For a heartbeat, time suspends. The club's bass becomes my pulse, thundering in my ears as fifteen years collapse into nothing. The sight of her steals every thought from my head, and unlocks memories I've spent years burying.
Her eyes widen, recognition and shock flashing across features that have matured but remain hauntingly familiar. The softness of her teenage face has given way to defined cheekbones and a stronger jaw, but those eyes—God, those eyes haven't changed.
Then her features turn to stone, and she steps sideways, clearly intending to pass without acknowledgment. Something hot and primal flares in my chest at the dismissal, and before I know what I'm doing I mirror her movement, blocking her path.
"Get out of my way." Her voice—lower than I remember, rougher at the edges—sends electricity down my spine.
"That's not very polite." I lean against the wall, deliberately casual despite the chaos erupting inside me. "Didn't anyone teach you manners?"
"I save my manners for people who deserve them." Her voice could freeze hell. She tries to step around me again, but I shift, maintaining the barrier of my body.
The emergency exit lights cast red shadows across her face, turning her hair to flame. This close, I can see the pulse jumping in her throat, the slight tremble in her hands. She's not as unaffected as she wants me to believe.
“Before I let you pass," I drawl, letting old bitterness seep through, "I should check my pockets. Wouldn't be the first time you took something that wasn't yours."
Color drains from her face. For a moment, I see her as that sixteen-year-old girl again, walking beside her grandmother as security escorts them from our mansion, shock written across her features. Then—
Crack.
Heat blooms across my cheek, but it's nothing compared to the inferno in her eyes.
"How dare you?" Her voice trembles with fury. "You entitled, arrogant—"
She raises her hand again, but I capture her wrist before she can land another blow. Pure instinct drives me—I don't recognize my own movements as I pivot, pinning her against the wall. Her captured wrist pressed above her head, our bodies a breath apart. The action shocks us both silent.
What the hell am I doing?
Bass thunders through the wall at her back, but it's nothing compared to the roar of blood in my ears. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, each breath bringing her closer. The scent of her—paint mixed with that watermelon—floods my senses, dragging up memories of stolen moments in the rose garden, of promises whispered against skin.
Her body feels both familiar and foreign against mine—the curves more defined than the girl I knew, but fitting against me with the same devastating perfection.
Electricity crackles where we touch, a current that has nothing to do with anger and everything to do with something I've spent fifteen years denying.
"Let. Me. Go." Each word drips venom, but I catch the slight tremor in her voice, the way her pupils dilate as her gaze drops briefly to my mouth.
"Make me." The challenge falls from my lips before I can stop it. This isn't me—I don't do this anymore. I don't let people get under my skin like this. But one look at her and I'm seventeen again, burning with emotions I can't control.
Her free hand presses against my chest, meant to push me away, but the contact sears through my shirt like a brand. Our eyes lock—forest green clashing with dark brown—and the air between us crackles with fifteen years of unspoken accusations.
"You lost the right to touch me the day you stood there and did nothing." Her words are quiet, deadly. They hit their mark with surgical precision.
I lean closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in her irises that I'd almost forgotten. "Is that what you tell yourself? That I'm the villain in your story?"
"You're nothing in my story." But the slight catch in her breath betrays her.
My fingers flex around her wrist, feeling her pulse race beneath my grip. Emergency lights cast shadows across her face, dancing in the gold flecks of her eyes. One of us should move. Step back. Break whatever this is before it combusts.
Neither of us does.
"You know what I remember?" My voice drops lower, darker. "I remember seeing security footage of you taking my mother's jewelry from her jewelry box. Care to explain that?"
Her whole body goes rigid against mine, the warmth of her turning to ice. "I know what it looked like, but—" Her voice shakes. "Your family—"
"My family what?" I cut in, arrogance coating my words like honey-covered thorns. "Protected what was theirs? Caught a thief? Or are we remembering things differently?"
Your parents..." she starts, then stops and looks at me in a way that makes me step back and release her wrist.
"You really believe it, don't you?" she whispers, and there's something like dawning horror in her voice. "You actually believe—"
