Chapter Text
~
The willow branches sway like they’re breathing, silvered by moonlight. Isabel sits beneath them, her bare feet brushing the cool grass, her pulse steady only because his hand is wrapped around hers.
The boy beside her leans in and presses a kiss to her cheek- soft, certain, as if he’s done it a thousand times. As if he’ll do it a thousand more.
The night is quiet except for the river and their intertwined breaths.
“Promise we’ll always meet here,” he murmurs, forehead brushing hers, voice low enough to feel instead of hear.
Isabel closes her eyes. The moment tastes like summer, like forever.
“In every lifetime,” she whispers back.
He kisses her, and the world tilts- the willow spinning, the moon smearing into white, her heart thrumming against his.
And then-
she’s running.
The sky has cracked open. Lanterns flicker in the distance. Her lungs burn as she tears through the field, the white lace gown clutching at her legs, snagging on thorns, slowing her down. She gathers the skirts into her fists but it isn’t enough. The fabric fights her.
The boy is beside her again, breathless, desperate, fingers linking with hers.
“Faster, my love!” he shouts, pulling her forward.
Her feet stumble.
The earth rises up.
She falls.
Blackness rushes toward her, soft at first- then merciless.
~
Belly wakes up gasping.
Her body jerks upright before her mind can catch up, fingers clawing at the sheets, chest rising too fast, too sharp. For a moment she can’t see the room at all- only the ghost of moonlight on water, the whisper of willow branches, a hand slipping from hers-
Then the darkness of her bedroom settles back into place around her.
She isn’t running.
She isn’t falling.
But her heart doesn’t know that.
It slams against her ribs, wild and terrified, as if trying to outrun a fate she can’t name. Belly presses her palm to her sternum, warm skin trembling beneath her touch. She sucks in air- slow, then slower- trying to anchor herself to her surroundings.
The dream again.
The same one.
Always the same one.
Some nights it’s soft- just a boy’s laugh, a kiss on her cheek, the brush of leaves like fingertips.
Other nights it turns and breaks her open- running, falling, the sound of someone shouting her name like a prayer begging not to become a goodbye.
Tonight was both.
Tonight leaves her shaking.
Tears sting behind her eyes, unwanted but inevitable. She blinks hard, swallowing the ache. It does nothing. The ache sits deep- low, heavy, ancient- older than she is, older than she can justify.
She forces herself to breathe.
In.
Hold.
Out.
Eventually her body listens. Her heart quiets from frantic to bruised.
She swings her legs out of bed. The hardwood is cold beneath her feet, grounding her in a way nothing else does. Her movements feel sluggish, like she’s wading through memory-heavy water.
She showers until steam blurs the mirror. She lets the water beat against her neck, her back, her wrists, as if it can wash away the last clinging seconds of the dream.
It doesn’t.
She drinks coffee in her tiny kitchen, mug warm between both hands. Through the window the city is still waking- streetlights humming, early traffic sighing below. Belly stares into the rising steam, waiting for her pulse to settle completely.
It never fully does.
She sits at her little table, opens her laptop, and tries- again- to write.
The cursor blinks.
And blinks.
And blinks.
An accusing heartbeat.
Her first book feels like a lifetime ago- written in a rush of inspiration she hasn’t felt since. A success that everyone assumed she could replicate. A miracle she’s terrified she only had once.
She types a line.
Hates it. Deletes it. She tries another. Deletes faster.
The silence in her apartment thickens until her phone vibrates, startling her.
Taylor.
Belly exhales, already imagining the scolding waiting on the other side, but she answers anyway.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Taylor begins- no hello, no pause, just full throttle- but her voice is warm beneath the exasperation. “But if you’re still in bed, I swear I’m coming over with a megaphone.”
Belly’s laugh is small, scraped raw from sleep. “I’m up.”
“Are you writing? Or are you doing that thing where you open the document and look at it like it personally wronged you?”
“I’m… attempting.”
There’s a beat of silence. The soft kind. The kind where Taylor shifts from editor to best friend.
“Hey,” she says gently. “You’re not failing. You’re tired. And you need a reset. Which is why”- her tone brightens again- “I booked you a one-week writers retreat in Boston, and your flight leaves tomorrow morning, and I’m not accepting arguments.”
“Taylor-”
“Nope. Don’t even try it. This is me loving you aggressively.”
Despite herself, Belly smiles. “I’ve never even been to Boston.”
“Well, maybe it’s time,” Taylor says, softer now. “Maybe something good is waiting for you there.”
The words land somewhere deep in Belly’s chest.
Strange.
Warm.
Pulling.
Like the echo of a promise she doesn’t remember making.
She swallows. “Okay. I’ll go.”
“You’d better. And Belly?” Taylor pauses. “You’re going to be okay. I mean it.”
“I know,” she whispers, even though she doesn’t.
They hang up.
The apartment feels different now- not lighter, but… buzzing. As if the dream left a doorway open somewhere inside her. As if Boston is not a retreat but a summons.
Belly closes her laptop.
For the first time in months, she doesn’t feel stuck.
Something is tugging her east, soft as a whisper, steady as a pulse, familiar as a hand once held in another lifetime.
***
The elevator doors are just about to close when Belly slips her hand between them. They jolt open again with a soft metallic sigh. She steps inside, smoothing her hair, adjusting the strap of her bag, trying to look less like someone who barely slept.
She presses the button for the sixth floor.
A hand appears between the doors.
The elevator opens again.
She looks up.
And the world… stills.
A man steps inside- tall, sharp-shouldered. He’s dressed simply- dark jeans, a charcoal shirt, a jacket unzipped just enough to show the edge of a Stanford logo on his shirt. He carries a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, his hair is slightly mussed as if he pushed his hands through it one too many times.
He steps into the elevator, nods a quiet apology for stopping the doors. Belly nods back.
Something catches in her throat.
She turns just enough and their eyes meet for a fraction of a second. Something drops in her stomach. Something hot sparks up her spine. Something ancient opens inside her ribcage like a door.
He hits the button for the eighth floor.
Silence fills the elevator, thick as wool.
He glances at her again.
She looks away too quickly, heat rising in her cheeks, unsure why her pulse stutters like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t.
The elevator hums upward. The numbers climb. Her breathing is too loud in her own ears. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him shift his weight, hands brushing his pockets
The air between them feels charged.
Static.
Heavy with… something?
But they’ve never met. She’s sure they haven’t. She would remember someone like him.
The elevator jolts lightly at the fourth floor. Belly reaches for the railing to steady herself. His hand moves at the same moment, reaching for balance, and their fingers graze.
Barely. A whisper of contact. But Belly feels it like a lightning strike.
Heat flashes up her wrist. Her heart kicks hard against her ribs, breath catching, a soft gasp slipping out before she can stop it.
She stills.
It’s ridiculous.
It’s nothing.
But her chest tightens painfully, a phantom ache blooming beneath her sternum, so familiar she nearly doubles over.
He inhales sharply.
The elevator dings.
The doors open on the sixth floor. Belly steps out on unsteady legs, forcing herself to walk, not run, down the hallway. She doesn’t look back.
She tells herself not to look back.
But just before she turns the corner, she does. He’s still inside the elevator. Still watching her.
The doors close between them.
And Belly stands there with her pulse trembling, breath thin, certain of exactly one thing:
She knows him.
She just has no idea how.
***
The hotel lounge is quieter than she expected for early noon- soft jazz humming, the smell of roasted coffee settling into the warm air, writers murmuring over half-finished drafts. Belly sets her laptop on the small table, cracks her knuckles, and tries- again- to believe she can do this.
The group critique session earlier had actually gone… well. Supportive. Insightful. Encouraging. It should’ve energized her. Should’ve put her in the right headspace.
Except she’s staring at a blank page.
Again.
The cursor blinks at her like it’s mocking her.
She rubs her temple, exhales, lifts her hands to the keyboard- and stops.
A shift in the air. Small but undeniable. Like the room realigns itself around a new center of gravity. She feels him before she sees him. Her stomach drops, a traitor. Her heart kicks once, hard.
Then-
He slides into the chair across from her.
The man from the elevator.
Belly’s breath snags. Heat blooms across her cheeks before she can control it.
Up close, he’s… worse.
Better.
Achingly handsome in a way that makes her chest feel too tight. Sun bleached hair still a little messy, jaw shadowed from a day he hasn’t bothered to tame, eyes impossibly steady as they land on her.
“Hi,” he says, voice low, warm. “Mind if I sit here? All the seats are taken.”
She glances around. There are, in fact, several empty seats. But her throat is dry and her brain misfires, so she nods anyway.
Twice.
“Sure,” she manages, clearing her throat like that’ll help.
He offers a small, almost shy smile, then pulls out his own laptop. He sits, opens it, stares at the screen.
Belly tries to write.
Her eyes keep darting to him- quick glances she pretends are accidental, pretending she isn’t memorizing the slope of his nose, the way he presses his lips together when he’s thinking, the quiet intensity in his posture.
He’s looking at her too.
Not constantly. Not boldly. But enough. Enough to make her fingers hover uselessly over the keys. Enough to make heat crawl up her neck. Enough to make her want to look and never look away.
It’s maddening.
He sighs suddenly, loud enough to break the spell.
Belly jumps a little.
He shifts in his chair, turning toward her, brows pulling together in a soft question. “This might sound crazy,” he says, voice softer now, “but… have we met before?”
Her pulse stutters.
So she’s not imagining it.
Belly shakes her head, attempts a laugh that comes out too thin. “I don’t think so.”
He hums- a low sound that ripples down her spine- before extending his hand across the table. “Conrad Fisher.”
The name hits her like a dropped stone.
She knows that name.
She’s sure she knows that name.
But from where?
Her hand lifts before she decides to take it.
“Belly- uh, Isabel Conklin.”
Her much smaller hand fits into his. And the moment their skin meets-
A jolt. Sharp. Electric. So sudden she nearly gasps aloud.
A willow tree. Moonlight through leaves. Her own laugh, young and breathless. A boy’s hand on her cheek.
Belly yanks her hand back, breath trembling.
Conrad doesn’t miss it. He tilts his head slightly, eyes narrowing- attentive.
“Wait,” he says slowly, “Isabel Conklin… as in the writer?”
Belly blinks, heat rising in her cheeks again. “Uh- wait, you… you know me?”
A faint smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, gentler than she expects. “I read your book,” he says. “I loved it.”
The words hit her in the softest place.
“It helped me through a very difficult time,” he adds, eyes steady on hers, the weight of that honesty soft but unmistakable.
Her breath loosens, something warm blooming beneath her ribs.
It’s a book about a girl losing her father. It was based on her losing her grandmother. It was the first big loss she ever understood.
She lifts her gaze to him, softened. “I’m glad it helped.”
He nods once, throat working. Something flickers across his face- a shadow, a memory- but it fades before she can read it.
He shifts, gestures toward her laptop. “Are you working on another one?”
Something in his voice- low, attentive, too gentle for a stranger- loosens the tight, aching knot she’s been carrying for months. She doesn’t know why, but she’s suddenly tempted to spill everything. The block that has hollowed her out. The words that won’t come. The fear she can’t name. Every place in her life that feels like it’s unraveling faster than she can hold together.
It rises inside her like a tide, this urge to hand him the pieces she’s been clutching in the dark.
And the terrifying part is the certainty that forms- quiet, instinctive- that if she did, he would listen. Really listen. He would take her trembling confession and steady it in his hands. He would make the world feel less sharp, less impossible.
The thought startles her with its intensity.
She chastises herself silently, sharply. She doesn’t even know this man. Not his history, not his habits, not the shape of his life.
But God, her heart leans toward him like it remembers something her mind has forgotten.
Belly’s laugh comes out thin. Bitter around the edges. “Trying to. It’s… not working.”
He looks at her, and something in his face make her continue.
“I’m here for a writers retreat,” she adds. “To, um, get unstuck.”
Conrad’s expression softens in a way that feels dangerously comforting. And before she can spill more she asks, softly, almost without meaning to, “What about you? What are you doing here?”
He pauses- just enough for her to feel the weight of whatever he isn’t saying. His shoulder lifts in a slow roll, the kind that looks practiced, like a body trying to loosen something it’s carried too long. “Visiting family.”
She waits. Something in her already knows there’s more.
He exhales, the corner of his mouth tugging. “I’m a resident doctor. On the West Coast.”
The words settle between them, warm and heavy. She imagines him in sterile hallways, sleepless nights, hands steady while his heart frays. It shouldn’t matter. She shouldn’t care. And yet-
“Then… why a hotel?” she asks before she can stop herself. “If you’re visiting family?”
His laugh escapes him in a surprised burst, rough and unguarded. The sound hits her like a touch- warm, disarming- and she hates how instantly she wants to hear it again.
“You’d understand if you ever met my brother and dad,” he says, shaking his head. “The thought of being in the same house as them for a week straight is- honestly? Terrifying.”
Belly laughs, real laughter this time- loose, unarmored, pulled from a place inside her she thought had gone quiet. “I get it. I can barely handle staying with my brother during the holidays. He’s so annoying.”
Conrad’s smile curves slow and soft, edged with tired affection and something lonelier tucked beneath it. “Mine is… a little evil,” he murmurs. “So for my own safety, I stay here and only meet them for dinners.”
The way he says it- dry, teasing- makes her laugh again. And the way he looks at her when she does, sends a subtle, devastating heat through her chest.
Not the electric jolt from before.
Something gentler.
A pull with gravity in it.
A familiarity she has no right to feel warming to life beneath her ribs, as if some part of her recognizes the shape of him long before her mind can.
Somehow, without either of them steering it, they slip into conversation.
About nothing in particular. About everything that matters. Words flowing between them like they’ve been doing this for years in some invisible place neither of them can name.
Belly keeps catching the edges of a strange, pulsing déjà vu- soft at first, then sharper, insistent. It makes no sense.
She has never met this man before. She knows that with absolute certainty. So why does she recognize him? The shape of his smile. The sound of his breath when he laughs through his nose. The way he tilts his head when he’s choosing his next word.
It’s unsettling.
And talking to him- God, it’s easy. As easy as breathing after months of feeling underwater. Her words loosen. Her smile slips out unguarded. Her laugh- real, warm, unforced- finds daylight for the first time in far too long.
He tells her he grew up in Boston, that the brickstone house his family still lives in is older than all of them put together. He tries to joke about avoiding it- about Jeremiah, about Adam- but the humor thins quickly, fragile around the edges.
Then quietly, he says, “It’s the house where my mom… lived her last days. Cancer. It’s hard to step inside without feeling like the walls are caving in.”
Something in Belly breaks open at that.
The way his jaw clenches, holding in more grief than the sentence can contain.
Before she can think- before she can even decide- her hand reaches across the table and wraps around his. Instinct. Impulse. Something older than both.
The moment their skin meets- the room blurs before her eyes.
A larger hand enveloping hers.
A boy laughing, head thrown back to the sky.
A kiss traded under moonlight, breathless.
Bodies tangled together in a river- warm skin on warm skin- water slipping over them like a blessing they weren’t meant to keep.
Her heart lurches. Her breath fractures. She yanks her hand away like the contact burned her.
“I’m… I’m sorry for your loss,” she gets out, voice thin but steady enough to pass.
He smiles- small, brave- but something rattles in his eyes. He looks as shaken as she feels.
Her phone rings, slicing through the moment. Belly jumps.
“Shit- my next session starts in ten minutes.” She scrambles, stuffing her notebook into her bag, closing her laptop with hands that refuse to stay still.
She rises, breath uneven. Looks at him one more time. “See you around… Conrad?”
His mouth curves, soft, almost reluctant. “Belly.”
And then she turns, walking away before she can think too much or feel too much or fall apart completely.
But she can feel his gaze on her back long after she’s gone.
~
Isabel is seven the first time she wanders too close to the boundary stream.
The tall grasses are higher than her waist, brushing her arms like they’re guiding her forward. She thinks she knows the path- she’s walked it with her brother before- but somehow it shifts, bends, leads her somewhere she doesn’t recognize.
The stream glitters ahead, wider than she’s ever seen it. Beautiful, but strange. She steps closer for a better look-
Her foot slips. A sharp sting. She tumbles to her knees, stone biting into her skin. Tears prick, hot and embarrassed.
She’s lost. Her knee throbs. And the sun is slipping lower.
Then-
A shadow moves across the water.
A boy steps onto the bank opposite her, older, taller, dirt smudged across one cheek like he’s spent the whole day outside. His hair falls into his eyes, he pushes it away with the back of his hand, studying her with a seriousness she’s never seen in another child.
“You’re hurt,” he says, voice quiet but sure.
Before she can answer, he crosses the stream in a confident series of steps, barefoot, knowing exactly which rocks will hold his weight. He kneels beside her, gentle fingers brushing the dirt from her scraped knee.
She sniffles.
He doesn’t tease her for crying. He doesn’t ask why she’s here. He just helps.
“We should clean it,” he decides, leading her to the water’s edge. He cups his hands, bringing cool water to her skin until the sting fades. Then he tears a strip from the hem of his own shirt- she gasps at the boldness- and ties it around her knee with careful fingers.
When he looks up, his eyes are soft. “You’ll be okay.”
He builds a small fire with hands that work fast, practiced. She watches, wide-eyed, as sparks catch and flame blooms. He spears a fish he caught earlier, roasts it over the fire, and offers her the first bite.
She’s never tasted anything so warm, so simple, so good.
“How do you know how to do all this?” she asks, voice hushed as if afraid to disturb the magic of the moment.
He shrugs, poking the fire with a stick. “My family trades across the seas. Ships, caravans, long journeys. You learn things.” He lifts his chin, a touch proud. “I’m independent.”
She doesn’t know the word yet, not really, but she likes the way it sounds in his mouth.
He stays with her until the sky turns gold and then bruised purple. Until shouting cuts through the trees. Until her father and the guards appear on the other side of the clearing- faces tight, angry, terrified.
Hands grab her arms.
She’s yanked away from the boy. Dragged through the tall grass. She twists back, reaching for him. But he stays at the edge of the clearing, eyes wide, still as stone as her father pulls her away.
They lock her in her room.
Her father yells.
Enemy boy. Forbidden. Dangerous. Never again.
Isabel doesn’t understand any of it. He wasn’t the enemy. He helped her. He was kind. His hands were careful. His smile- quiet, shy- lingers behind her eyes long after the door slams shut.
She spends a week staring out her window, watching in the direction where she knows the willow tree by the stream sways in the wind. Waiting. Wanting.
Then one dawn, unable to bear it any longer, she sneaks out.
Her heart pounds as she reaches the willow tree- unsure if he’ll come, if he even wants to see her.
But he’s already there.
Sitting under the canopy of leaves, back against the trunk, knees pulled up like he’s been waiting a long, long time.
When he spots her, he stands. And he smiles- a small, real smile, as if he’s relieved, as if something inside him fits back into place.
“Hi,” he says quietly.
Isabel steps toward him, her breath catching. She smiles back. And just like that- the world begins.
***
They sneak out every night after that, slipping through shadows and tall grass until they reach the willow tree near the stream.
Under its sweeping, green-gold canopy, the world is theirs alone.
They climb rocks slick with river mist, daring each other higher and higher. They chase fireflies at dusk, cupping the glowing creatures in their hands before letting them go again.
They trade treasures: shells, marbles, feathers, stones shaped like hearts. They whisper secrets and dreams they’ve never spoken to anyone else- hers about wanting to see the horizon beyond the estate walls, his about wanting to sail far enough that he finds new ones.
They race barefoot through the fields, grass brushing their ankles, laughter spilling behind them like ribbons.
It is the safest she has ever felt.
It is the freest he has ever been.
One night, after they’ve collapsed under the willow’s shade, the boy traces patterns on the dirt with a stick and says quietly, “Our families… they don’t get along.”
Isabel tilts her head, frowning. “Why?”
“They’re trade rivals,” he says, voice lower than usual. “Ships. Routes. Coin. Old anger no one remembers the beginning of.” He looks at her then, eyes darker than the stream’s depths. “You have to be careful. If they hear you were meeting me… or talking to me…” His jaw tightens. “They might harm you.”
She nods immediately. “Okay. I’ll be careful.”
He exhales, relief flickering across his face. “Promise?”
“I promise,” she whispers, pinky lifting. He hooks his with hers, sealing it in the only way children truly know how.
She keeps that promise. She is always careful. Because these stolen hours are everything to her.
She loves spending time with him- loves the way his voice softens when he explains something, loves how he teaches her things her tutors never would. How to track the direction of the wind. How to read the river’s current. How to tie a knot strong enough to hold a small boat steady.
Her maids call her lady Isabel and tell her to sit straight, to fold her hands, to not dirty her dresses.
He tells her she can do whatever she wants.
Climb trees. Wade rivers. Throw stones and chase stars and outrun the sun.
“You’re more than what they tell you to be,” he says, earnest and certain, dirt smudged across his cheek. “You’re… you.”
She doesn’t understand the fullness of his words yet- doesn’t understand how rare it is to be seen like this.
But she believes him.
Every time.
~
Belly doesn’t see him for the next two days.
She tells herself she isn’t looking. But her gaze drifts anyway- over the lobby couches, the lounge corners, the glass doors of the pool, the long hotel hallways that echo with footsteps not his.
Every time she doesn’t find him, something tugs low in her chest. A small, sharp ache. Ridiculous. Impossible.
How do you miss someone you barely know?
How do you feel the absence of a stranger?
And yet… she does.
On the third day, she gives up trying to force her creativity and lounges by the hotel pool instead. Her notebook rests beside her, untouched, mocking. The sun warms her skin, the water glitters, and she tries- tries so hard- to breathe out the tightness in her chest.
She should be writing. She should be working. She should be doing anything except thinking about him.
So naturally, that’s when she hears his voice.
“Mind if I join you?”
She opens her eyes.
Conrad stands there in a T-shirt and shorts, sunlight flickering across his shoulders, making his eyes look impossibly bright. He has that soft, hesitant smile she’s beginning to recognize- the one that hits her right in the center of her chest.
She smiles back before she can stop herself. “Sure.”
He settles on the lounge chair next to hers, stretching his legs out, one hand running absently through his hair. It’s painfully attractive. Painfully casual.
“Any luck writing?” he asks.
She groans. “None. Zero. I have this… idea, I think? But the words just won’t come. My brain is permanently fried I think.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” he says, turning his head toward her. The sunlight catches in his sea-green eyes, and for a moment she can’t think. “You probably just need the right inspiration.”
That’s what this retreat is supposed to be. Inspiration. It’s not working so far. She forces a smile.
“What about you?” she asks quickly. “Fun with your family?”
He snorts. “Absolutely not. Jere had a meltdown last night after Dad brought up his…” He waves a dismissive hand. “Academic detour.”
Belly laughs. “Jeremiah sounds… exciting.”
Conrad grins, bright and boyish. “He is. When he’s not being a little bitch.”
She laughs harder, a real sound, unguarded and warm.
Talking to him is like inhaling too deeply- too much oxygen, too suddenly. Her chest flutters. Her cheeks warm. Her whole body hums with something she refuses to name.
She slips into the pool to cool off.
He follows.
And suddenly they’re racing. Laughing. Splashing water at each other like children. Trying to dunk each other beneath the surface. Belly hasn’t felt this carefree in months- maybe years.
When they both slow, breathless, they drift toward the deep end- closer, closer still. Somehow, without either of them meaning to, his hand finds her waist beneath the water.
Her breath stops.
The world narrows to the press of his fingers, the heat of his touch, the unbearable closeness of his body.
Something settles between them- heavy, warm, fated.
Belly’s vision blurs-
a flash, hot and merciless, swallowing the pool and replacing it with moonlit water.
Her body- bare, weightless- gliding through a warm river that clings to her like silk. He emerges from the darkness, hair wet and falling into his eyes, his breath unsteady the moment he reaches her.
He presses her back against a sun-warmed rock, the river slipping around them, his hands finding her with a certainty that makes her whole body tremble.
His mouth finds hers- slow, desperate, ruining- kissing her until she can’t tell where the water ends and where her own want begins. Heat blooms low and sharp as he pulls her closer, closer.
Her legs wrap around him without thinking, without hesitation, without fear- the way he makes everything inside her spark and burn and open.
He guides them together, sliding into the place where she is all soft, wanting and aching-
Heat rushes through her so sharply she gasps- snapping back into the present.
Her heart is slamming. Her limbs shaking. Her cheeks burning. She ducks underwater, needing distance, needing air, needing anything that isn’t the vision that just swallowed her whole.
She swims fast- too fast- toward the shallow end.
“I’m- I’m late for my next session!” she calls, breathless, not looking back.
She climbs out, water streaming down her body, everything inside her trembling.
“See you later,” she manages, voice thin.
She doesn’t wait for his reply. She can’t. Her legs carry her away even as something inside her begs her to stay- to turn back- to understand what the hell just happened.
She doesn’t stop moving until she’s out of sight.
But even then, she can still feel his hand on her waist- and the echo of something older, deeper, devastatingly familiar pulsing beneath her skin.
***
They run into each other again the next day, as if the universe has decided coincidence isn’t enough.
Belly is in the hotel lounge, pretending to write, pretending she isn’t thinking about him. Pretending she isn’t thinking about looking up a psychiatrist. What would she even say? That she’s having hallucinations when a random man she met in an elevator touches her?
It sounds absurd.
She goes back to trying to write and i halfway through a sentence she already hates when a shadow falls across her table.
She looks up.
Conrad.
Something inside her settles and stirs at the same time.
He sits. They talk. Of course they talk. It feels inevitable now- the drift toward each other, the way their words find a rhythm that feels practiced, like muscle memory.
Belly admits, almost shyly, “This is my first time in Boston.”
He smiles at that- soft, warm, lighting something low in her chest.
“Then you definitely shouldn’t spend all your time holed up in the hotel,” he says. “Come on. Let me show you a little bit of it.”
She shouldn’t say yes this easily.
But she does.
They walk.
The city is buzzing with sunlight and noise, but their world feels quiet, threaded together by conversation that comes too easily. They talk about family, about childhood, about the strange mess of adulthood. Belly asks him questions she shouldn’t. Conrad answers like he doesn’t notice- or doesn’t care- that she wants to know everything.
At some point, their steps take them onto a wide path lined with grass and tall trees. Belly doesn’t recognize it, but something inside her shifts- some soft, pulsing ache of recognition.
And then she sees it.
The willow.
Large, sweeping, ancient.
Her breath catches. She turns toward Conrad-
And the world disappears again.
Night. Moonlight. Cold air cutting through her thin dress.
He stands before her- younger, wild-eyed, a deep gash split open across his cheek. Blood trails down to his jaw.
She reaches for him, fingers trembling as they touch the wound. Her heart shreds in her chest. Her eyes fill instantly. She can’t breathe.
“I am so sorry, my love,” she sobs, her whole body shaking. “So very sorry he did this to you.”
He shakes his head immediately, almost violently- like the idea of her apologizing hurts him more than the injury. His eyes, dark and frantic, stay locked on her face.
“It’s nothing,” he whispers, voice rough with fear and relief all tangled together. “You are safe. That is all that matters.”
He gathers her into his arms, cradling her like she is something fragile and irreplaceable-
And she gasps in agony.
He goes rigid.
He pulls back quickly, horror flashing across his face. His hands tremble as he turns her gently by the shoulders, as if afraid she will break beneath his touch.
He lifts the fabric at her back.
The breath leaves him in a single, shattered sound.
He sees her lashes. The torn, bleeding skin. Her father’s rage written across her back.
His voice drops into something feral. “I will kill him.”
She spins around, dizzy with panic, her hands gripping his tunic.
“No. Please. He will kill you first. We must stay low. Please- please, love.”
He stands there, breathing hard, hands clenched, jaw trembling with the effort of holding back. She sees it- the war inside him. The need to protect her. The need to avenge her. The unbearable reality that he can do neither without losing her or himself.
His eyes burn with so much anguish it feels like the entire world is too small to contain it.
And then-
The sunlight slams back into place so abruptly that Belly sways, the ground tilting beneath her feet.
She feels hands. His hands.
Warm, shaking, sweeping over her arms as if checking for something she can’t see. His grip tightens, loosens, tightens again, never steady for more than a heartbeat.
“Belly” The sound of her name catches in his throat. “Are you- are you hurt?”
He doesn’t give her time to answer. His hands move again, skimming over her shoulders, down her arms, hovering at her waist before returning to her back like he’s terrified he missed something.
His breath is too quick.
Too loud.
He keeps asking-
“Are you hurt?”
“Are you hurt?”
“Please- are you hurt?”
Each repetition breaks a little more.
Belly opens her mouth, but no sound comes out at first. She can only watch as he searches her for injuries she doesn’t have- touching her as though expecting his fingers to come away with blood.
Something inside her twists, sharp and desperate.
She needs him to know she’s okay. Needs it so fiercely it startles her. Like it’s the most important thing she’s ever had to prove.
“I’m fine,” she manages finally, voice soft, meant only for him. “I’m right here. I’m okay.”
But he doesn’t stop.
His hands return to her arms, tracing the same path, as if reassurance needs to be felt, not heard. His forehead nearly brushes her shoulder, for a moment she hears the uneven stutter of his breath- like he’s been running, like he can’t quite catch up.
A pulse of protectiveness surges through her so suddenly she almost gasps.
She reaches up, cups his face between her palms, and pulls him down until their foreheads touch.
The moment their skin meets, everything steadies.
“Hey,” she whispers, her thumbs brushing his cheeks. “Look at me. I’m okay. Really.”
His eyes close, lashes trembling. His hands find her waist- holding on, anchoring himself, grounding himself against her.
They stay like that. Pressed together. Breathing the same uneven air until the rhythm slowly, slowly evens out.
She doesn’t know how long they remain like that- seconds, minutes, something outside of time- but when he finally pulls back, he drags in a shaky breath and tries for a smile that doesn’t quite make it.
“Wanna… get some coffee?” he asks, voice low, almost rough.
Belly nods, even though her heart is still thudding from the ghost of another world.
They walk back toward the hotel in silence. Not awkward, not tense- just… suspended. Like speaking too soon might shatter something fragile between them.
Neither of them mentions the willow.
Or the way he touched her- frantic, panicked. Or the way she held him like she needed to save him from something she didn’t understand.
They don’t talk about it at all.
It sits between them like a dream belonging to someone else- too strange, too intimate, too impossible to claim.
So they pretend.
Because it’s easier.
***
That night, Belly writes.
For the first time in years- words don’t drag. They don’t fight her. They don’t scatter the moment she reaches for them.
They pour.
They pour out of her like water finally breaking through a cracked dam.
She writes of a time that feels ancient, older than the history she knows, older than the places she’s been. A time that should feel foreign- except it doesn’t.
She writes of two rival houses along the trade road, locked in a feud so old its beginning has turned to smoke in memory.
She writes of the boundary stream, where the world between them thinned just enough for fate to slip through. She writes of a little girl who strayed too far, who fell and scraped her knee, who cried because she was lost.
And the boy who found her.
A boy with sea-green eyes and steady hands, who cleaned her wound and lit a fire to warm her, who tore cloth from his own shirt to bind her knee.
She writes him like she knows him.
Like she knows the shape of his smile. The gentleness in his voice. The way he carries loneliness like a secret.
The words come too easily. Too naturally. As if she’s not creating anything at all. As if she’s retrieving it. Pulling it from a place inside her she didn’t know existed.
A place that feels deep and dark and frighteningly familiar.
There is more there. She can feel it. A door she could open if she dared. A memory she could fall into if she let go.
But she’s afraid.
Afraid of what waits on the other side. Afraid of what she might find- or what she might already know.
So she stops before she reaches it. She saves the document. Turns off the light. Lets the darkness settle around her like a blanket.
And when she sleeps-
She dreams of the boy under the willow tree.
Only this time, the boy lifts his head, steps into the moonlight, and he has Conrad’s face.
***
By her second-to-last day of the retreat, Belly is exhausted.
The group session drags on forever- pages read aloud, critiques that feel vague and weightless, writers circling around the same advice until everyone’s eyes glaze over. By the time the facilitator dismisses them, Belly wants nothing more than to collapse facedown on her bed and surrender to silence.
She steps into the elevator, shoulders slumping.
The doors begin to close. A hand slips between them. They open again. He steps inside.
Conrad.
Her breath lifts, caught somewhere between her ribs and her throat.
He smiles at her- full, bright- like yesterday’s moment beneath the willow never happened.
“Perfect timing,” he says with a soft groan. “I have this terrible dinner tonight with Dad, Jere, and their very annoying girlfriends.” He tilts his head, hopeful. “Will you save this poor man and offer your great company?”
Belly blinks.
Heat colors her cheeks instantly.
“You… want me to join you?”
His smile gentles, soft as a touch. “If that’s okay with you? You’d be doing me a great favor.”
Her heart stutters.
“Okay,” she says. “Yes.”
How could she not?
***
They stop first in his room so he can grab the bottle of wine he brought- deep red, expensive-looking, chosen carefully. They could easily meet later in the lobby, pretend this is normal, pretend they’re nothing more than casual acquaintances.
Neither suggests it.
Instead he follows her down to her room without a word, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like he’s done it a thousand times before.
He takes a seat on the small sofa while she disappears into the bathroom.
Belly stares at her reflection- light blue dress in hand, pulse in her throat. Ridiculous how much she wants to look nice. For him.
She changes quickly, fingers trembling around the zipper, smoothing the fabric down her hips. Then she steps out, gathering her hair in her hands.
“Hair up?” she asks. She releases it, the strands falling around her shoulders. “Or down?”
He stands.
Walks toward her slowly. Too slowly. Her breath falters.
He stops in front of her, close enough that she feels the warmth radiating off his chest. His fingers lift a single strand of her hair, sliding it between them with impossible gentleness.
“I don’t think I can choose,” he murmurs, voice barely a whisper. “You’re so beautiful in both.”
Her breath catches hard enough to hurt.
Heat floods her cheeks, spills through her chest, settles deep and warm in her belly. She can’t look at him for more than a heartbeat without feeling her knees weaken.
“Thank you,” she manages, stumbling over the words. “But… please tell me. Up or down?”
He steps closer.
His hand slips into her hair, smoothing the strands, fingertips grazing her scalp with deliberate slowness. His eyes darken- soft, heavy, unreadable but intense enough to unravel her from the inside out.
“Down.”
The word feels like a touch. He’s so close. Too close. Close enough that she can feel his breath against her cheek. Close enough that if she rose onto her toes- just a little- their mouths would meet.
And God, she wants to.
It would feel so good.
So right.
Her fingers twitch at her sides. She thinks he might lean in. She thinks she might break if he doesn’t.
His phone rings. Loud. Sharp. Jarring. They both flinch, stepping back as though waking from a trance.
“Sorry,” he mutters, already reaching for his pocket.
Belly rushes to the bathroom, heart pounding, cheeks burning, hands trembling as she tries- fails- to steady her reflection in the mirror.
She can hear his low voice in the other room, clipped and frustrated, as he answers the call.
Belly looks at her wide eyes, wondering if she made a mistake accepting his offer.
***
The dinner goes… surprisingly well.
Or as well as it can, considering the family she’s suddenly sitting with.
They’re all gathered around a long table in a too loud restaurant- glasses clinking, waiters weaving, the murmur of other people’s conversations swirling like background static.
Jeremiah is all smiles- bright, sunlit, charming as hell. But there’s something underneath it. A sharpness. A flick of competition hidden beneath every joke or nudge or comment he makes toward his brother.
Every time Conrad speaks, Jeremiah is right there, interrupting, outshining, one-upping, turning the moment into something tilted.
And then-
He turns that smile on Belly.
It starts subtle. Playful comments, too-smooth compliments, leaning just a little too close even though his girlfriend is sitting right beside him, frowning into her drink.
Belly forces a polite smile, but something in her stomach shifts uneasily.
Before she can lean away, Conrad shifts. Barely. Almost imperceptibly. But he moves closer to her- shoulder angling toward hers, arm brushing hers beneath the table. A quiet shield. A wordless boundary.
Blocking Jeremiah’s line of sight to her.
Belly doesn’t look at him, not immediately. But her heart does something warm and startling anyway.
Then there’s Adam. Hard to read. Expression carved from stone, voice low and reserved, eyes flicking between his sons in a way that feels like judgment sharpened to a blade.
He questions Conrad- subtle pricks and pokes at his choices, his residency, his exhaustion, his distance. And while the words themselves aren’t harsh, they land wrong.
And God- the way Jeremiah shrinks at certain comments, even behind his bravado- it makes something inside Belly twist.
She understands, suddenly, painfully well, why Conrad avoids staying in their house. Why he needs distance. Why he folds himself inward the moment his father speaks.
Halfway through the meal, Belly feels something protective rise inside her so strong it surprises her. A quiet urge to stay close. To counterbalance whatever heaviness settles in his shoulders.
To make sure he knows he’s not alone at this table, even if the others can’t see him the way she does. So she shifts nearer- angled slightly toward him, knee brushing his under the table.
He glances at her.
And gives her a small, grateful smile.
It’s faint. Soft. Gone almost as soon as it appears. But the warmth of it blooms deep in her chest.
And she thinks- not for the first time- that she would follow this man into any storm, without understanding why, without asking for a map, just because he looked at her like that.
***
It’s late when they get back to the hotel.
The hallways are quiet. Softly lit. The kind of quiet that feels like it’s holding its breath.
Conrad walks her to her room, hands in his pockets, shoulders a little tense. When they reach her door, he stops. Hesitates.
Belly feels the invitation rise in her throat before she can stop it.
Do you want to come in?
It sits there between her teeth, trembling.
The air stills, thickens.
He steps closer- just a fraction. Then he leans down and presses his lips to her forehead. A soft, reverent kiss. The kind that unravels her.
“Thank you for tonight,” he murmurs.
Then he turns and walks away so quickly her breath snags.
She has to grab the door frame to keep herself upright as the world tilts and then it breaks entirely.
~
Leaves blanket the ground.
Cold moonlight filters through willow branches. She sits with her back against the tree, skirts gathered around her, his head resting in her lap.
His eyes- sea glass and soft- lift to her face.
“When did you know?” she asks quietly. “That you loved me?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “When I met you the first time.”
She laughs, brushing his hair from his forehead. “We were children. Don’t tease.”
He shakes his head. “I loved you still. Even before I understood what the feeling was.”
Her fingers thread through his hair- soft, endless, familiar. His eyes flutter closed at the touch.
She swallows.
“And when did you know you… wanted me?”
He exhales- one long, low breath that trembles faintly against her skin. Then he lifts his gaze, eyes dark with memory.
“When…” His voice scrapes soft. “When you were swimming in the river and I was watching from here.”
Her pulse stutters.
“You’d just turned sixteen,” he continues, tone deepening, roughening. “Two moons ago. You rose from the water and your underclothes were clinging to your body. I saw the shape of your breasts and-”
His jaw flexes.
“-and I nearly went mad.”
His hand tightens on her hip, thumb stroking a slow, distracted line.
“I had to make up an excuse and rush back home before I did something I wouldn’t have been able to take back.”
She laughs softly, heat creeping into her cheeks. “Now you have no shame when you take those same breasts in your mouth.”
His breath catches- just barely- before a low, helpless laugh slips out of him. He reaches up, sliding his hand over her chest, cupping her breast through the thin fabric.
His thumb sweeps over the curve of it, slow, hungry, reverent.
“Now,” he murmurs, voice dropping into something thick and possessive, “I know these are mine.”
Her laughter mixes with his, echoing beneath the willow branches- and then her vision splinters.
The leaves blur.
The moonlight collapses.
His weight, his warmth, his hand over her heart-
Gone.
~
Belly gasps and finds herself back in the hotel hallway, clutching the doorframe like she’s been dropped from the sky.
The light is bright. The air too sharp. Her heart racing, practically beating out of her chest.
And down the hall, Conrad’s retreating figure disappears around the corner.
***
Belly skips the final day of the retreat.
She tells herself it doesn’t matter. She’s learned nothing new anyway, and her words these days seem to come only when she’s not trying.
Instead, she finds him in the lobby.
Conrad rises from one of the couches the moment he sees her, something bright flickering through his expression before he pushes his hands into his pockets.
“Want to get out of here?” he asks.
She nods.
They step out into warm July air, the kind that tastes faintly of sunscreen and sunlight off concrete. Belly pushes her hair off her neck, feeling the heat settle lightly on her skin. Conrad falls into step beside her, matching her pace, keeping close without ever touching.
They wander toward Tatte. The streets hum with summer- open windows, laughter, the distant echo of a bus. Inside, the café is cool and golden. Pastries gleam behind glass. They sit in a corner, iced coffees sweating onto the table.
Belly looks out the window, and every time she does, she feels his gaze on her- quick, then gone, as if he’s afraid she might catch him watching.
Beacon Hill is hot, but beautiful in that old-world way that slows your breathing.
Belly stops constantly- photographing flowers spilling from window boxes, the curve of wrought iron, Acorn Street glowing like it’s been waiting centuries to be admired.
And every time she turns around- he’s already looking away.
But she sees it.
The warmth.
The soft edges of something he’s trying very hard to hide.
They slip into a small bookstore for the air-conditioning, but the quiet feels unexpectedly intimate. Belly trails her fingers across the spines. She hears a soft footstep, and then he appears beside her.
He holds out a book with an awkward, earnest half-smile. “Thought you might like this.”
Their hands nearly touch when she takes it.
Nearly.
The space between their fingers hums anyway.
Lunch is simple- sandwiches, cold drinks, the sun high and soft over the Esplanade. They sit on the dock, feet dangling over warm water. Belly leans back on her palms, sun wrapping over her shoulders like a hand.
Her knee bumps his.
Neither of them moves.
They cross a footbridge afterward, pausing to watch sailboats dance across the river. He stands close behind her, not touching but she feels him anyway. His heat. His quiet. The gravity of him.
Harvard Square smells like coffee and bookstores and summer. They wander aimlessly, dipping into shops. In a candle store, he hands her one he thinks she’ll like- soft, warm, summer-sweet.
She smells it.
Her heart catches.
“It’s perfect.”
He buys it for her without hesitation.
Dinner is somewhere quiet, the windows open to warm evening air. Their knees brush beneath the table- once, twice- accidental but not accidental at all.
Belly feels each touch like a pulse in her chest. He keeps talking- soft, thoughtful, a little shy. She keeps pretending her heart isn’t fluttering wildly.
By the time they walk back to the hotel, the sky is peach and haze, cicadas humming like an unseen choir. Belly feels the day inside her- the ease, the warmth, the impossible comfort of him.
He walks her to her room. Smiles softly at her door. Tells her goodnight. Her stomach flips like she’s seventeen.
Inside her room, she showers, steam curling around her like a secret she hasn’t decided to keep. She puts on nice lingerie- red, thin, barely anything- pulls a robe over it, then immediately regrets everything.
She paces. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Would it be insane to go two floors up and knock on his door?
Would he think she’s desperate?
Would he smile and pull her inside?
Her heart answers before her head can.
She gathers all the courage she has- every trembling bit of it- and strides toward the door.
She swings it open.
And freezes.
Because he is standing there.
Conrad.
Hair damp from a shower. Hand lifted as if he was just about to knock.
The moment hangs between them- charged, breathless, inevitable- like the world has narrowed to a single held breath neither of them knows how to release.
For a breath, for a heartbeat, for the space of a second that feels like a lifetime, they just stare.
Then she moves.
She grabs his shirt, fisting the fabric, dragging him inside as the door slams shut behind them. He barely inhales before her mouth is on his- and the kiss-
God.
It detonates.
Heat explodes through her, bright and hot as lightning striking bone. Her knees go weak. Her chest presses into his. Fire climbs her throat, her spine, her pulse.
He makes a sound- low, startled, starving- and then he’s kissing her back like something in him has finally been unleashed. His hands find her waist, her back, the side of her throat- touches that feel reverent and ruined all at once.
Her fingers sink into his damp hair.
He shudders.
The kiss deepens- grows heavier, more urgent- familiar and impossibly new at the same time.
It feels like she’s done this before. It feels like she’s been waiting lifetimes for this. It feels like coming home and falling apart in the same breath.
She grabs his wrist, guides his hand to the knot of her robe.
He pulls back to look at her- just for one heartbeat- and then pulls the knot loose.
The robe slips off her shoulders, falls soundlessly to the floor.
He goes still.
Completely, devastatingly still.
She’s so grateful Taylor made her pack the red lingerie- because the look in his eyes, the slow burn of hunger as he drags his gaze over her body, makes her entire spine shiver.
He strips his shirt off in one harsh pull- and then he’s on her.
Mouth on hers. Mouth at her throat. Teeth grazing her collarbone. Breath hot, uneven, shaking with restraint that’s already unraveling.
His lips drag down the swell of her breast, biting lightly through the lace- just enough to make her gasp. Then- without warning- his hands come up, grip the delicate fabric- and tear it.
A vicious, effortless rip.
The lace falls apart.
Her breasts spill free into the cool air.
“Will get you a new one,” he mutters- voice wrecked- before lowering his head and taking one nipple into his mouth.
Heat sears straight through her.
His tongue circles- slow, focused, devastating- while his fingers roll the other nipple between them, gentle at first, then firmer, just enough to make her back arch.
“Conrad-” she gasps, breath breaking.
He backs her toward the bed without breaking contact, his mouth never leaving her- kisses sliding up the swell of her breast, until the backs of her knees meet the mattress and give way. She falls back in a rush of sheets and breath- and he follows immediately, weight braced over her, mouth still warm against her skin.
For a dizzy second, she feels grass beneath her back instead of sheets- moonlight on his skin instead of lamplight- his mouth on her like he’s worshiped her for years.
Then the room comes back into focus- the mattress beneath her, his body over hers, his mouth closing over her nipple with deliberate, hungry devotion.
He finally releases it with a wet gasp, breath trembling as he moves lower, kissing down her ribs, the soft dip of her waist, the curve of her belly.
Lower.
Lower.
Her legs part without conscious thought- opening for him, inviting him, offering herself in a way that makes her entire body throb with anticipation.
He settles between her legs.
His breath hits her inner thigh- hot, shaking. His face lowers- closer, closer- until he’s right in front of her already soaked panties.
He exhales- and she feels it like a touch. Like a promise.
He slides his palms up her thighs, thumbs spreading her open with a reverence that makes her pulse stutter. Then, with devastating calm, he hooks a finger beneath the damp lace and pulls it aside just enough to see her.
For one long moment, he just stares.
Then he bends.
And tastes her.
The first stroke of his tongue is deliberate- broad, slow, claiming- dragging through the full, slick length of her until her entire body lifts off the mattress.
Her hand flies to his hair.
Her thighs tremble around his shoulders.
A helpless sound catches in her throat.
He groans into her- low, grateful, starving- and seals his mouth to her again, licking deeper this time, tongue pressing past her folds like he knows exactly how to unravel her.
The room blurs- the willow, the warm summer night, the way he held her thighs open and didn’t stop- how he’d spent hours between her legs, taking her apart again and again until she could barely remember her own name.
The vision slams into her so hard she gasps.
He feels the jolt- and answers with a slow, deep lick into her cunt that makes her cry out. Her panties are still pushed aside, clinging to her, soaked. He rips them off.
His hands slide beneath her thighs, lifting her hips, angling her toward him like he’s offering her body to his mouth. His tongue finds her clit.
He lingers there, learns her- circling, returning- until every nerve seems to draw tight, aching, awake, impossible to ignore.
Her hips lift without permission, chasing the pressure, her body opening more fully as sensation builds. Each pass of his tongue sends another wave through her, heat coiling low and heavy, her thighs trembling around him.
Her vision whites out. Her back arches.
Her fingers tighten desperately in his hair as his tongue circles her clit- slow, then firmer, then with a focused rhythm that pulls sharp, helpless sounds out of her.
“Conrad- Conrad, oh-” she gasps, voice splintering.
He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t break rhythm. Doesn’t even lift his head.
He holds her exactly where he wants her, mouth working her with relentless, devastating precision until her hips start shaking uncontrollably.
She shatters.
Her orgasm hits hard- a rush so sharp and overwhelming she can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t do anything but cry out as her thighs clamp around his head.
He holds her through it, licking her softly through the pulses until she collapses back onto the mattress, boneless.
But he’s not done.
Before she can come down fully, one of his hands slips from under her thigh and slides back between her legs.
His fingers press into her- slow, sure- entering her with a gentle, coaxing stretch that makes her entire body seize.
“Conrad, wait-” she gasps, but it’s already too late.
His mouth closes over her clit again. And his fingers curl- deep, steady, devastating- right against the spot inside her that makes her hips jerk off the mattress.
The effect is instant- too much, too fast, all at once.
Electric. Unbearably sharp. Her back arches. Her fingers claw at the sheets.
Her breath breaks into high, helpless sobs as he thrusts his fingers exactly where she needs, his tongue circling her clit with ruthless precision.
She gasps on his name and he groans- low, gutted. His fingers curl again. And again. And again- and she breaks.
Her second orgasm crashes over her- harder, deeper than the first- a violent, uncontrollable release that rips a shattered cry from her throat.
He keeps going, drawing it out, stroking her through every pulse, his fingers steady, his mouth relentless, until she’s trembling so hard she can’t hold herself up.
Only then does he ease back, breath ragged, mouth wet, fingers still slick with her.
He presses a kiss to the inside of her thigh- gentle, grounding, devastatingly tender- and looks up at her with eyes that are blown wide, dark, reverent.
He kisses her thigh once more before climbing back up her body, slow and unhurried, like he knows exactly how undone she already is. When his mouth finds hers again, it’s deeper this time- heated, intimate- his tongue carrying the unmistakable taste of her, like proof pressed straight into her mouth.
She makes a small sound against him, breathless, overwhelmed. Her hands slide down his torso, finding the hard line of him through the fabric of his trousers. She strokes him there- slow, deliberate- until his breath stutters and his forehead drops briefly to hers.
She frees him with shaking fingers.
“I need you inside me,” she whispers, voice wrecked, honest.
He groans. Stillness follows- tight, strained. He pulls back just enough to look at her, eyes dark with want and restraint fighting for control.
“Fuck.” He grunts. “I don’t have a condom.”
“It’s okay,” she says immediately. “If it is for you.”
Then, softer- careful. “I haven’t been with anyone for a while.” A beat. “Have you?”
“No.” No hesitation. No doubt.
“I can take a morning-after pill,” she adds quietly.
He closes his eyes. Breath shudders out of him. He hesitates just a moment longer- like he’s weighing the universe in his hands- then he nods.
And kisses her.
The room dissolves-
Moonlight spills through the branches of the willow tree. The river murmurs nearby, silver and endless. He hovers above her, bare except for his trousers, his restraint carved into every line of him.
“My love, we can’t,” he says, voice tight.
Her chest aches. “Do you… not want to?”
A broken laugh leaves him as he presses the impression of his hard cock against her thigh. “There is nothing I want more than to be inside you.”
“Then why?” she whispers, still trembling from what his mouth has done to her, from how thoroughly he’s undone her.
He cups her cheek, gentle, reverent. “It’s too risky. You are young. We cannot be reckless.”
Understanding blooms- sharp and sudden- and not for the first time, she silently thanks the universe for Taylor Jewel.
“You don’t have to worry,” she tells him. “Taylor gave me a bitter concoction. It must be taken within the hour. She swears it works.”
He fights himself. She can see it- the edge of his restraint fraying, his control splintering. And when her hand slides down again, stroking his length through the fabric, he breaks.
The willow vanishes.
The room snaps back into focus.
Conrad is above her now, solid and real, his breath uneven, his body settling between her legs with a certainty she’s come to know him for. She gasps as he guides himself closer, slow and devastating, the head of his cock pressed right where she’s aching most.
He pauses there- hovering, reverent, undone.
He slides into her slowly, and it feels right in a way that quiets everything else. Perfect. Like this is where he belongs.
Like her body has been waiting for him- recognizes him- opens without resistance, without question. The stretch of him fills her completely, a deep, steady pressure that makes her breath leave her all at once.
She clutches at him, nails biting into his shoulders as a broken sound slips out of her. He stills, just for a second, forehead dropping to hers.
Then he moves.
Slow at first. Deep. Unhurried. Each thrust deliberate, controlled, like he’s afraid to break the moment if he goes too fast- like he’s grounding himself in the feel of her around his length. Every movement sinks into her with quiet inevitability, the steady pull and press of him filling her completely, making her feel claimed in a way that steals her breath.
Her body answers instinctively. Rising to meet him. Opening more with every thrust. Learning the rhythm as if it’s written somewhere ancient in her bones.
Flashes erupt behind her eyes- too fast to hold.
Tangled bodies in cool grass.
Rough wood beneath her palms in a dark shed.
Water lapping at their hips, moonlight breaking across skin.
Then they’re gone. Just as quickly.
His hands know exactly where to go.
One spreads her open, steadying her. The other drifts up- warm palm over her breast, thumb brushing her nipple until it tightens, until her breath stutters and her back arches into his touch. He watches it happen. Watches her come undone piece by piece.
His hand leaves her chest, slips between their bodies.
Finds her where she’s already aching, already trembling for him. His thumb presses at her clit in slow, devastating circles, perfectly timed with the deep pull of each thrust, until sensation stacks too high, too fast.
Her world tilts.
She breaks with a sound she can’t stop, everything in her giving way at once- light, heat, feeling- her body clenching tight around his length as she comes undone. The way she grips him pulls a raw sound from his chest, his control snapping completely.
He follows her immediately.
A low, broken groan against her neck as he thrusts once more and stills, holding her tight, buried deep, like he needs to be as close as possible when it happens.
He stays there, breath rough, forehead pressed to hers, his arms locking her in place while the last of it passes.
***
Conrad holds her while she sleeps and it feels unreal in the quietest, most devastating way.
Like if he breathes too deeply, the moment might dissolve.
Her body fits against him with an ease that steals the air from his lungs. Warm. Solid. Trusting. The soft weight of her tucked into his chest like she’s always known this is where she belongs.
He stares at the ceiling, heart beating too loud, too fast, unable to believe he is here- unable to believe that a person he met barely a week ago feels more like home than any room, any city, any place he’s ever laid his head.
It makes no sense.
And yet it feels truer than anything he’s ever known.
Something deep in him recognizes her. Not familiarity- something older. Quieter. A knowing that doesn’t come from memory but from the soul. Like she’s a word he’s been trying to remember his whole life and only just learned how to say.
It terrifies him.
Because the dreams- the ones that have followed him for years, the faceless girl who comes to him in sleep- have changed since she walked into his life.
They’ve sharpened.
They’ve filled in.
When he closes his eyes now, the face is hers.
The setting, too- clear as breath against skin. A willow tree. Moonlight spilling through leaves. The soft pull of her body in his arms, like this, exactly like this. As if his mind has been rehearsing for a moment it always knew was coming.
And sometimes- not always, but enough to haunt him- another image cuts through.
Blurry.
Too fast.
White fabric. Soaked red. Eyes staring at nothing.
His chest seizes.
His whole body shudders with it, a violent tremor he has to swallow down so he doesn’t wake her.
She shifts in her sleep, a small sound leaving her, and instinct takes over before thought. His arm tightens around her, pulling her closer, protective and reverent all at once. She settles immediately, nose pressing into his chest, trusting him without even waking.
It’s been there since the moment he laid eyes on her in that elevator- a sharp, irrational need to keep her safe. To stand between her and everything bad or cruel or waiting to break her open. He doesn’t understand it. It makes no sense. He barely knows her.
And yet every part of him insists on it.
An urge to keep her right here, in his arms, where the world can’t touch her. Where nothing bad can happen. Where she’s warm and breathing and real.
The certainty hits him then- swift and absolute.
This.
This is where he belongs.
Not the walls that raised him. Not the ones he escaped.
Here. Holding her. Being held back.
And whatever this is- whatever it costs him- he knows with a clarity that both steadies and shatters him:
He will never let it go.
~
Red blooms across her white dress.
Not all at once- slow at first, spreading like something alive, soaking through lace and silk, staining the earth beneath them until the ground itself seems to bleed.
Conrad doesn’t understand it at first.
His hands are on her everywhere, frantic, useless- pressing, clutching, shaking as if he can hold her together by force alone. As if his palms can command the world to undo what it has done.
“No,” he chokes, the word tearing out of him raw and broken. “No, no, no- please- please, no-”
Her body is light in his arms. Too light. Slipping. His knees hit the ground hard enough to bruise, but he doesn’t feel it. He feels nothing except the warmth pouring through his fingers and the way her breath is already leaving her.
She coughs, a thin, awful sound, and blood trails from the corner of her mouth.
He sobs her name into her hair. Into her skin. Into the night.
She lifts a trembling hand, fingers brushing his cheek with what strength she has left. Her eyes find his- still soft, still full of him, still impossibly alive.
“I love you,” she whispers.
The words break him.
“I will always-” Her breath stutters, blood wet on her lips. “I will always love you. In every lifetime.”
His body folds over her.
Tears blur the world until everything is moonlight and red and white and the sound of his own screaming heart. His chest convulses with sobs he cannot stop, cannot survive.
“No,” he cries again, hoarse, feral. “Don’t- don’t you leave me- please-”
She looks at him one last time.
And he sees it.
The exact moment her eyes stop seeing.
Not closing.
Not dimming.
Gone.
Something rips out of him then- something ancient, something vital- and the scream that tears from his throat splits the night open. It echoes through the trees, through the riverbank, through the bones of the world itself.
He knows- dimly, distantly- that her brother is only a few feet away. Standing frozen. Staring. Shattered.
Conrad does not care.
There is nothing left in the universe except the girl in his arms.
His love.
His heart.
The reason he ever learned how to breathe.
Gone.
Gone.
He screams again, clutching her to his chest, rocking like a madman, his clothes soaked through with her blood, his hands slick and red and useless. He calls her name until it loses all meaning.
She does not answer.
She does not look at him with those eyes that always held him like a promise.
She does not call him with that sweet voice that could undo him with a single word.
She lies lifeless against him, her wedding dress torn and darkened, white erased completely beneath red.
Conrad stills.
The world narrows to a point.
He presses a shaking kiss to her forehead.
“I’m here,” he whispers, even though he knows she cannot hear him anymore. “I’m right here.”
He lowers her gently to the ground, arranging her as if she is only sleeping. As if care still matters. As if the universe has not already ended.
Then he turns.
Her brother is still standing there, shock hollowing him out, the gun loose in his hands like he doesn’t even know he’s holding it.
Conrad moves before thought.
Before grief can stop him.
Before anything can.
He snatches the gun from his grasp in one sharp motion and steps back, breathing hard, the metal cold and absolute in his hand.
He presses it to his chest, right above his heart.
The place that belongs to her.
He looks at her one last time.
Moonlight on her face. Blood in the grass. Love carved into every part of him that will never exist without her.
And he pulls the trigger.
~
Conrad wakes on a scream that never makes it past his throat.
His body jerks upright like it’s been yanked out of the dark, breath ripping through his lungs in sharp, panicked bursts. The room is black and silent and unbearably still.
Wrong.
His hands are shaking.
He lifts them into the dimness- and for one horrifying, absolute moment, he is certain they’re covered in blood. He can feel it. Warm. Sticky. The memory of it clinging to his skin, worked into his palms like it belongs there.
Red.
Everywhere.
His heart fractures.
Terror clamps around his chest so hard he can’t draw a full breath. Each inhale scrapes like broken glass. His pulse roars in his ears, drowning out reason, drowning out thought.
It was just a dream.
It had to be.
But it didn’t feel like one.
She’s gone.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
The word pounds against the inside of his skull like a verdict being read aloud.
He turns sharply- too sharply- and there she is.
Belly.
Isabel.
Beside him. Breathing. Alive.
Her hair spills across the pillow. Her mouth is slightly open in sleep. Her chest rises and falls in a slow, steady rhythm that should ground him, should convince him this is reality.
It doesn’t.
His mind recoils from it. This is wrong. This is fragile. This is the moment before something terrible happens.
His vision blurs. His body starts moving before his thoughts can catch up- driven by instinct so deep it feels carved into him.
He has to leave. He has to get out. Before the dream finishes itself. Before the image sharpens. Before something inside him turns memory into prophecy.
Before she becomes the thing he couldn’t stop.
He swings his legs out of bed, movements jerky, uncoordinated, like he’s wading through water. His hands fumble through clothes- shirt, trousers, shoes- pulling them on with shaking fingers. He doesn’t check anything. Doesn’t slow down.
He looks at her once.
Just once.
The sight nearly destroys him.
She looks peaceful. Unaware. Alive in a way that feels terrifyingly temporary.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, though he doesn’t know why. The word just tears out of him, instinctive and raw.
Then he’s gone.
The door closes behind him with a sound that feels too loud, too final, like a line being crossed. He walks. Down the corridor. Into the elevator.
His body goes numb, running on something mechanical and desperate. Distance. Motion. Escape. He packs without thinking. Shoves clothes into a bag. Leaves half his life behind without noticing.
Checkout.
A card slid across polished wood.
A receipt he doesn’t read.
A cab.
The city blurs past the window- lights and shadows smearing together, unreal. He doesn’t look. He can’t.
Airport. Security. A gate called over loudspeakers he barely hears. Every step feels inevitable, like momentum has taken over and stopping would shatter him.
And every time he closes his eyes-
She’s there.
Her weight in his arms.
The heat of her.
The image of her lying still, unmoving, wrong.
His breath stutters violently.
It was just a dream.
It has to be.
But his body doesn’t believe that.
***