Chapter 6: Dreams Return
1207 Words
Amara’s POV
Sleep never came easy after a fight with Kian.
That night, I lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, the faint hum of the city drifting through the half-open window. My mind replayed his voice again and again, the words heavy as chains.
You don’t get to walk away twice.
Every time I thought I had silenced it, another memory surfaced. The way his eyes had darkened when he looked at me. The quiet power in his voice. The space between us that felt too small, too charged.
I turned over, pressing the pillow to my face. It didn’t help. The scent of him was still there, imaginary but vivid — that mix of sandalwood and winter air that had clung to his suit. It followed me into sleep.
And when I finally drifted off, the dreams came.
He was standing in the shadows of a long, endless hallway. The light behind him framed his outline in gold. He didn’t move, just watched me with that familiar stillness that always made me feel exposed.
I tried to step back, but the walls closed in, soft and warm, like breath against my skin.
“Kian,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a warning.
He stepped closer.
The air shifted. My heartbeat quickened. The dream world blurred around him, as if it existed only to hold his shape.
“You keep running,” he said softly.
“I’m not.”
He reached for me. His fingers brushed the side of my neck, and the contact sent a tremor through me. I should have pulled away, but my body betrayed me, leaning into his touch, craving the warmth that felt too real.
“You came back,” he murmured.
His lips were near my ear now. The heat of his breath sent shivers racing down my spine. “You always come back.”
The words melted into the sound of his heartbeat, deep and steady against my chest. His hands traced my shoulders, my back, my hips. Every touch burned, not painful, but desperate. As if he was memorizing me.
“Kian,” I whispered again, but this time my voice trembled.
When he kissed me, it wasn’t gentle. It was hunger made flesh, years of anger and longing colliding. The taste of him filled me — dark, forbidden, familiar.
And then, just as the kiss deepened, his image flickered. The warmth dissolved. The hallway went cold.
I reached for him, but he was gone.
I woke with a start. The sheets were tangled around my legs, my heart pounding. Sweat clung to my skin. I pressed a hand to my lips, as if I could still feel him there.
“Damn it,” I whispered into the darkness.
It wasn’t the first time I had dreamed of him. But it was the first time in years that it had felt so real.
The last time I had seen him before this whole mess, I had spent months trying to erase him from my head. But I hadn’t succeeded. I never did.
There had been nights when I would sit on my old apartment floor, laptop open, fingers hovering over the search bar. I’d tell myself it was curiosity, that I only wanted to see how far he had come. That I didn’t care.
But when I typed his name, my chest would tighten. Kian Stone.
His profile picture always looked perfect. Tailored suits. Corporate events. That same confident half-smile. The world saw a man who had everything. I saw the one person I had never fully escaped.
I used to scroll through his photos, my fingers brushing the screen like I could touch the life he built without me. His office launches, charity dinners, those rare candid shots where he was laughing with Kairo.
Every time, it stung.
Because no matter how much I told myself it was nothing, that I didn’t miss him, that I didn’t still think about the way his voice used to catch when he was angry or how his eyes softened when he wasn’t looking at me. The truth was crueler.
I missed the boy he used to be. The one who used to argue with me in the library just to see me roll my eyes. The one who walked me home once after debate club because the streetlights were out.
Back then, it had been innocent.
Until it wasn’t.
Until the moment he stopped looking at me like a rival and started looking at me like something he wanted.
And I had looked back.
For years, I pretended I had imagined that tension. That it was all in my head. That I was the one who crossed some invisible line. But the way he kissed me in that dream... That wasn’t imagination. That was memory breaking through.
The kettle clicked off, dragging me back to the present.
I wrapped my hands around the mug and sat by the window, watching the city lights flicker below. My apartment felt small tonight, full of ghosts.
I thought of his offer, sitting unanswered in my inbox. I had deleted the physical copy, but the digital version remained like a wound I couldn’t close.
It wasn’t about the contract. It was about control. About him testing me, tempting me, pulling me back into the orbit I had fought to escape.
And I hated that a part of me wanted to say yes. Not to the deal. To him.
I hated that even now, I was caught between anger and longing. Between wanting to destroy everything he stood for and wanting to feel that burning connection again, if only for a second.
I took a long sip of tea, hoping the warmth would quiet the ache.
It didn’t.
The screen of my phone lit up with a notification. A message request. Unknown number.
Still awake?
My blood turned to ice.
No name. No context. But somehow, I knew.
I stared at it for a long time, my pulse racing. Logic told me to ignore it. But the part of me that had dreamed of him, that had whispered his name in the dark, couldn’t look away.
I typed three words before I could stop myself.
Who is this?
The reply came almost instantly.
You already know.
My breath caught. I dropped the phone onto the couch, my heart hammering.
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
But deep down, I knew he could.
He always found a way back.
Sleep was no longer an option. I pulled the blanket around my shoulders and sank into the couch, the city lights spilling through the window like molten gold.
I didn’t want to think about him. I didn’t want to remember the way his voice made my stomach twist or how easily he could reach into my life and disrupt everything.
But his words still glowed on the screen. You already know.
And I did.
Because no matter how far I ran, no matter how many years passed, part of me still belonged to the boy who had looked at me like I was both his salvation and his undoing.
The problem was, I didn’t know which one I wanted to be.
- Writer
