By noon, I stopped pretending I wasn't spiraling. The room was supposed to be full—financiers, analysts, department heads. Instead, it was just him.
Ahmir stood at the windows, hands clasped behind his back, posture too calm, too controlled. He didn’t turn when I walked in. He didn’t have to. The air shifted around him, heavy enough to change my breathing. For two weeks, I'd been pretending I’d forgotten the elevator. That I hadn’t replayed the moment he'd dragged every boundary I built down to its hinges. That I didn’t still feel the ghost of his mouth on my skin when I tried to sleep.
My pulse betrayed me the second I saw him — a hard, unsteady thud under my ribs. Heat curled across my chest, not lust this time, but something more dangerous. Shame. Anger. Anticipation I refused to name
