Wellll....

The heavy wooden door slid open with a quiet shff of well-oiled wood.

“I thought you might enjoy some—“ The hot spring manager’s cheerful voice cut through the steamy air, then stopped abruptly.

Time seemed to fracture. The woman stood in the doorway, holding a small tray with two ceramic cups. Her eyes, warm and knowing, swept over the scene: Raven, laid out on the stone floor, her pale skin flush with desire. Him, poised above her, his body a monument of tense, glistening muscle and urgent intention. The air itself was thick with the scent of their arousal, a primal musk that even the sulfurous spring couldn’t mask.

Her gaze lingered for a single, excruciating heartbeat. Not in shock. Not in anger. In amusement. A slow, deep smirk spread across her face, a silent, profoundly knowing Ah, I see.

Then, without another word, she gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, and the door shff-clicked shut again.

The sound was a gunshot in the sudden silence.

For a moment, neither of them moved. He was frozen above her, every muscle locked. Raven’s eyes, which had been dark pools of want, now widened in pure, unadulterated horror. The blush that had been a pretty pink flush on her cheeks moments before now consumed her entire face, her neck, her chest.

‘She saw. She knows. She knows me. She respects me…’

Raven was mortified.

The thoughts weren’t spoken, but he could see them racing behind her eyes, each one a fresh wave of panic.

Then, the world cracked.