The city had quieted into a velvet hush, the streets glistening from an earlier rain. Raj stood by his apartment window, sipping his drink, the dim golden light tracing the sharp lines of his face. His phone buzzed—a single message from Smriti.
“I’m downstairs.”
He smiled faintly, the kind that carried both surprise and expectation. Smriti wasn’t one to visit without warning. He opened the door before she could knock, and there she was—hair slightly tousled from the breeze, rain-kissed skin glowing in the hallway light.
“You didn’t even ask me why I’m here,” she teased, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation.
“I figured you’d tell me… eventually,” Raj replied, his voice low and deliberate.
She removed her scarf, letting it slip from her fingers to the couch. Her eyes met his—steady, challenging—before wandering over the room. “You always keep it so warm in here,” she murmured, running her hand across the back of the sofa. “Or maybe it’s just you.”
Raj moved closer, slow enough for her to notice, close enough for her to feel. The air between them tightened.
“You look like trouble tonight,” he said, studying her face, “and I think you know it.”
Smriti tilted her head, her lips curving into the smallest of smiles. “Maybe I am trouble. Or maybe you’ve just been waiting for me to be.”
They stood there, the silence charged, her perfume weaving into the air—soft, floral, dangerously distracting. Raj’s gaze dropped, not to her lips, but to the way her breath caught just slightly. It was that hesitation, that pause, that pulled him in more than any words could.
“Why are you here, Smriti?” he asked, though his tone suggested he already knew.
“I wanted to see if you’d still look at me the same way,” she said quietly. “Like you might kiss me… or stop me from leaving.”
His eyes darkened, not with anger, but with something far more complicated. He reached up, brushing an errant strand of hair from her face. “And if I don’t let you leave?”
“Then I suppose,” she whispered, her voice trembling just enough to betray her calm, “I’d have to stay.”
A soft rumble of thunder rolled outside, the dim light flickering against the rain-streaked glass. Raj didn’t move closer—he didn’t need to. Smriti stepped into him, closing the gap, her hand resting lightly against his chest. She could feel the steady rhythm beneath her palm, the unspoken answer to her challenge.
“You always do this,” he said, his lips almost brushing hers. “You walk in like you own the moment… and then you dare me to make it mine.”
“And do you?” she asked.
He let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Every time.”
Her smile deepened, but her eyes stayed locked on his. They didn’t kiss—not yet. That was the game. The not-quite, the almost. The delicious ache of it.
Raj stepped past her, his hand grazing her arm, the brief contact sending a current through her. He poured her a drink, the clink of glass breaking the silence, and handed it to her without a word. Their fingers touched, lingering just a second too long.
Smriti took a sip, her gaze never leaving his. “You know,” she said, “there’s something dangerous about you, Raj.”
He tilted his head. “Dangerous, or irresistible?”
“Both.”
The rain outside thickened into a steady hum, the night wrapping around them like a secret. Smriti set her glass down, her fingertips trailing along the table’s edge before finding his hand. She didn’t pull him toward her—she just held his gaze, letting the connection do the work.
It wasn’t about what happened next. It was about the space between them, the silent admission that they were already past the point of pretending this was just a casual visit.
Finally, Raj’s voice broke the quiet, deep and certain. “Stay.”
Smriti didn’t answer with words. She simply smiled, the kind that promised more than the night could hold, and stepped closer until there was no more space left between them.
Outside, the rain kept falling. Inside, the air carried the weight of something that had been building for far too long—and was finally, inevitably, about to happen.