Aria woke in a sweat.Her sheets clung damp to her skin, twisted around her legs as if they’d tried to restrain her in sleep. Her hair stuck to her temples, damp and wild. The room was thick with heat despite the cold drafts that usually seeped through the cracks in the old window.

She dragged in a shaky breath, her chest rising and falling too fast.

It hadn’t been just a dream.

It had been him.

Her thighs still trembled. Her lips parted like she’d been whispering his name in the dark.

Damian.

She closed her eyes, but the images came rushing back, sharper than reality. In the dream, he hadn’t been sitting in the shadows, silent and terrifying, like he always did. No. He had been closer. Too close.

His hands—those lethal hands she’d seen wrap around a man’s throat and end his life—had been on her skin. Hard palms trailing down her arms, locking at her waist, sliding lower. His mouth had hovered over hers, hot breath mixing with her own until she’d felt dizzy.

And instead of recoiling, instead of screaming the way her body sometimes still did when a man came too near… she had leaned in.

She had wanted it.

Welcomed it.

Craved it.

The shame of it burned hotter than the dream itself.

Her breath hitched as she rolled onto her side, dragging a pillow against her stomach as if it could shield her from the memory.

“Get it together,” she muttered through clenched teeth.

Her voice cracked. Weak.

At the foot of the bed, the soft thump of paws broke the silence. One of her dogs—a mutt with too-big ears and soulful eyes—climbed up and nudged her hand with his wet nose. She let him. She needed it. Warmth. Loyalty. The only kind of love she trusted, because it never demanded anything back.

She stroked his fur until her breathing steadied. The familiar weight of both dogs curled against her legs was the anchor she needed. But even as they grounded her, his face wouldn’t leave her mind.

Damian.

Broad shoulders. Dark eyes sharp enough to slice through steel. That stillness that wasn’t peace but a warning, a predator coiled and waiting.

And the heat of his skin beneath her hand—just once, in the club, when she’d done the unthinkable.

She pressed her palms to her face and let out a ragged laugh that tasted like salt. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

Because here she was, trembling like a junkie—except it wasn’t powder or pills she craved. It was him. The danger. The promise of ruin in his silence.

She pushed herself out of bed, bare feet hitting the cold floor, and padded toward the window. The apartment was a mess. Empty bottles lined the counter. Pill vials, some crushed underfoot, glittered faintly in the neon spill from outside. Her past mistakes littered every surface, ghosts she couldn’t sweep away.

She paused at the window, fingers gripping the blinds. She told herself she just needed air. To see the city breathing outside. To remind herself that the world was bigger than her obsession.

But when she pulled the blinds apart, her heart slammed into her throat.

He was there.

Damian.

Leaning against the lamppost across the street, one hand buried in the pocket of his dark jacket, the other holding a cigarette. Smoke curled around his face, the orange flare of the ember briefly lighting the hard cut of his jaw. His head tilted up slightly. His eyes she knew they were on her. Even from this distance, she felt them pin her like a butterfly beneath glass.

For a heartbeat, she thought she was hallucinating. Another fever dream bleeding into waking. But then he exhaled, and the smoke carried across the street like proof.

He was real. He was watching.

Her breath fogged the glass. Without realizing it, her hand lifted to the windowpane, as if touching the cold barrier might bridge the space between them. Every instinct screamed at her to close the blinds, to disappear. But another voice, louder and far more dangerous, whispered: Stay. Let him look.

Her chest tightened. Her thighs clenched. Heat curled in her belly even as shame pressed down hard.

The dogs stirred, restless, sensing her tension. One barked, sharp and sudden.

She flinched. Her gaze snapped back to the street.

But he was gone.

Just like that.

The lamppost stood empty, the pavement slick with rain, the silence pressing in againAria’s forehead dropped to the glass, her skin cooling against it. “God,” she whispered, though she didn’t know if it was a prayer or a curse.

She told herself she had imagined it. That she was slipping, letting exhaustion and cravings paint monsters in the shadows. But then the faint scent of smoke drifted through the cracked glass, clinging to the night air.

It was real.

He had been there.

Her pulse wouldn’t slow, no matter how tightly she hugged herself. Because buried under the fear, beneath the shame and the guilt, a dangerous truth was spreading like wildfire in her chest.

She didn’t just fear him.

She didn’t just crave the oblivion he represented.

She wanted him to come back.