Almost
“Stop that,” Zoey breathes, though the words dissolve into something softer than a laugh, something fragile. Her fingers drift into Mira’s hair as if they belong there, threading through the silken strands with tenderness. She means to pull away.
She doesn’t.
Instead, she lets her hand linger, lets her nails graze Mira’s scalp in slow strokes that are anything but absent.
Mira leans closer in answer, the slightest tilt forward, the quiet surrender of gravity. The space between them shrinks. Her hands rest at Zoey’s waist, thumbs tracing circles that feel anything but lazy. Each pass over Zoey sends a shiver through her, a spark that catches and spreads.
“Stop what?” Mira asks, and her voice — low, husky, frayed at the edges — slides over Zoey’s nerves like oil poured over flame. She can’t blame it on post-game fatigue anymore. It’s something else entirely, she knows. Something molten.
Zoey’s pulse flutters wildly beneath her ribs. She bites her lip, trying to anchor herself, but Mira’s eyes are on her — dark and unguarded and endless. Looking at her as if she’s already chosen. As if Zoey is the only constellation left in Mira’s sky, and everything else has burned out around her. Zoey feels herself tipping forward. She’s standing at the edge of something vast and dangerous and irresistible.
“You’re doing it again,” she whispers, her voice trembling. They are so close now that she can feel the heat still radiating off of Mira against her own skin.
“Doing what?” Mira murmurs, and Zoey can hear it — the uneven hitch in her breathing, the way it catches when their hips brush. She can feel it too, in the way Mira’s fingers tighten at her waist.
“Looking at me like that.” The confession is barely sound at all. Her gaze flicks down to Mira’s mouth for the briefest second. The sight of it — soft, parted, waiting — threatens to steal what little composure she has left. When she looks back up, it’s worse. Because she knows that look in Mira’s eyes. She’s memorized it in other moments, in fuller rooms, in louder hours. It’s hunger without apology. It’s want without restraint. Mira has never been one to pretend she doesn’t feel. And right now, it’s as clearly on display as ever.
“Like what?” Mira prompts again, but her voice has thinned into breath. Their chests press together, rising and falling out of sync. Mira’s hands curl into the fabric of Zoey’s shirt, tugging her closer as if she might drift away.
Zoey’s heart trembles so hard it feels like it might break through her ribs. She swallows. Her hand tightens in Mira’s hair.
“Like…” she exhales shakily, lips hovering so close that the word brushes against Mira’s skin. “Like you’d kiss me if I asked you to.”
