The hotel lobby smells like money and secrets.
I'm walking too fast, I know I am, but I can't help it. My heart's doing this wild thing in my chest where it feels like it might actually punch through my ribs and make a run for it. The marble floor is so polished I can see my reflection in it, all blurry and distorted, which feels about right for how I'm feeling inside.
Tonight's the night.
I've been with Todd for two years. Two whole years of steady, comfortable, predictable dates. Movies on Fridays. Brunch on Sundays. Holding hands in the park. He's safe. He's kind. He's... exactly what I thought I wanted after growing up with a mother who could barely look at me without seeming disappointed.
And tonight, I'm finally ready.
The text message is still open on my phone, and I glance at it again even though I've memorized every word:
Room 2417. I'll be waiting. Tonight is special, Sloane. I promise.
My stomach does a little flip. Todd's not usually this... romantic. This bold. But maybe that's good, right? Maybe we're both ready to take this relationship somewhere deeper. Somewhere real.
The elevator ride to the twenty-fourth floor feels like it takes about seventeen years.
I catch my reflection in the mirrored walls and barely recognize myself. I wore the dress Rhea helped me pick out — deep emerald green, because she said it made my eyes look less boring-hazel and more mysterious-forest. It's tighter than what I usually wear. Shows more leg. I paired it with my favorite cardigan because I couldn't go full-sexy without something familiar to hide in.
"You've got this," I whisper to my reflection.
My reflection doesn't look convinced.
The hallway on the twenty-fourth floor is quiet. Thick carpet that swallows the sound of my footsteps. Expensive art on the walls that probably costs more than I make in a year at the gallery. Everything here feels like it exists in a different universe from my tiny studio apartment above the coffee shop on Capitol Hill.
Room 2417.
I stand in front of the door for a solid minute, just breathing.
This is it. This is really it. After tonight, everything changes. Todd and I will finally be... more. Connected in a way we haven't been before. Maybe this is exactly what we need to take our relationship from comfortable to something that actually makes my heart race.
Except my heart's racing now, and it doesn't feel like excitement.
It feels like standing at the edge of a cliff in the dark.
I shake my head. I'm being ridiculous. This is Todd. Sweet, predictable Todd who brings me coffee on Tuesday mornings and never forgets to ask about my art projects and once spent three hours helping me hang paintings at the gallery even though he finds modern art "confusing."
I can do this.
I want to do this.
I knock once, softly. Then I try the handle.
Unlocked.
The room is dark when I slip inside. Just a sliver of city light coming through the massive windows, painting everything in shades of silver and shadow. I can make out the shape of expensive furniture, a king-sized bed, and—
Him.
He's standing by the window, just a silhouette against the Seattle skyline. Taller than I expected. Broader. Something about the way he holds himself is different, but maybe that's just nerves making me see things that aren't there.
"Todd?" My voice comes out smaller than I meant it to.
He doesn't answer. Just turns toward me, and even though I can't see his face, I feel the weight of his attention like a physical thing.
"I'm sorry I'm late," I say, closing the door behind me. The click of the lock feels very loud in the quiet room. "Traffic was insane, and then I couldn't find parking, and I—"
"Come here."
I freeze.
That's not Todd's voice.
Todd's voice is... lighter. Friendlier. This voice is dark and rough, like gravel wrapped in silk, and it does something to my insides that I've never felt before. Something that makes my knees feel unreliable.
But it has to be him, right? Who else would be waiting in this room?
Maybe he's trying something different. Being more... commanding. More confident. Maybe this is his version of romance, and I'm overthinking everything like I always do.
I take a step forward. Then another.
"I'm nervous," I admit, because that feels safer than the silence.
"Don't be."
Two words. That's all he gives me. But the way he says them—like a promise and a threat wrapped together—makes something in my chest pull tight.
I cross the room until I'm standing right in front of him. Close enough that I can smell him, and that's wrong too, because Todd wears this sporty deodorant that smells like a high school locker room, but this man smells like cedar and something darker, something that makes me want to lean closer even as every instinct tells me to run.
"I can't see you," I whisper.
His hand comes up, fingers brushing my jaw so gently it's almost not there at all. Almost.
"Good."
And then he's kissing me.
No warning. No soft build-up. Just his mouth on mine, hungry and demanding and nothing—nothing—like the careful, close-lipped kisses Todd's given me over two years of dating.
This kiss is devastating.
It's the kind of kiss that rewrites your understanding of what a kiss can be. His hand slides into my hair, tilting my head back, and I make this sound—this embarrassing, desperate sound—and instead of pulling away, he pulls me closer.
I should stop this. I should turn on the lights, make sure I'm not losing my mind, confirm that this is actually Todd trying out some new persona that I never knew he had in him.
But I don't.
Because for the first time in my entire careful, controlled life, I don't want to think. I don't want to question. I just want to feel this—whatever this is. This wild, reckless thing burning through my chest.
His hands are everywhere. My waist. My back. Pulling me against him like he's been waiting his whole life for exactly this moment. And I'm kissing him back just as desperately, my fingers clutching his shirt, feeling muscles under expensive fabric, feeling heat and want and something so much bigger than anything I've ever experienced.
We stumble toward the bed. He's careful with me even in the darkness, even in the urgency. Lays me down like I'm something precious and breakable. Hovers over me, and I still can't see his face, but I can feel the weight of him, the warmth of him, the way he's looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
"Are you sure?" he asks, and his voice is strained, like the question is costing him something.
I should say no. I should ask for the lights. I should do a thousand sensible things.
"Yes," I breathe.
What happens next is a blur of sensation and surrender. It's intense and overwhelming and nothing like I expected—not gentle or careful or sweet, but consuming in a way that makes me understand why people write songs and poetry about moments like this. Why people make terrible decisions and call them destiny.
He never turns on the lights.
I never see his face.
And when it's over, when we're both breathing hard in the darkness, tangled in expensive sheets, I feel different. Changed. Like I just crossed some invisible line and there's no going back to who I was before I walked through that door.
I'm drifting in this hazy, dreamlike state when I feel him move. Getting up. I hear water running in the bathroom.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I reach for it, smiling, expecting some sweet message from Todd about what just happened, about how everything's different now.
The message is from Todd: Where are you? I've been waiting in room 2714 for an hour. Did you get lost?
My blood turns to ice.
Not 2417.
Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God.
The bathroom light flips on, spilling harsh brightness into the room, and I scramble to sit up, clutching the sheet to my chest, my heart hammering so hard I might actually die right here.
The man who walks out of the bathroom isn't Todd.
He's a stranger.
Tall—God, so tall—with black hair that's messy now because of my hands, and a face that looks like it was carved from marble by someone who understood beauty and cruelty in equal measure. Sharp jaw. High cheekbones. Mouth that I just kissed, that was just on my skin, that I can still feel everywhere.
But it's his eyes that stop my heart.
Storm-gray. Silver in the light. Looking at me like...
Like I just became his entire world.
"Who are you?" The question falls out of my mouth, broken and terrified.
He goes very still. Studies me with an intensity that makes me feel naked even though I'm covered by the sheet. Then his eyes drop to my phone, still clutched in my shaking hand, the screen showing Todd's message.
When his gaze comes back to my face, something dangerous flickers there.
"I was about to ask you the same question." His voice is quiet. Controlled. But underneath, I hear something sharp enough to cut. "Who sent you here?"
"I—I made a mistake. The room number. I thought you were—" My voice breaks. I can't finish the sentence because the reality of what just happened is crashing over me like a wave, drowning me.
I just slept with a complete stranger.
I gave my virginity to a man whose name I don't even know.
And from the way he's looking at me right now—possessive and furious and hungry all at once—I have a feeling this mistake is going to cost me everything.