Only when we burn

Chapter 3: Midnight blue

Later, I was slipping into my dress when I caught Jackson watching me from the bed. The weight of his gaze felt like a physical thing, warm and heavy and utterly focused.

"What?" I asked, smoothing the liquid satin down my hips. The fabric was impossibly soft, like cool water flowing over my skin. But it wasn't just the dress, it was the way he was looking at me, like I was something precious and unattainable that had somehow ended up in his hands.

His voice was rough, scraped raw. "You're going to destroy me, baby."

I could see something shifting in his expression as he watched me, the afternoon light streaming through the cottage windows catching the navy silk and turning it midnight blue. There was a kind of awe in his eyes that made my breath catch, but underneath it was something deeper. Vulnerability. Like he was seeing me for the first time all over again.

The thing is, I'd never owned anything like this dress before Jackson. Never had a reason to. Never had someone who looked at me like wearing beautiful things was my birthright, not a luxury I couldn't afford. The dress had appeared in my closet three days ago with a note in his familiar scrawl: For when you want to stop traffic. Though you already do that in anything you wear. - J

Now, standing here in it, I understood what he meant. The fabric moved with me like it was alive, clinging where it counted, slipping free where it teased. The neckline sat high at my collarbone before sweeping wide and off my shoulders, baring the curve of my back in one fluid, graceful dip. The front was modest but no less stunning, with a subtle cowl neck that hinted at the curves beneath. The fabric hugged every inch of me like it had been sewn directly onto my body, skimming over my hips and falling in a perfect column to just above my ankles.

But it wasn't really about the dress. It was about how he made me feel in it. Like I deserved to be adored. Like I deserved to take up space. Like I deserved him.

I laughed, but when I turned, his eyes were fixed on my bare back where the dress plunged daringly low, the fabric parting like curtains to reveal the elegant curve of my spine. The intensity of his attention was like being caught in a spotlight—thrilling and terrifying all at once.

I could feel his gaze tracking every movement I made, cataloguing each detail like he was memorising me. It should have made me self-conscious, but instead it made me feel powerful. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with the dress and everything to do with the man watching me wear it.

I bent to buckle the delicate strap of my navy heel, and I saw his gaze darken in the mirror across the room. Hunger and awe simmered in his expression, along with something deeper, a kind of disbelief, as if he couldn't quite process that I was here, with him, in this moment.

And honestly? Six months ago, I was doing everything I could to keep things professional, reminding myself getting involved with someone in his position could derail everything I'd worked for. Now I was getting dressed in his cottage, wearing a dress that probably cost more than my annual registration fees, preparing to walk into a party full of people who existed in a world I'd only ever observed from the outside. Sometimes I couldn't process it either.

"Need help with your zipper?" His voice was strained, like he was holding himself back from something.

The zipper was barely there, a delicate silver line starting just above the curve of my hips and disappearing into the open bare of my back. I could've reached it easily. My fingers had found it immediately when I'd first tried the dress on. But something in the heat of his stare, in the charged air between us, made me still.

"I think you need a minute," I teased, catching his eye in the mirror. There was something intoxicating about the way he looked at me, like I was both salvation and damnation wrapped in navy silk. Like I held some kind of power over him that he was both grateful for and terrified of.

He stood slowly, deliberately, his movements predatory and gentle all at once. "I need more than a minute."

The words hit me low in my stomach. Not just desire, though god knows there was plenty of that—but something rawer. Need in the truest sense. The kind that kept him awake at night and made him reach for me in his sleep.

The mattress creaked softly as he rose, and I could feel the heat of him before he even touched me. The scent that was purely Jackson enveloped me like a cocoon. My body responded before my brain could catch up, drawn to his warmth by some magnetic pull I couldn't resist.

His fingers brushed my spine as he reached for the zipper, the touch feather-light but electric. I shivered despite the warmth of the room, despite the fire he'd lit in the fireplace, even though it was July, because he knew I loved the way firelight looked on his skin.

The tiny metal teeth whispered together as he drew the zipper up slowly, his knuckles grazing my skin with each millimetre. It was torture and worship all at once.

"You know," he murmured, his breath warming the nape of my neck, "I used to think I understood desire." His lips were so close to my ear I could feel them move with each word. "Then you happened."

The confession hit me like a punch to the chest. Because I knew exactly what he meant. I'd thought I understood attraction, thought I knew what it meant to want someone. Then Jackson Ivory had smiled at me across a coffee shop counter and turned my entire world upside down.

I closed my eyes, leaning back slightly so I was almost touching his chest. "Just desire?" The question slipped out before I could stop it, playful but with an edge of vulnerability. Because sometimes, in the dark corners of my mind where my insecurities lived, I wondered if that's all this was. If I were just the latest in a long line of women who had caught his attention.

"Desire, obsession, devotion..." His voice dropped to almost a whisper, and I felt each word like a caress. "Complete and utter surrender."

My breath caught. Because this was Jackson—controlled, powerful, always three steps ahead—admitting to surrender. Admitting that I had taken something from him that he couldn't get back. That he didn't want back.

I turned in the circle of his arms, careful not to wrinkle the dress, and looked up at him. His green eyes were darker than I'd ever seen them, pupils dilated despite the bright afternoon light. There was something wild in them, barely contained, like he was fighting every instinct he had.

"You're being dramatic," I said, but my voice caught slightly. The way he was looking at me made my knees weak, made me feel like I might dissolve into nothing if he didn't keep holding me.

"Am I?" His hands settled on my waist, thumbs stroking the silk-covered curves there. "Do you know what went through my mind when I saw you putting this dress on?"

I shook my head, not trusting my voice. Because I wasn't sure I was ready to hear it. I wasn't sure I could handle the weight of whatever he was about to give me.

"I thought about how lucky I am. How impossibly, ridiculously lucky." His forehead touched mine, and I could feel his heartbeat through his shirt, rapid and strong. "I thought about how many men would kill to be where I am right now."

The words wrapped around me like a blanket, warm and safe and completely overwhelming. Because this wasn't just pretty words or smooth charm. This was Jackson at his most honest, his most vulnerable, giving me pieces of himself that I knew he'd never shared with anyone else.

"Jackson..." My voice was barely audible. Because what do you say to something like that? How do you respond when someone hands you their heart so completely?

"I thought about how you're going to walk into that party tonight, and everyone is going to see what I get to see every day. How you'll probably end up in some heated debate about anaesthesia techniques with someone, getting that fierce look in your eyes that makes me fall in love with you all over again." His thumb traced along my jawline, and I leaned into his warm touch. "How you make me calmer and more reckless at the same time, if that's even possible."

The confession broke something open in my chest. Because I knew that feeling—the disbelief that someone like him could want someone like me. The fear that it was all too good to be true, that I'd wake up one day and find out it had all been some beautiful dream.

I reached up and straightened his collar, a gesture so domestic and intimate it made my chest tight. It was such a small thing, but it felt like a promise. Like saying: I'm here. I'm staying. I choose this. I choose you.

"You want to know what I think?"

"Always." The word was immediate, certain.

"I think you're the one who's going to destroy me tonight." I smiled up at him, then rose on my tiptoes to brush my lips against his. "In the best possible way."

Because it was true. He was going to walk into that party with his hand on my back, introduce me to his world, and show everyone that I was his. And it was terrifying and exhilarating and everything I'd ever wanted wrapped up in one beautiful, overwhelming package.

"I can't believe you're mine," he murmured, and there was something almost broken in his voice. Like the admission cost him something.

And for a second, as I looked into his eyes and saw myself reflected there, saw the way he saw me, beautiful and wanted and cherished, neither could I.

"We should go," I whispered against his mouth, though my body made no move to pull away. Though every cell in me wanted to stay here forever, suspended in this moment where it was just us and the golden light and the promise of forever hanging in the air between us.

"We should," he echoed, his hands tightening almost imperceptibly on my waist. Like he was having the same internal battle.

We leaned in again, suspended in the breath between kisses, when a loud knock rattled the door.

"Oh my god, you guys, it's already five!" Aarti's voice rang through the wood like a cymbal crash. "Quit your snogging or whatever hormonal nonsense is happening in there. Some of us would like to arrive before midnight!"

I laughed, the sound catching in my throat as the tension finally cracked. Jackson pressed one last lingering kiss to my cheek, then pulled back with a grin that promised unfinished business. A promise that made my toes curl in their expensive heels.

"Alright, sweetheart," he said, offering his hand with mock formality. "Let's go turn some heads."

I took his hand, feeling the familiar jolt of electricity when our skin met.

And just like that, we stepped out of our cocoon, still breathless, still burning, still carrying the weight of everything we'd just shared but ready to face the night. Ready to face his world. Ready to face whatever came next.