Stolen Afternoon
Rain streaks the window of the borrowed apartment, blurring the city into watercolor smears. Isabella leans against the doorframe, watching Carlos shrug off his damp jacket. His hands, still smelling of sawdust from the jobsite, reach for her. 'You came,' he murmurs, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw where a faint scar hides beneath her hair. She doesn't flinch—not anymore. 'I always come,' she whispers back, her voice a low hum against the drumming rain. His fingers slip under the hem of her shirt, finding the warm skin of her waist, and she arches into his touch, the ghost of twelve-year-old Bella dissolving in the heat of now.