Raina’s heavy canvas camera bag slipped off the edge of the mattress and hit the floorboards with a dull, muffled thud. Neither of them moved to pick it up.
Outside, the coastal Norwegian gale threw sheets of icy rain against the glass and made the old wooden house creak like a ship at sea. But inside Kieran’s bedroom, the air was thick, dark, and warm.
He was so close she could feel the heat radiating off his chest, smell the sharp, clean salt of the sea clinging to his damp hair, and taste the faint tang of the green apple they’d shared an hour ago. His hand rested light but unyielding against her waist and his thumb tucked just beneath the hem of her wool sweater rested against the bare skin of her hip bone.
He’d pulled back only an inch and his dark eyes searched hers in the gloom.
“Tell me to stop,” he rasped. His jaw set tight with a restraint that was visibly tearing him apart.
Raina looked up at him and really looked at the dark, heat-flushed tension in his neck and the way his breath came fast and uneven against her cheek. “Do you want to?”
His thumb dragged a slow, possessive line across her skin. “God, Raina. No.”
“Neither do I.”
She reached up and her cold fingers tangled into the thick hair at the nape of his neck before she pulled him down.
The kiss was sudden, fierce, and breathless. Weeks of stolen glances in dark school corridors, secret lingering touches in empty art rooms, and a quiet, shameful longing exploded all at once. Kieran let out a low, gravelly groan against her mouth and his hands tightened around her waist to pull her flush against him. Raina arched into the warmth of his chest and a soft, breathless sound caught in her throat as his mouth claimed hers again and again, deeper and hungrier.
On the floor beside the bed lay the black-and-white prints they’d supposedly come here to edit. Three photos examined and the rest still sealed in the envelope. Raina had brought them as a cover story and a safe excuse to knock on his door while Ivy was out of town.
They didn't need excuses anymore.
Kieran drew back just enough to rest his forehead against hers. His lungs heaved and his dark eyes shadowed with sudden, sharp dread.
“Ivy,” he whispered. The name dropped like a stone into a still pond.
Raina’s stomach twisted into a sharp, sickening knot. Her eyes drifted briefly past his shoulder and caught on the corner of the wooden nightstand where a small tin of Ivy’s cherry lip balm sat right beside her spare silver hair clip.
“I know,” Raina’s voice wavered.
“She’s my girlfriend, Raina.”
“She’s my best friend.” Raina swallowed hard and her pulse hammered against her ribs. “And it’s been over between you two for months, Kieran. Don’t pretend it hasn't. You both know it.”
He went entirely still and the storm outside rattled the windowpane. Slowly, he nodded. “You checked her train schedule?”
“Twice. She reached her aunt’s house in Bergen an hour ago. She won’t be back on the coast until Monday.”
“Two days.”
“Two days,” she whispered and reached up to cup his face while her thumb brushed the hard line of his cheekbone. “Just… ours.”
He kissed her then, slower and deeper with a desperate, solemn reverence that made her heart ache. “Don’t overthink it,” she murmured against his lips. “Please.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“Then don’t.”
He reached out and clicked the bedside lamp off, plunging the room into shadow lit only by the pale, icy glow of the coastal storm outside. Clothes found the floor in the dark. Sweaters, jeans, undergarments tossed aside without care as skin met skin in a rush of heat and shivers. Every touch felt like stepping over an invisible precipice she’d sworn she’d never cross yet every time her conscience begged her to pull back, the feeling of his skin against hers made her wrap her arms tighter around his neck.
Kieran paused above her and his breathing ragged while his hand rested gently against her cheek. “Are you sure?” he whispered into the dark and his voice trembled with a mixture of fear and absolute desire. “Raina… we can still stop.”
Raina reached up and threaded her fingers through his. “Do you want to stop?”
“I’ve never wanted anything less in my life.”
“Then stay right here with me.”
He leaned down and kissed his way from her throat down the sensitive dip of her collarbone while his mouth moved warm and deliberate against her skin. Raina gasped and her head fell back against the pillow as a shiver ran through her entire body. He took his time, slow and unhurried. His hands mapped every curve and every soft line and learned exactly where she sighed, exactly where she tightened, and exactly where she melted beneath him. When his mouth found her and lingered tender, she cried out softly and her fingers tangled hard into his hair to pull him closer as pleasure coiled tight and hot deep in her belly. He groaned against her, heavy and dark, and held her steady through every wave, every shiver, and every breathless little sound she made until she was trembling, breathless, and reaching for more.
When he rose over her, she felt the hard, heavy weight of him pressing between her legs and she arched instinctively, wanting him closer, deeper, and all the way inside. He held her gaze in the dim light and his eyes burned dark before he slid into her slow and deep, stretching her and filling her completely. Raina gasped and her nails dug into his shoulders while every nerve ending lit up at once.
“Oh… Kieran,” she breathed and pressed her forehead into his shoulder. “I love you.”
The words hung in the dark room like a spell. Kieran froze for a single, heavy heartbeat and his eyes went wide in the dim light while he searched her face as if trying to grasp what they had just become. But then his grip on her hips tightened and he began to move, slow at first then deeper and harder, driving into her with a steady, relentless rhythm that made her cling to him breathless and wild. She met every thrust and lifted her hips to take him deeper while her legs wrapped tight around his waist, lost in the heat, the friction, and the sheer overwhelming feeling of him. When she broke and called his name into the shadow, he followed her over the edge with a groan low and rough against her skin while his body shuddered as he surrendered completely.
Afterward, they lay tangled in the damp warmth of the sheets and his heavy arm draped across her waist to anchor her against him while the rain lashed at the roof.
For a long time, neither spoke. The silence wasn't cold but it carried the heavy weight of what was waiting for them outside this room.
Kieran shifted and propped himself up on an elbow while his silhouette showed dark against the pale grey reflection of the storm.
“We have to tell her,” he said and his voice was quiet and stripped of all pretense. “Monday. The second she gets off the train.”
Raina sat up slightly and reached out to brush a damp strand of hair from his forehead. “Together. I’m not letting you take the blame alone.”
“I don’t want to break her heart, Raina.”
“I know.” Her throat tightened as she remembered Ivy’s bright, loud laugh and the way Ivy had taken her hand on her first day at Alpha High to make her feel less like an outsider. “But keeping this a secret will destroy her worse. We do it Monday.”
He kissed her forehead, soft and solemn. “Monday.”
The mention of the deadline made the air feel suddenly cold again. Raina reached out and slid her hands up his biceps to pull his chest back down to hers. “Not yet,” she whispered and brushed her lips against the corner of his mouth. “Don’t let Monday in here yet.”
This time, the shift between them was bolder and wilder, a desperate attempt to burn away the clock ticking in their heads.
Kieran kissed her hard and his hands slid down her back. “Turn for me,” he murmured into her ear while his breath felt hot and commanding against her neck. “Let me see you.”
Raina hesitated for half a second before rolling onto her stomach and pushing herself up on her hands and knees. The vulnerability of the position made her skin prickle with cold air but when Kieran knelt behind her and his warm chest pressed against her spine, she let out a soft, shuddering breath.
His hands gripped her hips, firm and grounding, to anchor her in place while he leaned down to press a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses along her spine and his fingers sank into the soft flesh of her waist.
“You’re incredible,” he whispered rough against her shoulder and before the words had even faded, he drove into her with a single, deep, powerful thrust.
Raina cried out loud and breathless while her fingers curled tight into the sheets. He didn't slow down. He set a fierce, unrelenting rhythm and held her hips steady to pull her back to meet every hard stroke while the bedframe creaked and shook beneath them. She pushed back against him and matched his intensity, completely lost in the sensation of him filling her, claiming her, and moving so deep it made her gasp and shiver all at once.
“That’s it… take it,” Kieran growled low in his throat and slid one hand around to stroke her where she needed him most to drive her higher, faster, and closer to the edge. “You feel so good… so perfect like this.”
“Kieran — don’t stop, please —” she moaned.
He kept going, deeper and harder, and the pleasure built fast and blinding until she shattered apart around him, calling his name while her body arched and trembled. He followed seconds later with a rough, broken sound and held her tight through the aftershocks while they both sank back down into the mattress, breathless and glowing.
Then the room exploded with light.
Bright.
Cold.
Blinding white-blue.
The cell phone resting on the nightstand, inches from Ivy’s lip balm, lit up and vibrated hard against the bare wood with an abrasive, jarring hum.
INCOMING VIDEO CALL: IVY
The screen lit up the darkness like a flare.
Ivy’s photo, bright and sunlit and laughing on the beach from the day they had all gone down to the harbour together, glared out into the dark bedroom.
Everything stopped.
Kieran froze instantly and his hands locked around Raina’s hips while his breath caught violently in his throat. Raina’s own moans died instantly and turned into a cold, strangled gasp that sounded sickeningly loud in the quiet room.
Neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed.
Aksara