His arms slid under her, one beneath her knees and the other bracing her back, and he lifted her from the floor as if she weighed nothing. Claire gasped, her hands flying to his shoulders, the worn cotton of his shirt rough under her palms. He carried her the few steps to the shrouded mirror, her bare back pressed against the solid wall of his chest, her legs dangling over his arm. With a sharp tug, he yanked the dusty sheet away, sending a cloud of motes spinning into the moonlight like unsettled ghosts.
Their reflection materialized in the old glass. Claire saw herself—flushed skin, wild hair, eyes wide and dark—cradled against him. He was all shadow and tense line behind her, his face buried against the curve of her neck, his eyes in the mirror finding hers with a fierce, almost painful intensity. His hands, large and rough, were splayed possessively over her stomach and thigh, his fingers pressing into her flesh. “Look,” he commanded, his voice a raw scrape against her skin.
She looked. She saw the trembling line of his jaw, the pulse hammering in his throat. She saw the devastating vulnerability in his own gaze as he watched his hands on her body in the glass, as if he were a stranger witnessing his own ruin. The truth was there, naked and terrifying: he was just as unmade as she was. This wasn’t a man in control. This was a man falling.
His breath hitched, warm and damp against her shoulder. One of his hands shifted, sliding up from her stomach to cover her breast, his thumb brushing over her nipple. A sharp, electric jolt went through her, and her head fell back against him, a quiet moan escaping her lips. In the mirror, she watched her own body arch, watched his fingers tighten, watched his eyes darken with a hunger so deep it looked like agony.
“See what you do,” he whispered, the words vibrating into her bones. His other hand drifted lower, tracing the inside of her thigh, and she felt the slick heat between her legs, an honest, aching proof. He didn’t look away from their reflection, forcing her to watch as his fingertips skimmed higher, stopping just at the very edge of her. The threshold. The breath before the fall. They were both shaking.
His fingers slipped inside her.
The sensation was a shocking, perfect fullness—a stretch that made her gasp, her body arching sharply back against him. In the mirror, her eyes flew wide, her mouth falling open on a silent cry. She watched, transfixed, as his hand moved between her thighs, as his fingers disappeared into her body, as her own slickness glistened on his skin in the moonlight. He didn’t look away from their reflection, his gaze locked on where they were joined, his expression one of raw, devastated awe.
“Watch,” he breathed against her neck, his voice trembling. He curled his fingers, and a broken sound tore from her throat. Her head lolled back against his shoulder, but he gently gripped her jaw with his free hand, turning her face back toward the glass. “Watch us.” She was forced to see it all: the flush spreading across her chest, the desperate clench of her muscles around his fingers, the way his own jaw was tight with a restraint that was visibly splintering. Every slow, deliberate stroke was a confession mirrored back at them.
Heat coiled tight and low in her belly, a relentless pull. Her hands, which had been gripping his shoulders, now scrabbled helplessly at the fabric of his shirt. “Ethan—” His name was a plea, a prayer, the only truth she had left. She felt his own shuddering breath against her skin, felt the hard ridge of his erection pressed against the small of her back, a promise of more. This wasn’t just his hand inside her; it was him, unmade, entering the most secret part of her and finding a home there.
His thumb found her clit, circling with a pressure that made her sob. The pleasure was blinding, a white-hot wire pulled taut. She was shaking uncontrollably, her vision swimming, but he held her gaze in the glass. In his eyes, she saw the same terrifying freefall. He wasn’t controlling this; he was surrendering to it, to her. “You see?” he whispered, his voice ragged. “You see what you’ve done?”
A wave gathered, crested, and shattered. Her climax ripped through her with a violence that stole the air from her lungs. She convulsed against him, a silent scream etched on her face in the mirror, her body clutching his fingers in rhythmic pulses. He held her through it, his arms like iron bands, his face buried in her hair as he watched her come apart in their reflection. When the last tremor subsided, leaving her boneless and gasping, he slowly, carefully withdrew his hand. They were both utterly still, breathing in ragged sync, staring at the two strangers panting in the glass.
He didn’t speak. His arms tightened around her, and he lifted her again, cradling her limp, sated body against his chest. He carried her the few steps to the bed, his movements deliberate, and laid her down on the faded quilt. The fabric was cool and slightly rough against her flushed skin. He stood over her for a heartbeat, his shadow swallowing her, his chest rising and falling with unsteady breaths. Then he lowered himself, not beside her, but over her, bracing his weight on his forearms, his clothed body a scant inch above her nakedness.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice low and wrecked. Not a command from the mirror, but a request. A confession.
Claire opened her eyes. The moonlight caught the sheen of sweat on his temple, the stark lines of pain and want etched around his mouth. He was still fully dressed, a barrier of denim and cotton between them, but the hard length of him pressed against her thigh was a blunt, undeniable reality. Her own wetness, his doing, cooled on her skin. She saw it in his eyes—the same devastating vulnerability from the mirror, but closer now. Unfiltered. He was looking at her as if she were the truth, and it was killing him.
Her hands came up, her artist’s fingers trembling as they touched his jaw. The stubble was rough. His breath hitched. “Ethan,” she whispered, and it wasn’t a plea anymore. It was an answer.
He bowed his head, his forehead coming to rest against hers. His eyes closed. A tremor ran through him, a fault line giving way. “I can’t stop,” he breathed into the space between their mouths. The words were raw, stripped of every guard. “Even knowing it burns everything down. I look at you and I… I can’t.”
She felt the truth of it in the tension of his body, in the ache between her own legs that was already stirring again, hungry for him. Not just his hand, but him. All of him. Her hips shifted, a slight, involuntary arch, and the friction against the rough denim covering his thighs made them both gasp. Her thumb stroked the pulse hammering in his throat. “Then don’t,” she said, the simplest, most dangerous truth she’d ever spoken.