His mouth claims mine like he's been starving for three years.
Maybe he has. Maybe we both have.
Ethan's hands slide up my back, pulling me closer until there's no space left between us. I can feel every line of his body through our clothes—the hard planes of his chest, the tension in his shoulders, the way his heart hammers against mine like it's trying to break through his ribs.
"Harper." He breathes my name against my lips like a prayer. "God, I've missed you."
I should stop this. I should remember all the reasons I hate him.
But then my fingers find the hem of his shirt and I drag it upward. He breaks the kiss just long enough to pull it over his head, and then his mouth is on mine again, hungrier now, more desperate.
His body is different than I remember. Harder and more defined. My hands trace the ridges of muscle across his stomach, his chest, his shoulders. He shivers under my touch, a soft groan escaping his throat.
"You're so beautiful," he murmurs against my jaw, his lips trailing down my neck. "You've always been so fucking beautiful."
His fingers find the zipper at the back of my dress and he pauses, pulling back to meet my eyes with a silent question. Asking permission even now, even with three years of distance and anger between us.
I answer by reaching back and unzipping it myself.
The dress pools at my feet and his breath catches audibly, gaze traveling over me with something that looks almost like reverence.
"Harper…" Just my name. Nothing else.
Like it's the only word he knows.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me to the bed. We fall together onto the mattress, his body covering mine, warm and solid and achingly familiar.
His mouth finds my collarbone. My shoulder. The curve of my breast. Every touch is slow, deliberate, like he's memorizing me. Like he's afraid I'll disappear if he moves too fast.
"I never stopped thinking about you." His voice is rough, broken. "Not for one day. Not for one damn second."
My chest cracks open at his words. I pull his face back up to mine, kissing him deep, trying to pour three years of grief and longing into the press of our lips.
His hand slides down my body, and I gasp against his mouth just for him to swallow the sound, while his fingers find the places that make me arch into him.
"Tell me what you need," he whispers. "Tell me and I'll give you everything."
"You." The word comes out desperate, broken. "Just you."
He pulls back to look at me, and there's something raw in his eyes. Vulnerable. The boy I fell in love with at fifteen, hidden underneath years of distance and muscle and my carefully constructed walls.
"I'm here…" He presses his forehead against mine. "I'm right here."
His mouth traces down my throat, my collarbone, lower—and then he's sliding down my body, pushing my dress up around my hips with hands that know exactly what they're doing. I should stop him, should remember where we are, but then his breath is hot against my inner thigh and I forget how to think.
"I hate that I still want this." The words slip out before I can stop them, my fingers already tangled in his hair. "I hate that my body never forgot you."
"I know." He presses a kiss to the lace between my thighs, and I nearly come off the bed. "Mine never forgot you either."
He pulls the fabric aside and his tongue finds my clit with devastating precision—circling, teasing, drawing sounds from my throat I didn't know I could make. Then he slides lower, his tongue pushing inside me, and I have to bite my fist to keep from screaming. No one has touched me like this in three years. Marcus never bothered to learn what I needed, but Ethan remembers every single thing that undoes me.
His fingers replace his tongue, two of them sliding deep while his mouth returns to my clit, sucking gently. The pressure builds impossibly fast—I'm already trembling, already teetering on the edge, already closer than Marcus has gotten me in our entire relationship.
"Look at me." His voice is strained, desperate against my skin. “I need to see you when you fall apart."
I open my eyes and his face is between my thighs, every emotion written across his features—love, grief, desperation, hunger. He looks at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters. His fingers curl inside me, hitting that spot, and the pressure crests—
Then I hear footsteps on the stairs. Heavy, unsteady, coming closer.
We both freeze, his fingers still buried inside me, my orgasm shattering before it arrives.
My blood turns to ice. I shove Ethan off me so hard he nearly falls off the bed.
"Get up." My voice comes out sharp, panicked, completely sober. "Get up, get up, he's coming."
Ethan is already moving, grabbing his shirt from the floor, yanking his jeans back on. His eyes find mine—wounded, confused, still soft from what we just shared. "Harper—"
"That was a mistake." I'm pulling my dress back on with shaking hands. "I was drunk. It didn't mean anything."
"You know that's not true."
"I don't know anything except that my boyfriend is about to walk through that door." I point at the window. "Go. Now."
The footsteps are in the hallway now. A door opens somewhere nearby, slams shut.
Ethan crosses to the window and pushes it open. He pauses with one leg over the sill, looking back at me.
"This isn't over," he says quietly. "You know that, right?"
"Fucking go!" I hiss at him.
He disappears into the darkness and then I hear the soft thud of him landing on the ground below. I sit on the edge of the bed, smoothing my hair, arranging my face into something that doesn't look like I just had my world turned inside out.
The door opens and Marcus stumbles in, reeking of beer and frustration. His t-shirt is scrumbled, hair disheveled and he barely looks at me as he slumps against the doorframe.
"Stupid fucking party," he mutters. "Ryan is such an asshole. You know what he said to me? He said I was washed up. Washed fucking up. Like my knee isn't gonna heal in two months."
"Marcus…"
"I almost punched him. Should've punched him, actually." He rubs his face, swaying slightly. "Let's go home, I'm done with this shit."
I stand on legs that don't feel steady. "Okay."
Blessfully, he doesn't notice that my dress is wrinkled. Doesn't notice the flush still fading from my chest as well as he doesn't notice the open window or the cool night air drifting through.
He just slings his arm around my shoulders, heavy and possessive, and steers me toward the door.
"You're too good for this party anyway, babydoll." His words slur together. "Too good for all of them."
I let him lead me down the stairs, through the crowd, out into the night. My body moves on autopilot while my mind replays everything—Ethan's hands, his mouth, his voice breaking when he said his body never forgot me.
I told him I still wanted him.
It's like in the middle of everything, the truth I didn’t let to acknowledge even to myself just fell out of me. And the way he looked at me, like I was everything he ever wanted, said more than words ever could.
Marcus opens the cub's passenger door for me, and I slide in. He walks around to another side, still muttering about Ryan, about respect, about proving everyone wrong.
I stare out the window and think about Ethan landing in the darkness below.
About the way he said this isn't over.
He's wrong. This was a mistake. A drunk, stupid mistake that will never happen again.
We're not together. We won't be together. He said everything he needed to say three years ago in that hallway. I was a distraction he couldn't afford and nothing that happened tonight changes that.
My body just betrayed me in the moment of weakness. That's all.
Muscle memory and alcohol and the ghost of a girl who used to love him endlessly.
But I'm not that girl anymore. And I won't let myself be.