The warmth of his body had long since faded, yet the memory lingered, a silent echo in the sheets, in the pervasive quiet. The bed beside me lay empty, the cotton cool beneath my fingertips, but his scent, dark, earthy, unmistakably masculine, still clung to the air. His gaze from the night before haunted me: possessive, unreadable, yet carrying a vulnerability that unsettled more than it comforted. Today, incredibly, marked our first official date. A surreal notion, considering he had already ...