chapter 6
1074 Words
Chapter 6 – After the Gallery
The city had started to sleep.
The warehouse lights faded behind them, leaving the streets washed in amber glow from lamps and neon signs still buzzing against the silence.
Adrian should have left. Every instinct told him to retreat to his world of stone and glass, where walls were high and feelings were locked behind design and order.
But he didn’t.
He followed her.
Elena walked barefoot, shoes in her hand, her black dress swaying as she moved down narrow cobbled streets that smelled faintly of rain. She didn’t invite him with words — she didn’t need to. Every step was an invitation, and he was already too far gone to resist.
---
Her building was old, a creaking block tucked between two shuttered bars. The stairwell smelled of turpentine and cigarettes. She didn’t apologize for the peeling paint or the flickering lightbulb. She simply climbed, humming under her breath, her hair messy from the night.
By the time they reached her floor, Adrian’s pulse was a storm.
Her studio apartment was nothing like his penthouse world. No marble floors, no symmetry, no expensive silence.
It was chaos.
Canvases leaned against every wall. Streaks of paint marked the floor like footprints of her mind. Wine bottles doubled as vases for wilting flowers. Books lay open, abandoned mid-thought.
And yet — it felt alive.
Like her.
She tossed her shoes into a corner and shrugged out of her coat, leaving it draped carelessly across a chair. Then she turned, leaning against the door she’d just closed, eyes locked on him.
“You stayed,” she said softly.
“I told you I would.”
------
For a moment, they just looked at each other. The hum of the fridge filled the silence. Somewhere outside, a siren wailed and faded.
Elena tilted her head, studying him like a canvas she wasn’t sure she wanted to ruin or complete. “Do you even know why you’re here, Adrian?”
His throat tightened. “Yes.”
Her lips curved, though her eyes stayed sharp. “And?”
He closed the distance between them, slow, deliberate. His hand came up, brushing her jaw, tilting her face to him. “I can’t stop wanting you.”
Her breath hitched, the smallest betrayal of her composure. “That’s dangerous.”
“Everything about you is dangerous.”
She laughed lightly, but it was shaky now. “And yet you’re here.”
“Because I’d rather burn than go back to stone.”
---
The kiss was inevitable.
This time there was no crowd, no eyes watching. Just two people, colliding in the silence of her chaos.
Her back hit the door, his body pinning hers there. Her hands slid into his shirt, fingers curling like she wanted to tear away every barrier between them.
Adrian’s mouth moved over hers, rough and desperate, then slowed, softened, deepened — like he was mapping her soul with every touch. His hand trailed down her arm, lingering at her wrist where streaks of gold paint stained her skin. He kissed that spot, reverent, as though the chaos on her body was sacred.
She pulled his face back to hers, whispering against his lips, “You’re not supposed to touch me like that.”
“Then stop me.”
But she didn’t.
She kissed him harder, her laugh caught between fire and surrender.
---
They stumbled further into the apartment, knocking over a stack of sketchbooks. She didn’t care. She pulled him with her, tugging at his shirt, leaving smudges of paint where her hands roamed.
When they reached the window, city lights spilled across her floor, casting them in fractured glow. She pushed him back against the glass, breathless, bold.
“People could see,” he muttered.
“Good.” Her grin was wicked, her voice husky. “Let them.”
His heart slammed. He wasn’t used to this — not just the heat, but the rawness of it. The way she looked at him, not like Adrian Hale the untouchable architect, but like a man stripped bare.
She whispered against his mouth, “You want control. You always do. But with me, you don’t get it.”
And damn her, she was right. He let go.
---
When the fire finally slowed, when lips gave way to breathing and their foreheads rested together, silence wrapped around them again. Not awkward. Not broken. Just heavy with everything unspoken.
Elena’s hand lingered on his chest, feeling the hammer of his heart. “You scare me,” she whispered again, softer now, without her usual shield of sarcasm.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t just want me.” She met his gaze, eyes wide, raw. “You see me. And no one survives that.”
Adrian swallowed hard. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, that he wasn’t dangerous, that he wouldn’t break her. But the truth caught in his throat.
He was dangerous.
He was already breaking himself with her.
So instead, he brushed her hair back from her face, kissed her temple, and murmured, “Then let’s not survive. Let’s live.”
Her eyes closed, lashes wet, her breath shaky. She pressed herself against him like she believed him — or wanted to.
---
Later, they lay tangled on her worn sofa, a half-finished bottle of wine abandoned nearby, the city still humming beyond the window.
Elena rested against his chest, her fingers tracing absent patterns on his skin, quiet for once. Adrian’s hand moved lazily through her hair, grounding himself in the reality that she was here, warm, alive.
Neither spoke of tomorrow. Neither asked what this meant.
The night didn’t need definitions.
But deep inside, Adrian knew: this was no longer just chaos. It was something he couldn’t walk away from. Something that scared him as much as it saved him.
And Elena — she knew it too. That’s why her last words before sleep were whispered so softly he almost missed them:
“If you break me, Adrian… I’ll break you back.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Fair enough.”
---
Outside, the storm of the city rolled on.
Inside, in her messy apartment filled with paint and laughter and fire, Adrian Hale — the man who had sworn never to lose control again — had already lost it completely.
And for the first time, he didn’t regret it.
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- Writer
