato sauce. Somewhere down the hall a children’s playlist hummed at low volume.I stepped inside with a bottle of wine I wasn’t sure was appropriate and a smile that felt too tight. “I brought this. I didn’t know what else to bring.”“It’s perfect.” He took the bottle, fingers brushing mine for a second longer than necessary. His eyes held mine with the same complicated mix of want and caution I had seen all week. “She’s in her room finishing a drawing she wants to show you. We’ve got maybe two minutes.”Two minutes was enough for him to lean in and kiss me once, hard and brief, against the wall beside the coat rack. The taste of him was already familiar. When he pulled back his expression

All Chapters of Whispers of Ruin: A Taboo Collection : Chapter 131 - Chapter 135

Blackout: 2

Blackout: 3

Next Door: 1

Next Door: 2

Next Door: 3