Wanted All Along

Chapter Three

The walk to her room felt longer than it should have, the two of them close but not touching, the night air thick with salt and the low hum of insects somewhere in the dark hedges. Amara was aware of every inch of space between them, the way her skin seemed to know exactly where he was even without looking.

She fumbled the key card twice before the door finally clicked open. Kian didn’t rush her. He stood a half step behind, patient in a way that felt deliberate, like patience was another thing he’d learned to control and was choosing, right now, to spend on her.

The door swung shut behind them, and for a moment they just stood there in the dim light of the room, the curtains open to a sky scattered with more stars than Amara had ever seen back home.

“You don’t have to,” she said quietly, giving them both the exit if either of them wanted it. “If this isn’t—”

“I want to.” His voice was low, certain, none of the careful distance from the bar left in it. “I’ve wanted to since you told me it was a mistake, working on vacation.”

“That’s a low bar.”

“It’s not the bar.” He stepped closer, close enough that she had to tilt her chin up to hold his eyes. “It’s everything since.”

That was the last thing either of them said for a while.

He kissed her like he’d been thinking about it since the moment he saw her, unhurried at first and then not, one hand coming up to the curve of her jaw like he wanted to memorize the shape of it. Amara felt the last of her hesitation dissolve somewhere in that kiss, replaced by something hungrier, something she hadn’t let herself feel in longer than she wanted to admit.

Her hands found the front of his shirt, and his came to rest at the small of her back, pulling her in until there was no space left between them at all. She could feel his heartbeat, faster than his composure would ever let on, and something about that—about the proof that he wasn’t as unaffected as he wanted the world to believe—made her bolder.

They moved toward the bed in pieces, a step and a kiss and another step, his shirt gone somewhere near the window, her dress pooling by the foot of the bed. The moonlight through the open curtains painted everything silver and soft, and Amara let herself look at him properly for the first time—the lean, disciplined lines of him, dark skin gleaming faintly in the low light, a body built by restraint rather than vanity. He looked at her the same way, slow and unhurried, like he had nowhere else in the world he needed to be.

“You’re staring,” she said, breathless, half a laugh in it.

“I’m allowed to.” His hands settled on her hips, thumbs tracing slow circles that made her breath catch. “You’re the most reckless thing I’ve done in ten years. I intend to enjoy it.”

She pulled him down onto the bed by way of an answer.

What followed was slow in some places and urgent in others, the two of them finding a rhythm that felt less like two strangers and more like something that had been building since the moment he’d changed his mind about that second drink. Kian was attentive in a way that surprised her—not just taking, but watching her, reading her, adjusting to every small sound she made like her pleasure was a puzzle he intended to solve completely. Amara gave up trying to stay quiet somewhere between his mouth at her throat and his hands mapping every place that made her arch into him.

There was a moment, deep into the night, tangled together with the sheets long since kicked to the floor, where Amara caught herself thinking this wasn’t supposed to feel like this. It was supposed to be simple—an itch, an island fling, something she’d remember fondly and never think about again. But there was nothing simple about the way he said her name low against her skin, or the way his hands lingered even after, tracing idle patterns along her spine like he wasn’t ready to stop touching her yet.

She didn’t examine that thought too closely. Not tonight.

Afterward, they lay tangled in the sheets with the ceiling fan turning lazily overhead, the sound of the ocean drifting faintly through the open window. Kian’s arm was curled beneath her, and she could feel his chest rise and fall against her back, slower now, steadier.

“So,” she said into the quiet. “Was it reckless enough for you?”

He laughed, a real laugh this time, low and warm against her shoulder. “You have no idea.”

“Try me.”

“I haven’t done anything unplanned since I was twenty-six.” His fingers traced idle lines along her arm. “Every hour of my life is accounted for. Meetings. Calls. Flights booked eleven months out. My assistant color-codes my calendar.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It’s efficient.”

“Those aren’t the same thing.”

He was quiet for a moment, like he was actually considering that. “No,” he admitted. “I suppose they’re not.”

Amara turned over to face him, propping her head on her hand. In the dim light, his guard was down in a way she suspected it rarely was, his usual stillness replaced by something looser, more unguarded. She found she liked this version of him. She wondered if anyone else ever got to see it.

“What happens after Sunday?” she asked, because someone had to.

“I go back to my life. You go back to yours.” He said it simply, without apology, the practical answer of a man used to naming things exactly as they were. “This was never going to be complicated, Amara. That was sort of the point.”

“Right.” She told herself that was fine. That was, after all, exactly what she’d wanted too—something uncomplicated, something with no weight attached to it, no risk of becoming another thing she had to shrink herself for. “Uncomplicated.”

“Uncomplicated,” he agreed, and pulled her closer anyway, like the word didn’t quite match the way his hand settled against her hip, or the way he pressed a slow kiss to her shoulder that felt like anything but simple.

Outside, the ocean kept up its steady rhythm against the shore, patient and unbothered, the way things are when they already know how a story ends—long before the people living it have figured it out for themselves.

Amara fell asleep before she meant to, lulled by the fan and the ocean and the warmth of him beside her, and if she dreamed that night, she didn’t remember it in the morning. What she remembered was waking before dawn to find him still there, one arm still loosely around her, his phone lit up silently on the nightstand with messages he hadn’t touched.

She watched him sleep for a moment, something she would never have admitted to doing if he’d been awake to catch her at it. There was a softness to his face she hadn’t seen the night before, all the careful composure stripped away by sleep, and she found herself wondering what it would take to see that face like this on purpose, in daylight, without the excuse of an island and a week that didn’t count.

She told herself it didn’t matter. Sunday was coming regardless of what she wondered.

Kian stirred before the sun fully rose, blinking awake with none of the disorientation most people had in an unfamiliar bed, like even sleep followed his schedule when he let it. He found her watching him and didn’t look away.

“Morning,” he said, voice rough with sleep, and reached for her like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Amara let herself be pulled back down, telling herself this was still uncomplicated, still exactly what she’d wanted, even as some quiet, honest part of her understood it was already becoming something else entirely.