His apartment wasn't what I expected.
After everything, the control, the violence, the looming secrets, it was quiet. Too quiet. Not cold, exactly, but calculated. As if every piece of furniture had been chosen to say nothing. Dark leather couch. Steel-legged chairs. Industrial shelves lined with blank books and meaningless trinkets. A few abstract paintings stretched across the walls, smears of color pretending to be something more. No photos. No clutter. No warmth.
James opened the door, let me in without a word, and locked it behind us. He didn't touch me. He didn't need to. The presence of his hand earlier, wrapped around my wrist as we vanished into the alley, still pulsed along my skin.
I shrugged out of my coat, fingers slow and stiff, and draped it over the arm of the couch. My eyes caught on the necklace still resting against my collarbone. The thread was thin. Too delicate to carry the weight of what it meant. Still, it marked me. Claimed me.
He moved to a small bar in the corner and poured something amber into two glasses. He handed one to me.
I took it.
The burn of it reached my stomach and settled like a warning.
He finally spoke. "Bathroom's down the hall. First door on the left."
I stared at him.
"You should shower," he added, softer this time. "You've had a day."
I swallowed what was left in the glass. "So have you."
No reply. Just that quiet intensity again. Watching me like he was waiting for the floor to collapse beneath us.
The bathroom was clean. Too clean. White tile, chrome fixtures, barely any products. A single folded towel sat waiting. I turned on the water and stepped in before it even warmed. I didn't want warmth. I wanted pressure. Scrubbing. Silence. Something to peel off the layers of what I'd seen, what I'd felt, what I couldn't yet name.
When I stepped out, steam clung to the mirror and my breath felt sharper. I didn't touch the necklace. Didn't even look at it.
Back in the main room, James was exactly where I'd left him, glass untouched, posture carved from stone. But his eyes tracked me as I stepped barefoot across the hardwood floor, towel knotted high on my chest. I knew what I looked like: damp, shaken, bared down to skin and instinct.
"You're trembling," he said, voice low.
"I'm not scared."
"I didn't say you were."
I took a step toward him. Then another.
His gaze dropped. Traveled slowly over me.
I stopped just in front of him. Close enough to smell the sharp smoke of his drink.
His fingers found the edge of the towel and paused. "You sure?"
I nodded. "I want you."
He stood, deliberate and calm.
The towel slipped.
He didn't drag me. Didn't shove or pin or grip.
He guided.
Step by step, until my legs hit something low and firm, an upholstered bench at the foot of his bed.
He sat. Pulled me gently into his lap.
Skin to skin.
Breath to breath.
"You don't know who I've been," he murmured into the shell of my ear.
"Then show me who you are now."
His hand slid down my spine.
His other found my hip.
He didn't rush. Not this time. He moved like I was something valuable. Like if he went too fast, I'd vanish. His lips found my neck, and I arched, melting under the pressure of his mouth. My thighs tensed as he lifted me, positioned me, and entered me in one slow, unrelenting motion.
I gasped.
My hands clutched his shoulders, digging in.
Every motion after that was deliberate. Deep. Drawn out. Like he was imprinting himself on every nerve.
His fingers found that point between us, the one that unraveled me. Slow, steady circles that turned breath into moans, moans into shudders.
When I came, it wasn't a spark.
It was a detonation.
And still he held me.
Still he moved.
He came a moment later, with a breathless exhale that fogged the skin at my shoulder.
We didn't speak.
Didn't shift.
His arms wrapped around me like armor. Like I was a thing that needed protecting.
"You're in this now," he whispered.
I laid my head on his shoulder.
"I always was."
He didn't sleep.
I could feel it. Even as I curled tighter against him, my cheek pressed to his chest, his breath never slowed. His hand stayed firm at my waist, fingers occasionally tightening, like he was anchoring me, or himself.
When I finally stirred, the morning light was just beginning to seep between the gaps in the blackout curtains. Still dim, but undeniable.
I shifted, eyelids heavy, body sore in places that felt more claimed than used. My voice rasped against his skin. "Do you ever sleep?"
James didn't answer right away. His fingers traced lazy lines along the ridge of my hip.
"Not easily," he said.
"Because of me?"
"Because of everything."
There was a quiet, then his lips brushed my temple.
"But you help."
I didn't say anything. Just buried myself deeper into the crook of his arm.
Eventually, I pulled away and padded toward the kitchen in one of his shirts. It hung too big on me, the sleeves nearly swallowing my hands, the hem brushing my thighs. I didn't mind. It felt like armor. Or maybe a flag.
The kitchen was just as sterile as the rest of the apartment. Expensive machines. Perfect surfaces. No signs of regular use. I boiled water for tea and leaned on the counter, trying not to imagine how many women had stood in this exact spot before me.
He came in behind me.
Wrapped his arms around my waist. Buried his face in my neck.
"You're quiet," he murmured.
"I'm trying not to fall apart."
His grip tightened. "Then let me help."
I turned to face him.
"Tell me something real," I said. "About you."
James hesitated. Just a flicker, but it was enough.
"I used to be a prosecutor," he said.
My eyebrows lifted.
He gave a faint smile. "Before everything changed."
"Why did you stop?"
"Because I started breaking the rules I used to enforce."
I searched his face.
"And now?"
"Now I keep my own rules."
He kissed me before I could ask more.
A deep, grounding kiss that didn't ask permission.
When he pulled away, his eyes were darker.
"Stay today," he said.
I hesitated.
His hand found the back of my neck, thumb brushing where the thread still hung.
"Please."
I stayed.
The day passed in fragments.
We stayed in the apartment, wrapped in quiet tension that felt more like peace than danger. James worked from his laptop at the dining table, headphones in, eyes narrowed. I drifted between reading, watching the light move across the walls, and sneaking glances at him when he wasn't looking.
Every so often, he'd glance up and catch me. And every time, that look would pass between us. The one that said he saw me. That he remembered every inch of me beneath his hands.
I made us something simple for lunch, toast and eggs, brewed tea again. He didn't complain. Just accepted it, as if the gesture itself meant more than the food.
Late in the afternoon, he called someone. I couldn't hear the full conversation, but I caught a few clipped words:
"Handle it." "No, not here." "If they come near her again, they don't walk away."
My skin prickled.
When he hung up, his jaw was tight. I didn't ask.
He came to me later, pulled me into his lap on the couch like I was a necessary ritual. We didn't speak. He just held me there, hand stroking my thigh in slow, rhythmic circles until my breath matched his.
I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep until he was carrying me to bed.
I didn't fight it.
I woke to the smell of rain.
Not real rain, but that damp metallic scent that comes from water against concrete, drifting in through the cracked window. The kind of morning that feels more like a secret than a start.
James was already up.
I found him in the living room, shirtless, stretching out a tight shoulder. Scars crossed his back, subtle but unmistakable, like whispers of a story never told.
He didn't notice me at first.
But when he did, his expression softened.
"Coffee's on."
I walked to him, still in his shirt, and slid my arms around his waist. Rested my cheek between his shoulder blades.
"Tell me about these," I murmured.
He didn't pull away. Just stood still for a long moment.
"Bad choices," he said finally. "Some mine. Some someone else's."
"You ever going to tell me who's looking for you?"
James turned.
Kissed my forehead.
"When you're ready to hear it."
We stayed like that for a long time.
And for the first time in too long, I didn't feel like a girl unraveling.
I felt like something held together.
Even if only for now.