Time spent with Linda was never enough.
Never would be.
Some nights the fantasy hit like a drug: torch the schedule, burn the calendar down to ash, and just… disappear into her. Days bleeding into nights of lazy cuddles that made the sunrise feel optional.
Making love until "enough" became a punchline nobody remembered.
Letting empires collapse, enemies queue up for their turn at vengeance, the whole planet spin off its axis into convenient oblivion—while I stayed buried in her warmth, pretending I was still just the scrawny kid who once hid behind her legs when the landlord knocked too loud.
But heroes keep office hours.
Monsters keep scorecards.
Paris was waiting like a diamond-studded guillotine, all sparkle and inevitability. I'd arrive there as Eros—ghost in the machine, untouchable—while the world tuned in to watch Peter Carter play dramatic ICU chess with death under a very polite CIA security blanket.
