The drive home always dragged.

You let out a long, exhausted sigh, fingers tightening on the wheel as the road stretched endlessly ahead. This wasn’t how the weekend was supposed to go. You were supposed to stay with your family for two more days—grit your teeth through the small talk, sit through the passive-aggressive questions about your job, your life, your choices. Smile. Nod. Pretend. But instead, you were barely a few hours in before it all fell apart.

Dinner had started fine. It always did. But then one question turned into a pointed remark, then into something sharper, something meaner. The same fight, just recycled into different words, but this time, you weren’t in the mood to swallow it down. This time, you pushed back. Voices rose, tempers flared, and before you knew it, you were grabbing your keys, shoving out the door, leaving behind the half-eaten meal and whatever thin thread was still holding the conversation together.

Now you were here—alone on the highway, miles of darkness stretching in every direction, headlights carving a path forward. 

Traffic jams bled into one another, each red taillight blurring into the next, the clock on your dash creeping past midnight. Eventually, the further you went, the emptier the roads became, until it was just you and the long-haul truckers, their rigs groaning under the weight of whatever cargo they hauled through the night.

Your eyelids grew heavier, dipping lower with every mile. You blinked hard, willing yourself awake, but exhaustion clung to you, thick and suffocating. It wasn’t just the late hour—it was the crash after the adrenaline of the fight, the weight of too many words you couldn’t take back pressing down on you.

You told yourself you’d be fine. Just another two hours to go.

Then a deafening horn shattered the quiet, and before you even realized what was happening, your tires veered across the lane. You gasped, jerking the wheel hard, the car lurching as you barely corrected in time. The highway was nearly empty, but that didn't matter—your heart was pounding, hands clammy where they gripped the steering wheel, the sudden shock of how easily that could’ve ended differently locking your breath in your throat. That was it, you knew you needed to stop, needed to pull off and find a place to get some rest before hitting the road again in the morning. 

You took the next exit, into a town that was barely a town at all, just a forgotten smear of civilization on the side of the highway. The streets were empty, the buildings slumped and decayed, as if the place had given up on itself long ago. A gas station, a diner with its ‘Open 24 Hours’ sign flickering in and out of life, and a squat little motel, its vacancy sign buzzing weakly in the dark.

Pulling into the parking lot, your headlights washed over cracked pavement and weeds pushing up through the concrete. Only a few cars were parked outside, most of them old and rusted, as if they’d been sitting there for far longer than a single night’s stay. The only light came from the neon sign overhead and the sickly yellow glow spilling from the front office window, casting shadows that felt too long, too stretched.

You swallowed, gripping the steering wheel. Something about this place felt…off. Not in an obvious way—no shattered windows, no ominous figures lurking in doorways—but in a way that made your skin crawl. Like the air itself was holding its breath, waiting. These were the kind of motels in movies where you’d scream at the protagonist: Keep driving, idiot! Find someplace else!

But there was nowhere else, and you couldn’t risk driving another hour to find the next rest stop.

It wasn’t ideal. Hell, it was probably a breeding ground for bed bugs, or worse–the kind of place where people checked in but didn’t always check out. But the thought of curling up in your car for the night, stiff and vulnerable in an empty parking lot, wasn’t much better.

All you had to do was get the key, lock the door, and make it through till morning. You’d toss your clothes the second you got home, scrub this place off your skin like it never touched you.

It was fine. It would be fine.

The fluorescent lights in the front office buzzed overhead, their hum just a little too loud in the unnatural silence. The air inside was stale, thick with the scent of something overly sweet—like someone had tried to cover up years of cigarettes and mildew with cheap air freshener.

A small bell sat on the counter. You hesitated, then tapped it once, the chime ringing out sharp and hollow.

Nothing.

You waited, shifting your weight from one foot to the other, the feeling of being watched crawling up the back of your neck despite the room being empty. Just as you were about to hit the bell again, a figure shuffled out from the back.

It was a woman, older, her expression carved from stone. Stringy hair pulled back into a loose bun, a cigarette smoldering between two fingers, her nails yellowed from years of nicotine.

“What can I do for ya?” she drawled, exhaling a long stream of smoke. It curled thick in the air, stale and cloying. You forced yourself to breathe through your nose, ignoring the burn in your throat.

“One room, please. Just for the night.”

She tapped at the ashtray on the counter, knocking the embers loose without looking. Her gaze stayed on you, too steady, too knowing, as if she was peeling you apart one layer at a time.

“You travelin’ alone, honey?”

Your spine straightened.

“No,” you said a little too quickly. “My dad’s waiting in the truck.”

She hummed, dragging another long inhale from her cigarette as her beady eyes stayed on you. Like she could tell it was a lie, no matter how sure you tried to sound.

“So, two beds?”

“Just the one is fine,” you said, tightening your fingers around your bag strap “We’ll manage.”

"Cash or card?" she asked, watching, peeling away whatever confidence you tried to have.

"Card," you murmured, fishing it out with stiff fingers.

She slid it through an ancient-looking reader, her other hand tapping the desk with the long, deliberate patience of someone who had nowhere to be. Her name tag was smeared, almost unreadable, and the glass of the front desk window was covered in a film of grime. 

She handed the card back, then a single brass key, its tag worn soft with age.

“Room one eighty,” she said, sliding it forward. “End of the lot.”

You took it quickly, fingers brushing against the cold metal.

The woman leaned back, taking another drag, her lips curling around the cigarette. “You let me know if y’all need anything, alright?”

You forced a nod, but something about her stare made your skin prickle. You turned toward the door, gripping the key so tight it pressed sharply into your palm.

Outside, the air felt too thick, like the humidity had climbed in the last few minutes, settling heavily on your skin. 

Then, you felt it again.

That thick, crawling awareness pricking at the back of your neck. That quiet, animal instinct that told you someone was watching. You turned your head before you could stop yourself.

Across the parking lot, just beyond the neon glow of the motel sign, a man stood under a broken street light. At first, he was nothing more than a dark shape, half-obscured by the flickering light, his face hidden in the deep hollows of shadow. 

He was just… standing there. Watching. 

You didn’t recognize him, and he was too far away to make out anything but his built form, the broadness of his shoulders. But there was something in the way he stood, still as stone, his body angled just slightly toward you, his gaze locked and unblinking.

The look in his eyes, dark and unreadable even from a distance, sent a shiver licking down your spine.

You turned quickly, your nerves on fire. But as you made your way down the long stretches of rooms on the outer perimeter, the railing overlooking the parking lot, you began to hear signs of life. The sounds seeped through the walls, slipping under doors and filling the narrow stretch of concrete. A bass line thrummed from somewhere nearby, muffled by thin walls as it seemed to pound with the rhythm of your heartbeat. Somewhere farther down, men shouted, their voices rising and falling, drunken or angry or both. Laughter burst out, sharp and sudden, followed by the distant clatter of something knocking against a table or a wall.

When you turned around and looked back across the parking lot, the man was suddenly gone.

TVs droned from multiple rooms, the glow of static flickering through slatted blinds. Someone had left theirs too loud, a newscaster rehashing old stories like it wasn’t the middle of the night. A couple was arguing behind one of the doors you passed, their voices biting and loud, words slamming into each other with no space to breathe. Something crashed—glass, maybe, or a chair knocking over—and you picked up your pace without realizing it.

Anywhere else, maybe it would have felt normal. Just people awake too late, passing the time, waiting for morning. Here, it only set your teeth on edge. Something about it felt wrong.

The fact that so many people were still awake at this hour made the muscles in your back pull tight. You weren’t alone here. But that didn’t mean you weren’t isolated.

Then, a heavy thump.

It came from the room to your right, sudden and jarring, loud enough to shake the thin wall between you. Your breath caught as you flinched back, your heart hammering against your ribs. There was movement, the slow creak of weight shifting, but nothing else followed. No voices, no explanation. Just silence settling too quickly, like whatever had happened had stopped the second you reacted to it.

Your feet moved faster, a reflex more than anything, carrying you down the walkway before you could think too hard about it. The numbers on the doors passed in a blur—178, 179, and finally, 180—your fingers tightening around the key as your room finally came into view. 

You fumbled once, just once, hands suddenly damp, but the second the lock turned, you pushed inside, slamming the door behind you.

The second it shut, you turned the lock.

The noises outside dulled, voices and music muffled the moment you closed the door and slumped your back against it, your chest rising and falling like you’d just run a half-marathon instead of walking across a motel lot. Your fingers curled into the fabric of your shirt, gripping at nothing, your pulse a frantic beat against your ribs.

You dragged in a breath, trying to slow the restless thrum in your veins. Just get through the next few hours, get some rest, and then you’d get the hell out of Dodge.

It was fine. It would be fine.

Except, sleep didn’t exactly come easy. You tossed and turned on top of the stiff bedspread, every shift of fabric loud in the silence, ears straining for any sudden sound beyond the walls. A door shutting, footsteps outside, voices carrying just enough to make you wonder if someone was too close to your room.

After what felt like forever, you gave up, flipping on the TV just to drown out the rest. The low murmur of late-night programming filled the room, casting weak blue light over the cracked ceiling, but it didn’t do much to settle you. You weren’t sure anything would.

The one thing you couldn’t ignore in favor of sleep, though, was the slow, gnawing ache of your stomach.

You should’ve stayed for the rest of dinner. Sat through the tense conversation, swallowed the words you wanted to throw back at them, and picked at your plate even if you had no appetite. At least then you wouldn’t be thinking about stepping outside again, not in the dead of night, not in the seediest motel you could’ve possibly stumbled across.

But the longer you lay there, the worse the hunger got.

Every motel had a vending machine, didn’t they?

You sighed, scrubbing a hand over your face, already hating where this was going.

You just had to be quick. In and out. Then you’d lock yourself in and actually try to sleep.

You knew it was wishful thinking to assume the vending machine would be easy to find. It was never that simple. You circled the building twice, passing the same cracked pavement, the same rusted-out cars, the same rooms with their curtains drawn too tight.

By the time you finally stumbled across the middle hallway, the glow of a single overhead light barely illuminating the space, you were already regretting this. The vending machine sat in the corner, humming under the flickering fluorescents, the metal frame dented, the glass fogged with fingerprints.

Your fingers hovered over the rows of snacks, barely able to focus on the choices, your body still on edge from the walk over. The motel felt alive, like every sound behind every door was something you weren’t supposed to hear.

The machine hummed under flickering light, the buttons worn down to the plastic. You fed it a couple of crumpled bills and tapped at one, then another, and waited. A loud mechanical churn. Then—nothing.

Great.

You smacked the side of it. Nothing again. Your stomach twisted painfully, a sharp reminder of just how long it had been since you’d last eaten. You sighed, rubbing a hand over your face, and turned to leave.

And that’s when you noticed it.

A door, cracked open at the very end of the hall.

The frame was splintered, like it had been forced open.

Something in your gut tensed.

You should walk away. Right now. Get back to your room, lock the door, and pretend you never saw anything. But something about it—about the stillness of it, the way the dim glow of a bedside lamp barely reached the threshold—made your feet stall.

Someone could be hurt. Or worse.

You swallowed hard, pulse in your throat as you crept closer, every instinct screaming at you that this was a bad idea. The air shifted the closer you got, thick with something you couldn’t name, something wrong.

And now that you were standing at the threshold, staring at the cracks in the doorframe, splintered from some kind of forced entry, your eyes drifted lower. Something dark and sticky was splattered on the ledge of the door, thick streaks leading onto the carpet inside.

Your heart stopped altogether. It was no longer rattling in your chest from fear, but fully frozen, skipping and halting as if trying to jumpstart itself while you stared into the dimly lit room.

At first, it was just shapes—shadows swallowing each other, the motel’s tiny lamp and the flickering TV casting everything into uneven light—warm and dark one second, sharp and cold the next. As your mind caught up to your eyes, it sharpened, the darkness peeling away, and you finally realized what you were looking at.

On the queen-sized bed in the center of the room, the bedspread was untouched, barely rumpled, except for the body laying perfectly still atop it.

Like someone had laid them there on purpose.

A mess of red had soaked deep into the fabric, fresh enough that the air was thick with it. The copper scent was overwhelming, clinging to the back of your throat, so metallic and sharp you could almost taste it. There was so much blood. More than you had ever seen in one place. Too much for it to be okay, too much for it to mean anything other than the obvious. You should have turned around. You should have stopped looking. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t do anything except stand there, heart frozen in your chest, as your brain worked double time, locking onto every detail like it needed to catalog the carnage in order to make sense of it. The body was positioned too neatly, arms at its sides, legs straight, head turned away just enough that it felt unnatural—like whoever had done this hadn’t just been brutal, but deliberate.

Your stomach clenched. The smell invaded your nose again, worse now, thick and nauseating, making something cold claw its way up your spine. You stumbled back a step, your hand flying to clamp around your mouth before you could decide whether you were about to scream or be sick. You needed to move. You needed to leave. You needed to call someone, do something, but your limbs refused to cooperate, locking up as if freezing in place would somehow make this all disappear. Your body was waiting for direction, for instinct to kick in, but it never did.

Then, the bathroom door on the other side of the room swung open, spilling yellow light into the dim space as a man stepped out.

At first, it was the fluffy pink robe that threw you off, a ridiculous contrast against the raw violence laid out before you. Your brain latched onto it, desperate for anything that made sense, anything that didn’t belong to the nightmare in front of you. But then your eyes dragged upward, and you saw it—the blood.

It was everywhere. Splattered across his throat, smeared up his neck, drying in dark, uneven streaks along his collarbone. His hand was coated in it, the thick, dried red cracked over his knuckles, like he hadn’t bothered to wash it off. Like he hadn’t cared enough to try.

Panic reared its head, shoving its way into your chest, squeezing your lungs tighter than before. It was one thing to stumble across a body, to witness a crime. It was another to look into the eyes of the man who had done it. Your body understood before your mind did—the liquid fire of adrenaline flooding through your veins, your muscles locking up in place, every nerve screaming caught, caught, caught.

His gaze locked onto you, heavy and assessing, and even from where you stood, you could tell his eyes were the deepest ocean blue you had ever seen. There was no rage in them, no madness—nothing that fit the sheer bloodshed he had left behind. He was unnervingly handsome, despite it all. Maybe because of it.

He inhaled, dragging another slow pull from his cigarette, letting the smoke curl lazily from his lips before shifting his weight, completely unconcerned.

Then, finally, he spoke.

“Well,” he muttered, voice rough and edged with disinterest as he let out a puff of smoke, “shit.”

You should have run.

You should have turned and bolted down the hallway, thrown yourself outside, screamed for help—something. But you didn’t. Your body wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t let you turn and run from the scene in front of you. Your limbs were locked in place, rooted to the motel floor like they had forgotten how to move, how to respond, how to do anything but tremble.

He seemed to notice, and flicking his cigarette, he made his way slowly toward you. He was so slow and careful it was almost predatory, like he was trying to camouflage into whatever normalcy was left in the room. Like he was trying to convince you that this was completely normal and he wasn’t some axe murderer in a pink fluffy robe.

“C’mon now,” he muttered, stepping toward you with zero hesitation, like your presence here was nothing more than an inconvenience. “Least shut the damn door.”

He moved with easy, unbothered confidence, reaching past you, pressing his palm against the motel door and nudging it inward. It swung heavy on its hinges, closing behind you with a soft, final click.

Your breath shuddered. You were really stuck here now, with him, and for some reason, the panic in your chest wasn’t flaring like before. You remained stock-still, frozen, waiting for him to make his move, to put you out of your misery for being a witness to his crime. What was his weapon of choice? Did he have a knife? A gun? Did he kill with his bare hands?

The man stepped in close, standing just in front of you now, close enough that you could see the uneven streaks of blood drying against his throat, close enough that you could smell the mix of cigarettes and sweat and something deeper layered with the metallic tang of blood. 

He didn’t say anything right away. Just looked at you, head tilting ever so slightly, like he was turning over a thought in his head, working something out.

Then he exhaled, lifting a hand—slow, deliberate, like he was giving you a second to react—and twisted a lock of your hair between his fingers.

His touch was light, but it sent a bolt of something electric straight through your spine, and yet, still, you didn’t move. You should have pulled away. You should have slapped his hand down. But your body wasn’t yours right now. It belonged to fear.

He hummed low in his throat, almost to himself, turning the strands between his fingers, studying them with an unreadable expression.

“You’re real pretty,” he muttered, almost absentmindedly, like it was a passing observation, not something meant to soothe you. His voice was low, rough, dragging over the syllables like he didn’t use them often. “What’s a pretty thing like you doin’ in a place like this?”

Your throat locked up, lungs seizing against the flood of adrenaline. You weren’t even sure if your heart was still in your chest based on the way blood was roaring in your ears, drowning out every rational thought. He was teasing. Curious. And—God—flirty?

If you didn’t know better, if you hadn’t just stepped into this room, hadn’t seen the blood, hadn’t noticed the body stretched out too perfectly on the bed—you might’ve… you might’ve…

You swallowed hard, but your throat was too dry to get any sound out. Your pulse slammed in your ears, your heartbeat betraying everything you wanted to hide. He watched you for a moment longer, then let your hair slip from his grip, rubbing his bloodstained fingers together as if testing the softness.

“You’re shakin’,” he observed, mouth pulling into something that wasn’t quite a smirk, but leaned in that direction, like your fear was interesting to him… like it was cute.

His fingers twitched then, and after a pause, he reached up again after sticking his cigarette in his mouth—this time, just barely brushing his knuckles along your jaw. The touch was fleeting, but enough to make you tense even more.

He made another small sound in the back of his throat, mock sympathy edging into it.

“Like a scared little bunny.”

You should have been running. Screaming for your life. You should have turned and bolted the second you saw the blood. Why weren’t you fucking running?

The part of you that should have been shutting down, the part of you that should have been clawing for survival, digging its heels into your fogged, terrified brain to pay fucking attention—that part of you…

It was curious about him too.

You watched as his face changed then, watching your reactions like a predator tracking in his prey, eyes narrowing as they darted around your face, reading you, piecing something together. His lips twitched like he was amused, like he had figured out something you didn’t even understand about yourself yet.

“No…” he said, pulling his hand away, head tilting slightly before his face split into a grin, pulling the cigarette out between his fingers, “you’re not scared, are you, little bunny? You like this.”

“No!” The word ripped out of you, barely a whisper at first, but then louder, cracking in the dim room around you., “No.” Your breath stuttered as you tried to sound more confident, your whole body wired too tight, but the denial felt weak even to your own ears.

“Oh, there she is,” he said, watching you closely, pleased that he had finally drawn something out of you. “You gotta name, sweetheart?”

Your lips pressed together, your jaw tight, but your eyes sharpened, taking him in, really seeing him now. His blue eyes were dangerous and beautiful and terrifying all at once, cutting through the haze of your fear like a blade. There was blood splattered up his face, drying along the sharp structure of his cheekbone, disappearing into the strands of dark hair that hung loose in his eyes. It should have made him look monstrous. It should have made him unrecognizable as anything human.

But it didn’t.

It made you want to lean forward. Your mind flashed with the idea, and you did everything you could to keep your body from following, the idea that you wanted to trace the sharp cut of his jaw, to drag your tongue over the remnants of metallic blood he had missed along his lip and—

No.

No no no no no.

The thought seared through you like an open flame. Your breath caught, your skin igniting in humiliation, a flush so deep you wanted to disappear. You couldn’t believe this. Couldn’t believe your own body, couldn’t believe the way your stomach clenched, the way something hot and ugly was overlapping the sheer horror of what this man had done. There was fear, yes—a lot of it. But there was something else crawling underneath, something just as intense, something that made your pulse skyrocket as his hand moved.

His hand pushed the cigarette into the wooden frame, the hiss of the burning end snuffing out by your head. His fingers then found the strap of your shirt, curling around the fabric, dragging it down over your shoulder with his bloodstained grip.

“No name, huh?” he murmured, watching your face, watching every shift in your expression, like he was memorizing what you looked like when you trembled. His voice was lower now, quieter, dangerous in a way that wasn’t loud or obvious, but steady and unshaken. He leaned in closer, close enough that the heat of his breath ghosted over your throat.

“That’s okay, bunny,” he muttered. “I don’t got a name either.”

Your stomach dropped.

And then, to your utter horror, he kissed your shoulder.

Not deep. Not forceful. Just the slow, deliberate press of his mouth against your skin, his lips barely parted, dragging warm and rough over the place he had just exposed.

It sent a violent shudder down your spine. The sensation—the heat of him, the quiet intimacy of it, the way he didn’t move away after, just lingered there—lit something in your chest, something sharp and unbearable. Your nipples, the traitors, hardened underneath your shirt, poking through the thin fabric that stretched across your chest. A gasp left you before you could stop it, your eyes widening in shock.

The man huffed softly against your skin, something amused in the sound.

“You like this, bunny?” His voice was slow, edged with something almost thoughtful, like he was figuring it out as he spoke. His nose brushed the side of your throat, his breath warm as he tilted his head, inhaling the scent of your perfume.

“You like a man like me takin’ advantage of just how scared you are?” His hand tightened just slightly at your shoulder, his mouth ghosting along your jaw before he murmured, “That it, bunny? You like the fear?”

His lips brushed your pulse.

“The shame?”

His fingers traced along your collarbone, the metallic tang of copper filling your nose as his hand got closer and closer to your face again.

“You turned on by a little bit of blood?”

Your breath caught in your throat, fingers curling at your sides, and you knew whatever you said next would change everything. You should have lied. You should have denied it, should have shaken your head, should have shoved him away and run before it was too late.

Your mouth parted, your chest heaving like you had just surfaced from drowning, but before you could answer, his hand snapped up, grabbing the nape of your neck, fingers lacing in your hair. His other hand suddenly gripped your jaw, forcing your face to tilt toward him.

It was fast, sudden, a flash of violence that slammed through you like a bolt of electricity, it made you gasp sharply, eyes going wide.

His grip wasn’t bruising, but it was firm, unyielding. His fingers dug into your jaw just enough that it bordered on pain, enough that you felt the quiet threat humming underneath him.

His eyes narrowed, sharp, dark, and hungry, locking onto yours like a predator seeing prey for exactly what it was. His grip tightened for a split second, his thumb dragging rough over your cheek, the dried blood flaking slightly against your skin, crumbling like dust beneath his touch.

“Say it,” he rasped, voice still calm, still steady as stone, but something inside it had changed—harder now, more dangerous.

Your body locked up, trapped between the heat of him and the cold reality of what was happening, of what had been happening for longer than just that moment.

Because it hadn’t started when you stepped into this room.

It didn’t start when you saw the blood. It didn’t even start when you heard the body hit the floor.

It started long before that.

You’d always known something was wrong with you. The way fear didn’t keep you away—it called to you, wrapped around your ribs and had you in its grip. The way you’d always looked for danger, for the spike of adrenaline that made your heart hammer against your ribs, made you feel more alive than anything else.

You could’ve stayed at your parents’ house. You could’ve forced yourself to sit through another dinner filled with questions about your future, their expectations suffocating you like a cage you were never meant to fit inside. But you didn’t.

You left in the middle of the night, peeling away from their house like something inside you was clawing to be free, chasing an impulse you hadn’t fully understood at the time.

You hadn’t stopped driving until exhaustion forced your hand. And when you pulled into this motel, when you stepped onto that cracked pavement, when you heard the distant sounds of raised voices, of something heavy hitting the ground—your pulse hadn’t stuttered in fear.

It had spiked.

And while you tried to ignore it, ignore that pull, to force yourself to sleep, you couldn’t say no to that part of you that needed to see. You’d left your room, weaving through the shadows of the motel, passing this exact door. The vending machine hadn’t been the excuse you told yourself it was. It wasn’t hunger for food that had your stomach twisting, your body restless against the scratchy motel sheets.

It was hunger to know.

To see.

To find the blood, the body, and the man who did it.

And now he was standing in front of you, looking at you like he already knew all of it. Like he’d read the answer in your dilated eyes, in the way your breath had hitched when you first saw him, in the way you were still here, still trembling under his grip but not running.

Your mouth was dry, your body refusing to move, refusing to break free of his hold. Because the worst part wasn’t that you were afraid.

The worst part was that you liked it.

You made a small, broken noise, your fingers twitching, your whole body tight as a wire as you reached up, your hands sliding around his  forearm.

“Yes,” you whispered. It was barely a sound, barely more than breath, but his eyes flickered, something shifting beneath them.

The pressure released all at once.

His grip loosened from your jaw, tracing down the side of your throat with something slower now, something more deliberate. You let your hands fall, reaching for him instead. His thumb dragged along your cheek, wiping away the remnants of old blood he had left there. His lips lingered, the warmth of them stark against your skin, a slow drag over your jaw as he exhaled. The scent of him—smoke, sweat, the faint metallic ghost of dried blood—was thick in your lungs, wrapping around you, leaving no space for anything else.

His lips barely moved as they traced your jaw again when he spoke, the words slipping against your skin, low and quiet, like they weren’t meant for the space between you but meant to sink into you, settle deep, curl around something inside you that you didn’t even have a name for.

“I know, bunny.”

It was soft, almost affectionate, but threaded with something deeper. Something knowing.

Like he had been waiting for you to admit it to yourself first.

His fingers, the ones still tangled in your hair, tightened slightly—not rough, but firm, keeping you in place, keeping you still for him. He turned your head just enough to guide you, slow, like testing a skittish animal, like making sure you wouldn’t bolt the second he took what you were already offering.

You didn’t know him. You didn’t even know his name.

And none of that mattered.

Your hands, trembling but restless, lifted before you could stop them, pressing against the warm plane of his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall beneath your palms. He was solid. Real. Your fingertips brushed against the edge of the pink robe he still hadn’t bothered to shed, the soft, ridiculous fabric clashing with the rough scrape of stubble along your throat as his mouth continued its path downward.

You felt the shift in him before you even saw it, the slight pause of his breath, the way his grip in your hair flexed before tightening further. His tongue peeked out from his mouth, tracing the vein of your artery along the column of your neck. You shuddered against him, eyes fluttering closed, and he chuckled, low and breathless against your skin, the sound of it vibrating against your pulse.

“That feel nice, sweetheart?”

You opened your eyes to look at him, and his were darker now, heavy-lidded, focused entirely on you, taking in every shuddering breath, every small twitch of your lips, the way your pupils had swallowed nearly all of your color.

Then, he kissed you.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. It was ravenous. Not just hungry but starved. The slow, intoxicating drag of lips and teeth and heat blurred every thought, every warning screaming in your head turning into static. You felt one of his hands skim lower, tracing the dip of your waist, fingers pressing into the thin fabric of your shirt like he was debating whether to rip it from your body or take his time peeling you open.

His mouth moved over yours like he already knew you’d open for him, like he had been waiting for it, waiting for this.