REINA

The apartment wrapped around us like a cocoon the moment the door clicked shut.

Everything outside ceased to exist. No streetlights, no distant city hum, no Elisa. Just the heavy, charged silence between two people who had been dancing around this moment for far too long.

Paolo turned to me slowly in the dim light. His eyes looked tired, but beneath that exhaustion burned something darker and more urgent. He stepped closer without a word, his presence swallowing the space around me.

“Come here,” he said, voice low and rough.

I went to him.

His hands settled on my waist first, warm and possessive, before sliding around to my...