10:07 p.m. – Ethan's Apartment, Downtown
The room was quiet. The kind of quiet that comes not from silence, but from the weight of everything unsaid.
The faint hum of the city beyond the balcony window vibrated through the glass, casting faint halos of neon across the floor. The air was warm, but Sienna's breath still fogged slightly in the cold of anticipation.
Ethan stood across from her—still shirtless from earlier—his gaze sharp but unreadable.
Sienna's coat hung loosely off her shoulders. Her heels had already been kicked aside, forgotten like armor no longer needed.
"I didn't come here to fix anything," she said softly.
"I know."
"I just wanted to be here. With you."
Ethan didn't answer immediately. He stepped closer, so close she could smell his skin—clean, masculine, touched with spice and metal from the soldering table beside them.
His voice came low. Measured.
"You don't have to say it, Sienna. I already knew."
She blinked slowly. "Knew what?"
"That you were already mine."
---
The First Touch
When he kissed her this time, it wasn't searching. It wasn't hesitant.
It was claiming.
His hand cradled the back of her head, the other settled firmly at her waist. Sienna melted into him, lips parting, breath catching as their bodies aligned like matching puzzle pieces again and again ,then for eternity.
Her hands found his back, fingers splaying across the ridges of muscle as if memorizing his topography.
She didn't just feel wanted.
She felt chosen.
And Ethan—despite all his calculated composure—was unraveling. Not wildly. But in quiet, deliberate surrender.
He reached for the hem of her dress, pulling it upward inch by inch, until the soft fabric peeled over her head and dropped like a sigh to the floor.
He didn't rush. Didn't grope hers.. Just stood there, drinking her in.
"You're beautiful," he murmured, his thumb brushing beneath her collarbone and a Lil lower. "But it's more than that. You're… real."
His touch moved over her stomach, then her hip, steady and reverent. As though she were something holy.
She laughed lightly, flushed. "I've never felt like this... different.."
Ethan leaned forward, lips brushing her ear.
"That's because you've never stopped hiding—until now."
---
As Skin Met Skin
They moved toward the bed without planning to.
Every step backward she took, he followed. Until the back of her knees hit the edge of the mattress.
Sienna lay back, pulling him over her.
His hands slid down her sides, warm and anchoring. His mouth followed, brushing over her collarbone, her sternum, her ribs—each area receiving a kiss.. a vow, a pause, a question:
"Are you sure?"
And with every sigh, every whisper of her fingers in his hair, she answered:
"Yes."
He undressed slowly—not for effect, but with intimacy, letting her watch as he removed each layer of distance.
When their skin finally pressed fully, a low, shared gasp broke the air.
Their bodies moved with slow rhythm—not frantic, not performative—just present.
Breath against breath.
Pulse against pulse.
The space between them vanished.
And in that sacred, weightless moment, Ethan's mind echoed a thought he'd never admitted aloud:
"Sex is the first thing ,you could do to reach closest at someone's soul." He said while pounding Sienna beneath that silky-white velvet blanket like , a heart grabbing blood to live.
Not with force.
Not with conquest.
But with total, terrifying openness.
And she had reached him.
All of him.
---
The Aftermath
Later, they lay tangled in sheets that still carried the warmth of them.
Sienna's fingers traced lazy circles on his chest, her leg slung over his. She hadn't said much—but she didn't need to.
Her body had already spoken everything.
Ethan's arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her closer.
"Do you regret it?" she asked quietly.
He turned his head toward her, lifting her chin with two fingers.
"Not even a little," he said. "You?"
"No." She smiled. "Only that I waited so long."
He kissed her forehead. "We weren't ready before."
"I think we are now."
A long silence stretched between them.
And for the first time in Ethan's adult life, he didn't want to return to solitude.
He just wanted this.
Not perfection.
Not escape.
Just presence—with someone who didn't flinch from the real version of him.
'This occurs when you find someone attractive and loving, you free-mind and heart want them for eternity but it's a delusion. They'll only remain until the mirage of your greatness in their eyes.'
And as Sienna curled into his chest and exhaled, a whisper of a smile tugged at his lips.
They had finally arrived at each other.
Not as halves looking to be made whole.
But as two complete people...
...choosing to meet in the dark—and stay.