Chapter 16
It hits me the second Eris opens the door, feet bare, hair messy. Her baggy sweatpants barely hang on her hips, fitted charcoal t-shirt clinging to her curves. My breath stalls for a second too long, chest tightening in a way that’s absolutely not professional.
I shouldn’t have agreed to do the installation.
But the moment Silas mentioned her address, I said yes before he finished the sentence. I didn’t think—not that I ever do. I just needed to see her again, to prove that I could stand in front of her and not fall back into the pull of her gravity.
Now, I know I’m not that strong.
Her perfume is the same soft scent as the night I met her, floral but not innocent. Like jasmine and something savage, something that makes heat flood my skin and blood rush to my dick.
The second she steps aside to let me into her personal space, I walk in as if I’m not already breaking and ready to beg. Every nerve in my body remembers her… The sound she made when I kissed her neck, the way her hands fisted in my shirt.
The way she felt wrapped around me, under me.
Eris doesn’t look at me like she remembers any of it.
And somehow, that makes this worse.
She appears tired, guarded, like she’s hiding too much and sick of it. Yet, she still feels silently dangerous in a way that makes me ache to test how bad she really is, to unravel her secrets.
Her walls are up, but her eyes linger long enough to have me wondering if she’s holding a mirror instead of a shield.
My walls are up too.
I keep my voice even, gaze neutral, hands busy… Anything to stop myself from staring at the curve of her waist as she leans against the door frame, arms crossed like she knows I’m watching and isn’t exactly happy about it.
The apartment feels like her, all gray to match her eyes. It must be her favorite color, or the pops of dark purples and greens that blend so well. The clean scent of unnamed candles lingers in the air, with the faint trace of gun oil hiding beneath.
Why does it smell like gun oil in her apartment?
Everything is organized but restless, like it’s not quite in its rightful place, but it’s out of her way until she needs it… Like she only ever stops moving around the apartment when she’s asleep. And I’m not convinced she does that either.
“Did you just start doing this?” she asks, tone casual but eyes sharp, puncturing holes in my skin.
I force a shrug. “Side job.”
I don’t look at Eris when I say it.
I can’t.
Or I really will break.
“Do you know why they picked you?”
My fingers pause on the wire I’m feeding through the wall. Just for a breath. She doesn’t know, not exactly… But she’s circling it like she does.
They?
I think through every interaction I’ve read in the chat, trying to pinpoint mentally when she could have spotted a change… There’s none, though. Not a single time where we haven’t sounded like one really fucking possessive AI chatbot.
“Because I’m good at disappearing,” I finally answer.
She doesn’t reply or argue against my words, driving home what Kieran said about sleeping with her and not calling… The candor lands somewhere between us, and I kind of wish I could kick my own ass for it.
It’s not a lie, but it isn’t the truth either.
The truth is that I haven’t disappeared since that night. Since Eris looked at me like I was something she wanted, not something she regretted.
And I’m still here.
Standing in the wreckage of my own obsession.
Pretending I can walk away.
The rest of the installation passes in silence, at least on the surface.
Inside my head, it’s chaos. Her voice replays on a loop, only broken by her breath.
The weight of her in my hands, against the wall, sears into my skin, over and over, until I swear I can feel her touching me.
Every sound in the room pulls me back into that memory.
I fight to stay in the present.
When I finish syncing the last camera, I check each angle meticulously, forcing myself to move slower than I need to. My hands shake, but I push through it, preaching restraint in my mind.
I pack the tools carefully, line by line, and keep my focus on the work because looking at her would undo me completely.
I don’t say goodbye.
How can I when I’ve barely acknowledged her?
I just nod once, step past her, and close the door behind me.
Five steps down the hallway, I have to stop and brace my hand against the wall. My breath is shallow, pulse hammering. The air still smells like her perfume, faint but enough to pull me under.
It takes me considerable effort to push off the wall and walk to my car as if I’m not unraveling. I sit behind the wheel for a full minute before unlocking my phone.
It’s not smart… I know this.
Still, it doesn’t stop me.
I type the message three times, erase it twice, and send it once.
Me:
Sorry if I came off cold. I was trying to be professional.
The dots appear immediately. When they vanish just as quickly, I readjust in my seat. I should say it in person, but a message comes through before I can get my car door open.
Eris:
You weren’t cold. You were careful.
I stare at that word until my brain finally catches up.
Careful.
So, she knows I’m holding back. Probably felt it too.
That’s so much worse than I thought it would be.
Because careful doesn’t mean distant…
It means deliberate.
It means she knows I chose my behavior, put thought into avoiding communication and touch… and even prolonged eye contact.
And now I’m not sure I can survive making that choice again.