If only closing your eyes could lull you to sleep.
But sleep rarely comes easily—not lately. Tonight, it was impossible.
Every time you blinked, his eyes followed you into the darkness.
The way they'd searched for you earlier that evening, holding you in place across a crowded room.
The way they said everything he couldn't.
You rolled onto your side, clutching the blanket tighter.
The payal you'd worn—the one that had chimed softly with each step you took—was gone now, neatly placed in the jewelry box beside the rest of your carefully arranged things.
Everything in its proper place.
Everything contained.
Everything… except you.
The blanket became your last fragile shield, pulled up to your chin, a flimsy barrier between you and the world. You held it like a child hiding from monsters—except the ghost you feared wouldn't pull you under the bed.
No.
This ghost would climb into it beside you.
And you weren't sure which was more terrifying.
The distant patter of the shower was the only sound in the room.
Soft. Steady.
So calm, so rhythmic—everything you weren't.
Inside you, a storm raged.
You willed your breath to match the pattern of the water.
Slow. Even. Feigned sleep.
Maybe if you pretended hard enough, you could trick both of you.
You almost believed it—until the water stopped.
The silence that followed was deafening.
No hum of pipes. No veil of sound to hide behind.
Only the frantic flutter of your pulse and the knowledge that any second now, he would emerge.
Your fingers curled into the sheets, knuckles white.
The glass door slid open with a muted scrape.
Fabric rustled.
The faint, unbearably intimate sound of terrycloth dragging across skin.
Your throat went dry. You had to remind yourself to breathe.
He was moving now—quiet, deliberate, like a shadow slipping through the dimly lit room.
You didn't have to open your eyes to see him.
You knew how it would look:
His hair damp and disheveled.
Steam rising off his skin, curling into the cool air.
Water droplets clinging to his collarbone, trailing lower before disappearing beneath a hastily tied towel.
And beneath it all, him.
The clean, sharp scent of his body wash threaded through with something undeniably his own—familiar, grounding, and devastating.
Every tiny sound felt amplified.
The creak of the floorboard near the bed.
The soft exhale he let out as he paused.
Your own heartbeat, hammering against the walls of your chest.
You squeezed your eyes tighter, muscles rigid.
You weren't ready to see him like this, walls stripped bare by exhaustion and proximity.
You weren't ready for him to see you.
And then… he stilled.
You felt it before you heard it: the subtle shift of the air, the invisible weight of his presence at your side.
The mattress didn't dip yet, but you knew he was close.
Knew he was standing there, watching.
Studying the curve of your shoulder beneath the blanket, the rise and fall of your breath, searching for the telltale signs of wakefulness.
Your chest ached with the effort of staying still.
What was he thinking in that silence?
What did he see when he looked at you like this?
Finally, the mattress sighed beneath his weight as he sat.
The warmth of him reached you instantly, even through the careful distance between you.
You wanted to turn toward him.
You wanted to whisper his name, to bridge the impossible space with one fragile word.
But you didn't.
Because this closeness—the almost of it, the not-quite—was too delicate to risk shattering.
Because if you spoke, everything might spill out.
The sheets rustled softly as he lay back, measured and precise, as though afraid to disturb you.
He shifted once, then stilled completely, his breathing deep and controlled.
That should have been the end of it.
Two people lying side by side, separated by an ocean of silence.
Except it wasn't.
Because the room was full of him.
His warmth bleeding through the cool expanse of sheets.
His scent in the air, clean and intoxicating.
The sound of his breath—steady, steady, steady—so close you could almost count the beats between each inhale.
You clung to that rhythm, desperate for something to anchor you.
Counted his breaths like prayer beads.
Counted them until the edges of wakefulness blurred and you thought—maybe—sleep might come after all.
And then, so quiet you almost thought you imagined it, he spoke.
"You're not asleep."
The words slid into the darkness, soft and devastating.
Your entire body went rigid beneath the blanket.
You didn't open your eyes.
You didn't move.
The silence that followed was thick—weighted and raw, pressing down on the fragile air between you.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was even softer.
An admission.
A truth he hadn't meant to share.
"It's alright," he murmured.
"I'll… take the couch."
A pause.
The faint rustle of sheets.
The dip of the mattress shifted as he moved to rise.
And before you could stop yourself, the words tumbled out, sharp and breaking:
"I know you prefer to be in a separate room… but do I repulse you that much?"
The silence snapped like a brittle thread.
He froze mid-motion.
Every line of his body went still, taut with shock.
Slowly—almost painfully—he turned toward you.
Even in the dim light, you saw it.
The raw, unguarded flash of emotion across his face.
Disbelief.
Hurt.
Something deeper, darker.
"Repulsed?" His voice was rough, disoriented.
"By you?"
Your throat tightened, but you forced yourself to meet his gaze, to keep your voice steady even as it trembled at the edges.
"It's fine," you whispered.
"You can… sleep elsewhere if you want to."
It took everything in you to say it.
To set him free, even as the thought hollowed you out.
His eyes searched yours—frantic now, panicked almost—as though looking for proof that you didn't mean it.
When he finally spoke, the words were low and ragged.
"You are mistaken," he said.
"God, you're so mistaken."
Something in him fractured then.
You could see it in the way his chest rose and fell, the way his hands curled into fists at his sides, as though he was holding himself back from reaching for you.
At last, he exhaled sharply, like a man who had been holding his breath for years, and his gaze locked onto yours with startling intensity.
"I cannot—" His voice broke. He swallowed, tried again.
"I cannot bear witness to the misery I've caused you."
The room went utterly still.
The air between you thrummed with the weight of it, and for a heartbeat, you couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
And then—finally, finally—the dam inside you cracked wide open.
"You didn't look at me enough to make that judgment," you whispered, the words trembling out like fragile shards.
"You didn't even try."
Your voice rose, steady now, fierce with everything you had swallowed back for months.
"All this time, you've stood at a distance, convinced you knew what I felt, what I wanted… and you never once asked me."
His jaw clenched, his body coiled tight.
"I trapped you in this marriage," he said hoarsely.
"Through some arrangement made after your granddad passed away. I trapped you here. With me."
The words poured out now, unstoppable, the silence between you breaking apart like glass.
"No," you said, stepping toward him, your own voice breaking.
Your breath caught, but you forced the truth out.
"You would have known—if you had just looked at me, if you had spoken to me even once instead of keeping your distance. You would have seen that it isn't you who caused me misery."
He flinched, like the words struck something deep.
His hands fisted tighter, trembling with restraint.
"I stayed silent to give you space," he ground out, every syllable taut with emotion.
"To keep from imposing this marriage on you. I thought… I thought I was protecting you from imposition."
"Protecting me?" The words burst out of you, incredulous and pained.
Your chest heaved. Tears burned the backs of your eyes.
"Why did you agree at all, then? Why marry me if you didn't want this? Didn't want me?"
His voice rose—not a shout, but a force, raw and uncontainable.
"I did!"
The single word cracked through the room like a lightning strike.
He stepped closer, his breath ragged, his control unraveling thread by thread.
"From the moment I saw you on the dance floor that night," he said, his voice fierce, almost anguished, "I have wanted you. Only you."
Your heart slammed against your ribs. His words seared through the fragile wall you'd built around yourself.
But even as they set you alight, the ache inside you sharpened.
"Then why," you demanded, the pain breaking through in every syllable, "why did you spend all these months standing at a distance? Acting like I was nothing more than an obligation?"
His eyes blazed, unguarded and wild.
"Because I wanted to allow you your rightful liberty," he said hoarsely, every word scraped raw.
"I thought if I stayed away, you would be free of my weight—my want."
He shook his head, almost viciously, as though disgusted with himself.
"I thought it would be enough to love you silently."
Your breath caught, the room tilting around you.
"You… love me?" The question trembled out of you, fragile, disbelieving.
He surged forward, stopping only a breath away, his hands trembling as if he barely held himself back.
"Yes," he rasped, the single word breaking him open. His voice was rough, desperate.
"Yes, I love you."
The confession ignited something between you, scorching and undeniable.
The words poured from him now, molten and unstoppable.
"Every night I've been near you and not touched you, every morning I've watched you turn away from me…" His chest heaved, and he shut his eyes briefly, as if in pain.
"It has been agonizing."
His hand rose, hovering near your cheek but never quite touching—his restraint a living, breathing thing.
"You think I don't want you?" His voice cracked, ragged, almost wild.
"God, I ache for you. There hasn't been a moment—not one—when I haven't wanted to reach for you." His voice dropped to a whisper, fierce and reverent.
"I'm not repulsed by you. You are the only thing that has ever felt like… redemption."
The words struck deep, tearing through you with exquisite force.
Your lips parted, a sob catching in your throat. "Then why…" Your voice faltered, thick with grief and longing. "Why did you let me believe otherwise?"
His eyes glimmered with something sharp and unbearably tender.
"Because I thought my silence would protect you," he said, breath shuddering.
"I thought my desire would suffocate you."
For a heartbeat, neither of you moved.
The night itself seemed to hold its breath.
And then, your truth rose like a breaking wave, unstoppable now.
"I wanted to be trapped in this marriage," you whispered, the words trembling but fierce.
"I love you. I always have."
There. You said it.
The world stilled around you.
His eyes widened, shock flaring before it melted into something rawer, deeper.
You were both breathing hard now, like you'd just surfaced from drowning.
One moment passed.
Two.
An eternity, maybe.
And then—slowly, reverently—he reached for you.
His hand cupped your cheek, warm and solid, and you gasped at the sudden, searing reality of his touch.
It felt like coming home and burning alive all at once.
Your own hand rose, almost on instinct, finding his wrist, anchoring him to you.
The connection sent a tremor through you both.
He hesitated for the barest instant, his forehead dipping toward yours, his breath mingling with yours in the space between.
Then he closed the distance.
The first brush of his mouth against yours was soft, aching, almost tentative—as though he feared you might vanish if he pushed too hard.
It was a kiss built of years of silence and longing, of words swallowed back and nights spent apart.
It was reverent. Trembling.
The kind of kiss that asked for permission even as it stole the breath from your lungs.
Your lips parted on a quiet, startled gasp, and he caught it, deepening the kiss just slightly—careful, so achingly careful—as if he feared you might shatter beneath his touch.
It wasn't enough.
God, it would never be enough.
A soft sound escaped you, half a sob, half a plea, and it seemed to undo him.
The restraint he'd been holding onto for months, maybe years, broke like glass beneath a storm.
With a rough, helpless sound, he pulled you flush against him, his hand sliding from your cheek to the back of your head, tangling in your hair.
The kiss deepened, turned fierce, urgent.
A clash of need and longing, of every word never spoken and every glance stolen in silence.
You responded in kind, your fingers fisting in the fabric of his shirt, clutching him as though you could anchor yourself to this moment.
To him.
There was nothing careful now.
Only heat and hunger and the unbearable sweetness of finally being seen, finally being wanted.
He kissed you like he'd been starving for the taste of you, like he'd spent every lonely night imagining this very moment.
And maybe he had.
Maybe you both had.
Your world narrowed to the slide of his mouth over yours, the ragged sound of his breathing mingling with your own, the way his body trembled beneath your hands.
The rest of the world—the hotel room, the bed, the walls you'd both built so carefully—ceased to exist.
There was only him.
Only you.
Only this aching, consuming need.
His lips left yours briefly, trailing along the curve of your jaw, the sensitive hollow just beneath your ear.
You gasped, a broken, needy sound, your head tilting back instinctively to give him more.
"Say my name," he murmured against your skin, his voice raw, barely holding on.
Your throat worked, the word catching before it finally escaped on a whisper.
And when you said it—his name—it tore a groan from him, guttural and unrestrained.
He dragged his mouth back to yours, kissing you again, deeper, harder, until you could taste the desperation on his tongue.
The kiss turned frantic, almost wild, teeth clashing for a heartbeat before melting into something devastatingly tender.
And still, somehow, it wasn't enough.
He shifted, guiding you backward with gentle but unyielding hands until the back of your knees hit the edge of the bed.
You went willingly, heart hammering, breath ragged, every nerve in your body alive with sensation.
When you sank down onto the mattress, he followed, bracing himself above you but not pinning you.
Never pinning you.
Even now, with his need written across every line of his body, he held himself back.
For you.
His forehead rested against yours, his breath mingling with yours, both of you shaking.
"Tell me to stop," he rasped, his voice breaking. "If you want me to stop, say it now."
You reached for him instead, your hands cradling his face, your answer spilling out in a whisper fierce with truth.
"Don't you dare stop."
Something in him fractured at that.
The next kiss was a conflagration.
A vow.
A lifetime of restraint burned to ash.
His weight settled against you as your bodies aligned perfectly, naturally, as if you'd been made to fit this way.
Your legs tangled. His hands roamed—not frantic, but sure, reverent, mapping the lines of you like he'd spent years memorizing them in secret.
The heat between you was dizzying, but beneath it was something steadier, deeper:
a tenderness so profound it made your chest ache.
His mouth slowed, softened, lingering now as if he wanted to savor every second, to make this moment stretch into eternity.
Each kiss was a question and an answer all at once.
I'm here.
I see you.
I want you.
I love you.
When he finally pulled back, both of you breathing hard, he didn't go far.
Just far enough to look into your eyes, his thumb brushing gently over your swollen lower lip.
His voice, when it came, was wrecked and reverent all at once.
"You have no idea how long I've dreamed of this," he whispered.
Your own breath hitched, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes.
"Then don't let it be a dream."
And with that, you pulled him back to you, and the world disappeared once more.