I didn't know when I fell back to sleep, but it was night when I opened my eyes again. As I blinked away the remnants of sleep, the realization dawned upon me that the warmth that had enveloped me throughout the night was gone. The space beside me on the bed echoed with a silent emptiness, a stark reminder of Nikolai's absence. I reached out tentatively, fingers grazing the cool sheets where he had lain, only to find them bereft of his comforting presence. A pang of disappointment pierced through me, mingling with the confusion and uncertainty that lingered from the night before. The memory of our intimate moments together, the raw vulnerability and unspoken desires that had hung heavy in the air, flooded back to me in fragments. I remembered the way his touch had ignited a fire within me,
