I push open my bedroom door, already mentally cataloguing everything I need to accomplish before sleep claims me.
And there he is.
Caleb sits on the edge of my bed like he pays rent, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped between them. His shirt stretches across his shoulders, fabric straining against muscle I've memorized without permission. The top two buttons hang open, revealing the hollow of his throat, the beginning of his chest.
The casual invasion of my space should enrage me.
It does enrage me—that familiar fury rising hot and immediate behind my ribs. But beneath the anger, awareness thrums through my veins like a second heartbeat. Anticipation coils low in my stomach, tangled with the memory of his mouth on mine.
"We need to talk."
His voice is low, controlled, nothing like the boy who slammed doors at breakfast.
"Fascinating opener." I cross to my desk, putting furniture between us. "The answer's still no. Get out."
His gaze tracks my movement, heavy and deliberate, lingering on the curve of my waist. From that alone, heat blooms across my skin everywhere his eyes touch.
"Lucas isn't what he seems." He doesn't move from my bed, doesn't acknowledge my dismissal at all. "You need to stay away from him."
A laugh escapes me—sharp and incredulous, scraping against my throat on the way out.
"Oh, this is rich." I spin to face him fully, disbelief coating every syllable. "You're giving me relationship advice now? You, of all people?"
"This isn't about us, Serena." His jaw tightens, that familiar muscle jumping beneath his skin. "This is about him."
"There is no 'us,' Caleb. There's you, trespassing in my room, running your mouth about things that don't concern you."
The words taste like battery acid and broken promises on my tongue and he stands abruptly, making the room shrinks around his frame. The movement pulls his shirt taut across his chest, revealing the defined planes I once felt beneath my palms.
My mouth goes dry at the memory of his skin against mine.
"You kissed him tonight." The accusation hangs between us like a blade suspended by a thread.
"So?" I lift my chin, refusing to cower beneath the weight of his stare. "I did a lot of things tonight. Breathing. Blinking. Walking upright." I tilt my head. "Should I run those by you too, or just the ones involving other men's mouths?"
"On our doorstep." His voice drops to gravel, each word deliberate. "Ten feet from where I was standing."
"Proximity bothers you now?" I step closer before my brain can veto the movement. "That's new. You've never had trouble performing with an audience before."
His jaw tightens. "Careful, Serena."
"Or what? You'll make my life miserable?" I let out a hollow laugh. "Breaking news—you've been doing that since middle school. I'm immune."
"You're not immune to anything." He closes the distance between us until I can smell his cologne—cedar and amber and something darker underneath. "Your pulse is jumping in your throat right now. I can see it from here."
"That's called hatred, Caleb. Google it."
"Hatred doesn't make your pupils dilate." His gaze drops to my mouth, then drags back up slowly. "Hatred doesn't make you breathe like you've been running."
"Maybe I'm allergic to bullshit. You're certainly giving off enough of it."
"Then why haven't you screamed for Daddy yet?" He takes another step, and my back meets the wall. "William's two floors down. One word and I'm out of here."
The challenge hangs between us, electric and suffocating.
"I don't need my father to handle you."
"No?" His hand lifts, fingertips hovering a centimeter from my jaw. Not touching. Waiting. "Then handle me yourself. Put your hands on my chest and shove me out that door."
My fingers twitch at my sides.
"What's the holdup, princess?" The nickname drips with mockery. "All that righteous anger and you can't even touch me long enough to push me away?"
"Don't call me that."
"Touch me and I'll stop."
The silence stretches, taut as a wire about to snap. His fingertips still hover near my skin, close enough that I feel the warmth radiating from them without contact.
"You're terrified," he breathes. "Not of me. Of what happens when you stop pretending you don't want this."
"The only thing I want is for you to choke on your own ego."
"Liar." The word brushes against my lips. "Your whole body's shaking. You're so wound up you can barely stand."
"You're delusional."
"Then prove it." His mouth hovers a breath from mine. "Tell me to leave. Mean it."
We're both breathing hard now, chests heaving, faces inches apart. The argument has moved us closer without either of us noticing the migration. His cologne wraps around me—cedar and amber.
Every rational cell in my body screams at me to point at the door and demand his departure. But my feet have apparently staged a mutiny against my common sense.
"Why are you in my face again?" The question escapes as a whisper, stripped of all bravado. "What do you want from me?"
He doesn't answer with words.
His mouth finds mine like a confession he's been choking on for years—brutal, inevitable, ripping through the silence between us.
This isn't a kiss. This is every argument we never finished, every insult that meant something else entirely, translated into the scrape of teeth and the violence of want too long denied.
His tongue sweeps against mine, claiming territory like he's mapping borders he intends to conquer. His teeth catch my lower lip, and I gasp into the sharp sting of it. He swallows the sound like he's been starving for exactly this.
My hands fist in his shirt and drag him closer, fingers twisting cotton until my knuckles ache.
He pins me against the wall, his weight pressing me into plaster that scrapes my shoulder blades. His hips grind against mine, and I feel exactly how much this argument has affected him—the hard length of him pressing into my stomach, thick and insistent through denim.
I arch into him instead of pulling away.
My nails find his neck and drag downward, leaving trails that make him groan against my throat—a raw, broken sound that vibrates through my bones. His hands bracket my waist, fingers digging into flesh hard enough to bruise.
I want him to leave marks.
I want evidence that this happened, proof I didn't imagine the heat consuming us whole.
His thigh pushes between my legs, creating pressure exactly where I ache for him most. A moan escapes me before I can trap it behind my teeth, and my head falls back against the wall, exposing more skin for him to claim.
His hand slides up my ribcage, thumb brushing the underside of my breast through thin fabric. Every nerve ending in my body lights up like a switchboard going haywire.
This is insanity wrapped in obsession, served with a side of self-destruction.
And I cannot make myself care about the consequences waiting in tomorrow's light.
"Come on, princess." His mouth traces down my neck, tongue finding my pulse point. "Tell me how much you hate me now."
"I hate—" The word dissolves into a gasp as his teeth graze my collarbone. "I hate you."
"Again." His voice is gravel and smoke against my throat. "Make me believe it this time."
"Caleb—"
The room spins in lazy, devastating circles. My lips are swollen and tender from the force of his mouth against mine. My heart races like it's trying to escape my chest entirely.
I don't hate him.
The girl who hated him is gone, and the woman in her place wants him completely.