The night wrapped around them like a silken cage—dark, heavy, and charged with unspoken tension. Cassian's eyes bore into Riven's, fierce and possessive, a wildfire barely contained beneath the surface. Every breath between them was thick with longing and the dangerous promise of what could unravel next.
Riven's skin tingled where Cassian's fingers trailed, each touch igniting embers deep inside. The room pulsed with their shared heat, but beneath the surface, a thread of doubt tugged tight — the unspoken secrets, the betrayals hovering just out of sight, threatening to snap.
"You don't have to say it," Cassian murmured, voice rough as he leaned in, lips brushing the shell of Riven's ear. "I feel it. The fracture between us."
Riven swallowed hard, caught between surrender and resistance. "It's not just desire that binds us, Cassian. It's everything we refuse to face."
Their bodies pressed closer, the friction of skin against skin setting off a storm of sensation. Each kiss was both a balm and a blade, healing yet cutting deeper into the wounds they tried to hide.
As the night deepened, so did their tangled dance—between passion and pain, trust and betrayal. The thread between them stretched taut, but neither dared let go.
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