MARLA’S P.O.V.
We lay tangled in the warmth of my bed, the sheets twisted around our bodies like vines—binding, clinging, almost possessive. Zach’s breathing was slow, steady, as if he’d finally found a place to rest. His arm was draped over me with careless intimacy, his body relaxed in a way that only came from letting go.
He thought this was release. A moment stolen in the middle of chaos.
He thought this was about lust.
I watched the way his chest rose and fell. I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. I simply memorized the rhythm of his breathing, the way the firelight cast shadows along the curve of his back.
He didn’t know what I was doing. What I’d been planning.
But he didn’t need to.
Because everything was going exactly as I intended.
The timing was perfect—carefully calculated, eac
