Page 55 of Gatsby's Starlet
The night felt calmer alone with him, and I stayed close to him as we walked up to my door, not because I needed to butbecause I wanted to, because something about being near him made everything feel… right.
I turned when we reached the door, my hand brushing his like I wasn’t ready for the moment to end, like if I let it go too quickly everything bad would come rushing back in to take its place.
“Tonight was nice,” I said, my voice softer now, more honest than it had been all night.
“It was,” he said, and the way he looked at me made something in my chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
There was a pause then, not awkward, not forced, just something that lingered between us like it was waiting to be decided, and before I could think better of it, before I could talk myself out of it, I stepped closer.
I didn’t plan it.
Didn’t give myself time.
I just did it.
His hand came up to my jaw, firmer this time, his grip settling in with quiet certainty as his thumb pressed just enough to tilt my face back, not forcing it but guiding it, like he already knew I’d follow, like he didn’t need to ask.
And the way his touch lingered there for half a second longer than necessary, the slow drag of his thumb against my skin, sent something hot and immediate through me, something that made my breath catch before I could steady it.
He noticed.
I felt it in the slight shift of his fingers, the way his grip tightened just enough to hold me in place as he closed the distance without breaking eye contact, not rushed, not hesitant—just deliberate.
When his mouth met mine, it wasn’t soft.
It was heat and pressure and intent all at once, and the small sound that slipped out of me, barely there, more breath than anything, seemed to change something in him, because his hold adjusted instantly, pulling me a fraction closer as the kiss deepened, like he’d been waiting for that, like he knew exactly what to do with it.
Every reaction I gave him, he answered.
The hitch in my breath, the way I leaned in instead of away, the way my fingers curled under his shirt and held there, he felt all of it, responded to all of it, the kiss shifting in small, precise ways that made it impossible to ignore how aware he was, how in control of the pace he stayed even as it edged closer to something rougher.
Not uncontrolled.
But close enough that I could feel the tension of it, the restraint sitting just under the surface in the way his thumb pressed a little firmer at my jaw, in the way he didn’t let the space between us open again once it closed.
And it pulled me in faster because of it.
The air between us turned thick, electric, charged with something that made my lungs forget how to work. His mouth never broke from mine, but the kiss shifted, deepened, became less about coaxing and more about claiming. His hand slid from my jaw, fingers trailing down the side of my neck, leaving a trail of fire in their wake, and when his palm flattened against my collarbone, I felt the heat of his skin like a brand.
I gasped against his lips, and he swallowed the sound, using the moment to tilt my head back further, to press harder, to take more. The arm around my waist cinched tight, pulling me flush against him.
My grip tightened without me realizing, my body already responding, already matching him even as he set the rhythm, even as he kept control of it, and I felt that line blur completely,the one I’d been holding onto all night, the one that said I should stop, should think, should… but I didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Because the way he held me there, the way he moved like he understood exactly what he was doing to me, made it too easy to let go of all of that, too easy to just feel it instead.
Just him, close, steady, magnetic in a way that didn’t leave space for anything else.
And for those stretched, breathless seconds, I let myself get pulled under it completely, let him read every reaction, let him answer it, let him take it exactly where he wanted it to go.
Let myself forgot Drago. Forgot Kane. Forgot everything I’d agreed to.
It was just him.
Just this.
Just something that felt right and so perfect.
