She dropped the jacket onto the bed and padded to the kitchen, barefoot, still wrapped in the faint disorientation that clung to her like smoke.

Coffee. That was the plan. Something hot and bitter and grounding.

The machine sputtered to life, but before the first drop hit the pot, a flash hit her ...

Her hands against tile.

The stall door never opened.

Not then. Not right away.

His voice had been right at her ear. “No one else gets this.”

Her knees had trembled.

She had said his name like it was the only thing she could say.

Then gone. Black.

The coffee burned her fingers. She hadn’t realized she’d gripped the side of the mug too hard.

She backed away, set it down.

~ ~ ~

In the shower, it happened again.

Water slid over her skin, but her mind offered a different sensation ... his breath hot against the back of her neck, the sound of his belt unfastening, the way his hand had curled at her hip like a command.

Her eyes flew open. Steam blurred the mirror. Her pulse was racing again.

What did we do?

She sat on the floor later, towel knotted tight across her chest, hair wet and clinging to her shoulders.

Another flash.

His mouth had found her shoulder.

Then her wrist.

Then lower.

Every time she tried to speak, he’d stopped her with a kiss ... deep, greedy, like he needed her quiet.

“You’ll remember this,” he’d said.

But she hadn’t. Not all of it. Just these broken pieces.

And it wasn’t fear that made her shake.

It was hunger.

That terrible, perfect craving that came from knowing something had touched you so deeply your body couldn’t let it go ... even when your mind couldn’t catch it.

She sat motionless on the floor, water droplets sliding down her arms, the room silent except for the soft ticking of the wall clock and her own uneven breath.

Her phone buzzed again. She didn’t look.

The memory hit her like a spark catching flame. Not a blurred fragment this time ... this one came whole.

His voice. Quiet. Steady. Dangerous.

“If you ask me to stop, I will.”

She hadn’t.

She remembered that clearly now.

She had looked at him ... dazed, aching ... and whispered something she barely remembered saying.

“Don’t stop. Even if I forget this… don’t stop.”

And then, the other thing.

What he said when it was over.

When she was cradled in the crook of his arm, skin damp with sweat, her voice gone.

He had murmured it against her hair like a truth he couldn’t unsay.

“You ruin me.”

Three words.

She hadn’t dreamt them.

They were real.

Her heart stuttered in her chest.

She pulled the towel tighter around herself as if it could hold in everything she now remembered ... the ache, the heat, the weight of his body, the fact that he hadn’t just touched her… he had admitted something.

And now she knew.

She remembered it all.