Chapter Four — The Fire and the Shadow

The air in Mara’s apartment shifted the moment Riven stepped further inside, as if every object recognized that something unpredictable had just crossed the threshold.

She closed the door slowly, the soft click echoing louder than it should have. He was already in the center of the living room, his back turned, hands in his coat pockets, surveying the space without hurry.

His presence was weighty — not in a way that suffocated her, but in the way gravity has weight, keeping a body tethered to the earth.

When he finally looked at her over his shoulder, his gaze wasn’t in a rush to reach her face. His eyes tracked deliberately — from her bare feet against the wood floor, up her frame, to the spark he seemed determined to kindle in her expression.

“You changed,” he said simply.

Mara’s voice was soft, but steady. “From last night?”

“From five minutes ago, when I was at your door,” he corrected, walking toward her. “Every time I come closer, something about you shifts.”

She swallowed as he stopped a half-step away — close enough for the faint brush of his coat to graze her knees, far enough to leave a sliver of aching space between them.

“Do you know what you look like right now?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Like you’re deciding if I’m a dangerous mistake,” he murmured. Then his lips curved faintly, almost impatiently. “And I am.”

The way he said it should have warned her off. Instead, it melted a knot somewhere low in her stomach.

When he reached for the belt of her robe, she didn’t step back. He didn’t tug or pull — just rested his fingers there, waiting for some unspoken permission. Mara inhaled, and that was all he needed.

The knot slipped free soundlessly, the robe parting just enough to show the edge of her camisole. His eyes dropped there, but he didn’t touch her yet.

“Mara,” he said, tasting her name like it was the first and only word he’d keep. “Do you know why I wanted tonight to be here?”

She shook her head again.

“In the alley, you met the part of me that claims.” He leaned in until his breath warmed the shell of her ear. “Tonight is the part that studies — every reaction, every breath, every shiver.”

Her pulse throbbed dangerously close to her skin.

He drew back enough to see her eyes before slipping the robe from her shoulders entirely. It fell to the floor in a hush. There was nothing hurried in the way he looked at her, and that was what undid her — the slow, deliberate attention, as if he were committing this exact image to memory.

“That’s what I wanted,” he said almost tenderly, though his voice carried heat under the surface. “For you to stand still and let me see you.”

Her instinct was to shift under the weight of his gaze, but she didn’t move. She let herself be seen. And in that stillness, in those silent seconds, her chest loosened in the strange comfort of being known without words.

When his fingertips finally touched her skin, they skimmed the curve of her collarbone before gliding up the side of her neck. The touch was reverent but unyielding, like he could map her pulse’s every stutter.

“Mara…” His tone was lower now, threaded with something rough. “Everything I told you last night — about not letting go — I meant it. This is me beginning to make good on it.”

She leaned forward almost imperceptibly, guided by an invisible cord strung tight between them. Their lips met with none of the tentative caution from last night’s first kiss. This was deeper — warmer, slower, like pouring dark whiskey into a glass and letting it spread heat to every part of the body.

His hands cradled her face, framing it as if she were something he intended to memorize not just with touch, but with every one of his senses. Mara felt the tension coil between them when she fisted the fabric of his shirt and pulled him closer.

One of his hands slid into her hair, the other tracing down her side to the small of her back, urging her to erase the space between them altogether. When she gave in to that pull, their bodies fit in a way that made her ache everywhere at once.

“You feel it too, don’t you,” he breathed against her mouth.

She nodded. “Like we’ve done this before.”

His lips brushed hers in something almost like a smile. “Or like we were always going to.”

The couch caught them when they moved — and neither could later say who moved first. She found herself beneath him in a tangle of limbs and fabric, yet there was nothing rushed in his weight over her. His palm flattened against her ribcage, tracing up until his fingers brushed the skin just under the hem of her camisole.

Every shift of his body was calculated, deliberate, like he was seeing which movement drew the most breath from her lungs.

Her fingers roamed his shoulders, learning the shape of the strength there, the way muscle and tension rolled beneath his shirt. She wanted to map him like he was mapping her — and when she pulled his shirt free from his waistband, he didn’t stop her.

Instead, he whispered, “Go on.”

The word was a switch.

Her hands slid under the fabric, hungry for skin. His warmth was instantly addictive — the heat, the flex of his back beneath her palms as she explored him.

Riven caught her chin with gentle fingers, tilting her head to hold her gaze. “You’re trembling.”

“Because I’ve never been here before,” she confessed, voice catching. “Not like this. Not with someone I…” She stopped before the word could betray too much.

He searched her eyes for a long heartbeat before finishing for her, softly but with certainty. “…want?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

The admission brought a change in his touch. It softened, but not in intensity — more in purpose. His mouth brushed her jaw, then her throat, each kiss quieter than the one before, until she was arching up toward him in the smallest surrender.

When he finally pulled back, his hand settled over her heart. “Feel that?”

She nodded beneath his steady palm.

“Keep it,” he said simply, “because after tonight, it will never beat exactly the same again.”

And she believed him.

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