Lena Pov:

Lena snapped awake, her cheeks burning and heart thumping wildly. The sheets, damp and twisted, clung to her skin. Eli’s name lingered in her thoughts, the dream too real, too intense. Alone in her silent apartment, she exhaled, relieved her neighbor—Eli, of all people, couldn’t hear her restless stirring. She buried her face in her pillow, mortified.

The first time she really saw him, she was pretending to sketch sunflowers and actually watching him through her window.

Eli, her neighbor from 3B, stood barefoot on his balcony, shirt discarded somewhere out of view, wrestling with a string of fairy lights that refused to cooperate.

Sweat traced a slow path down the hollow of his throat, catching the late afternoon sun like liquid gold. Lena told herself she was just observing light and shadow. Anatomy studies. Anything but the truth: she’d been stealing glances at him for weeks.

Since the first day he arrived at their neighborhood. Since the first day Lena set her eyes on him. The world seemed to hold its breath. Lena usually thought of him, his ocean eyes, that killer abs, every damn thing about him.

Lena wasn’t usually like this. She wasn’t the kind to have a sexual fantasy about a guy. She’d always been the quiet, observant, and introverted type.

But not anymore. Lately, she found herself watching porn. Yes, porn. Something she never thought she could do in her twenty-eight years.

What use was porn? Watching others have sex, live their wildest fantasies, do so many irritating things.

Now, she was the one glued to her phone every day, watching porn. Not just watching, but imagining Eli on top of her. His weight on her body, his jasmine scent on her, his ocean eyes locked on hers, those big hands cupping her breasts.

She’d always moan, always dream about him. Lena once had a wet dream about him.

Then, as if sensing her stare, he turned. Their eyes locked across the narrow gap between their buildings. Lena’s pencil snapped in her hand.

He smiled, just a flicker at the corner of his mouth, and she felt it everywhere.

She ducked behind her sketchbook like a teenager caught passing notes in class.

Ridiculous. She was twenty-eight, not sixteen. But something about him, the quiet confidence in his posture, the way his dark curls clung to his temples, made her pulse skip like she’d forgotten how to be a grown-up.

They’d exchanged polite nods in the hallway before, maybe a mumbled “good morning” when they crossed paths at the mailboxes. But that was it. No names, no real conversation. Just two people orbiting the same building, careful not to collide.

Until tonight.

She heard his door open down the hall an hour later. She was pacing her tiny living room, still flustered, when she saw him heading toward the stairs, a canvas tote slung over his shoulder. Lena grabbed her own keys, suddenly desperate for air, and stepped into the hallway just as he turned the corner.

They nearly crashed into each other.

“Shit… sorry!” he said, steadying Lena with a hand on her elbow. His touch was warm, calloused. Electric.

“No, it’s my fault,” Lena stammered, pulling back too fast. “I wasn’t looking.”

He tilted his head, studying her. “Lena, right? From 3A?”

Lena blinked. “You know my name?”

A slow grin spread across his face. “You left your name on a package once. And… I pay attention.”

Lena’s cheeks burned. “Oh.”

Silence stretched, thick and humming. She noticed the faint scent of sawdust and bergamot clinging to him. Noticed the way his eyes held hers like he wasn’t in a hurry to look away.

“I’m Eli,” he said softly.

“I know,” Lena admitted. He laughed, low, warm, and the sound curled around Lena like an invitation.

Lena walked downstairs in a daze, heart hammering against her ribs. By the time she got back upstairs, he was gone. But the imprint of his hand on her skin stayed.

And so did the thought: she was in trouble.

Lena slumped on her bed as soon as she got upstairs, her heart hammering so fast that she could hear the sound. Her cheeks flushed, exposing the heat curling up her chest. She touched her cheeks, but it did nothing to melt the fire she was feeling.

She could still feel the way her cheeks flushed when he called her name.

She couldn’t shake the way his eyes locked on hers, the faint brush of their skins, which sent a deadly sensation through her. She swallowed hard.

“Get yourself together, Lena,” she muttered under her breath, reminding herself that she was a grown-up, not some young teenage girl navigating her sex life. She was twenty-eight, and she needed to think and behave like one. She couldn’t let this little encounter mess with her mind.

But yet, she couldn’t stop replaying his voice in her mind. Oh, how good it would sound in her ear, whispering things that might be the death of her.

She had spoken to so many guys, held countless conversations with them, locked eyes a few times, brushed skin with some. She couldn’t let this little one mess with her.

Lena remembered how flustered she was when he said her name, and how she admitted she knew his. She didn’t know what part of her made her say that out loud.

“Urghh,” Lena kicked her feet in the air. She should have said something, anything, maybe asked him to join her for dinner or picked up a conversation, but instead, she had run out like a fool. Like a child caught stealing a doll.

Lena exhaled, biting the inside of her cheeks.

She opened her laptop and browsed for xxx videos. Lena needed to calm this burning sensation she was feeling. This fire, this heat curling up her chest, disrupting her mind.

She clicked on a video of a woman with big tits and glasses. Her breast stood firm, as she paraded them. The man had a long dick. He started rubbing his cap gently, signalling to the girl to kneel before him. She obeyed, looking up at him like a puppy. He caressed her hair as if he was caressing a puppy. The lady licked her lips, biting them, her eyes flickering to his dick, impatience eating her up. Her eyes are full of hunger and desire.

She felt her knees go weak. Her thighs tightened, her nipples tightened too. Her mind trailed off. She imagined Eli as the man, and her as the good girl kneeling before him. She dipped her fingers into her pussy, and she was already wet. She was wet as fuck. She dipped two fingers in, savouring the moment, cupping her breast with her left hand, touching the tip of her nipples gently, before twisting them hard, sending shivers down her spine.

And as this went on, she kept imagining Eli with her.