Maximilian’s phone slipped from his fingers.
"B-Blackwood?" he echoed, clearing his throat. The na dried his mouth instantly.
He had known this mont would co. Had rehearsed it in his head, prepared himself for it... and yet, when it arrived, it struck with the precision of a blade.
"Heard of him," he said after a beat, forcing composure into his voice. "Never t him."
Catherine pressed her lips together.
Of course, he would lie.
There was sothing buried beneath this... sothing too deliberate, too careful. n did not hide themselves for years without reason. And Maximilian, if she trusted her instincts, looked... afraid.
"Oh?" she replied lightly, turning toward the window.
The view was beautiful. His office overlooked the garden, and beyond it, the park stretched into a spill of trees and winding paths. Birds chirped in sharp, cheerful notes. Sowhere farther off, ducks quacked near the pond. Squirrels darted about, busy with preparations for winter.
She liked the duck pond. She should visit it soon.
Resting her chin in her hands, she studied the trees... so already thinning, others stubbornly green. Three years in this city, and she was still fascinated by the seasons. She understood the science, of course, but nature felt... orderly. Everything followed its path, its rhythm.
Order.
It was comforting when her own life felt anything but.
Classes were in session, so the grounds were mostly quiet. Still, she noticed a couple walking along the garden path. They looked close to her age, fingers intertwined, steps unconsciously matched.
They were clearly together.
Her lips curved faintly when the boy slipped off his jacket and draped it over the girl’s shoulders. The gesture was simple. Thoughtful.
Beautiful.
But it didn’t end there.
His hand lingered after, resting at her shoulder. He leaned in. She paused... then closed the distance herself.
Catherine held still.
Even from afar, she could sense the heat between them. Breath mingling. Hesitation collapsing into intent.
They kissed.
Not a chaste brush of lips, but sothing deeper, more consuming. The kind of kiss that erased the world around it. They moved closer, bodies aligned, breath fogging the air between them.
Catherine swallowed.
Decency suggested she should look away.
She didn’t.
She had never kissed like that before.
Not in this life. Not in the one before it.
In her previous life, the only kiss she rembered—truly rembered—had been with Maximilian. In that bath. Her husband had never kissed her like this. Not on the mouth. Not even during their intimate sessions.
Was this curiosity?
Or sothing else?
The girl’s bag slipped from her shoulder, forgotten. She leaned into the boy, surrendering without words, and he drew her closer as though nothing else existed.
Catherine’s fingers tightened in her lap.
Sothing stirred... unexpected, unsettling. A warmth she did not recognize blood low and insistent, and sent a sharp awareness through her body.
Her breath caught.
She turned away at last, pulse unsteady, gaze dropping as though she could will the sensation to vanish.
So this was it.
This ache. This pull.
But the sensation didn’t vanish.
She crossed her legs slowly, as if that might contain the warmth spreading low in her abdon. Closing her eyes, Catherine rubbed the side of her neck, willing herself to breathe—slowly, evenly.
Compose yourself.
It didn’t work.
Her eyes betrayed her, drifting back to the window as though drawn by instinct alone. The couple had moved beneath a tree now. The boy had her pressed lightly against the trunk, her fingers twisted in his shirt as he lifted her just enough that her feet barely brushed the ground.
Catherine’s heart thudded, loud and unsteady.
"Are you not feeling well?"
Maximilian’s voice was close... too close.
She startled, breath catching as she turned. He was already approaching her, his expression sharpened with sothing like concern. He seed to feel it—her unease, her disarray.
She wanted to flee. Truly.
But her legs felt weak, uncooperative, as though they no longer belonged to her.
This was new. Entirely new.
She sensed him before she fully saw him... his presence, his warmth, that familiar scent she had grown accustod to in his ho. Clean. Grounding. Dangerous in its own quiet way.
"Catherine?" His hand closed around her arm, hesitant, as if unsure whether he should touch her at all.
She didn’t pull away.
She looked up at him instead.
She ant to step back. She really did. Yet the distance between them collapsed all the sa...one step, then none at all. That cursed burning sensation caused her to stop.
One ter.
Absurdly, she thought of laughing. The thought slipped away just as quickly.
Now she needed to kiss him. Didn’t she?
Before reason could intervene, she seized his lapel and tugged him down as she rose onto her toes. The movent was abrupt, clumsy... and utterly sincere.
Her lips brushed his.
Then, emboldened by sothing reckless and unfamiliar, she nibbled.
She had never done that before. Not in this life.
Maximilian froze, startled, as he always did when she kissed him for the sake of the curse. For a heartbeat, he did nothing at all.
Five seconds. That was the rule. The safe margin she had discovered. She should have counted. She always counted.
She didn’t pull away.
Neither did he.
The mont stretched... too long to be accidental, too charged to be ignored.
It wasn’t enough.
She closed her eyes and stepped closer to him, craving more. Tentatively, almost shyly, she let her tongue slip past his lips.
That was all it took.
Maximilian’s hand slid to her waist, firm and unmistakably real, guiding her back until her shoulders t the wall. The world narrowed—breath, warmth, the closeness of him. Their mouths t again, slower now, deeper, curiosity folding into intent.
Catherine’s thoughts scattered.
This was no longer about the curse.
And they both knew it.
With one hand firm around her waist and the other braced against the wall beside her, Maximilian leaned into the kiss. Desire surged—hot, reckless—colliding with the last fragnts of Catherine’s rationality. A soft, involuntary moan slipped past her lips as her chest arched toward him, seeking contact.
His breath faltered.
Her fingers slid from his jaw to the curve of his neck, holding him there, asking... no, demanding more.
It startled her, how quickly the hunger rose. How easily the rules dissolved. There was no calculation now, no counting seconds. Just heat, closeness, the overwhelming awareness of another body responding to hers.
Just a man and a woman.
Maximilian’s eyes fluttered open for a brief, dangerous second.
She was utterly undone: lashes dark against flushed skin, lips parted for him, clinging as though he were sothing she’d been missing without ever knowing it. The realization hit him hard.
She wanted him.
The kiss deepened, unhurried and consuming, as if neither of them could rember why they had ever stopped before. There was no rush to pull away, no voice of reason breaking through... only the steady press of bodies, the shared breath, and the unspoken truth settling between them.
This wasn’t going to stop on its own.
*Click*
The door opened.
"My dearest Maximilian..." A familiar voice slipped in.
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