Dominic and I met in the only place we’d trusted in the last months: the storage loft above Marisol’s office. It was cramped and smelled of paper and coffee, two things that always seemed to be honest. We should have been smarter. We weren’t.
He held me like a man who’d held a bomb and thought better of it — fingers hauling me against him, mouth rough with need. We weren’t doing this for secrecy; we were doing it because the world demanded we stop being quiet. Kissing in the filament-hot light, we ignored consequences like a dare.
“You should stay away,” he whispered between kisses.
“I can’t,” I said. “If he dies of this wound, I can’t forgive myself.”
He kissed me harder, as if to seal the vow. Then he pulled me to the old metal filing cabinet, slid my skirt up, and we fell into a mes
