It started the same way every time.
The lights were low. The house was quiet. And the night felt… longer than it used to.
Her glass of wine was half full when she leaned back on the couch, one bare leg tucked under her, the other stretching lazily toward the edge of the coffee table. The silk robe she wore didn’t really cover much—maybe it wasn’t meant to.
She wasn’t looking at him. Not yet. She pretended to be lost in the movie playing on the TV, but her hand kept tracing the rim of her glass, slow, distracted, absentminded. Every movement deliberate without looking deliberate.
Ryan couldn’t focus on the screen either. Not when she was this close. Not when the hem of her robe shifted each time she shifted, and not when the faint perfume she wore somehow cut through the smell of wine and quiet tension.
He shouldn’t have stayed this late. He knew that. But he also knew she hadn’t asked him to leave.
When she finally looked at him, her gaze lingered just a little too long—heavy, loaded, as if daring him to blink first.
“You’re quiet tonight,” she said softly.
He shrugged, forcing a smile. “Just… tired, I guess.”
She tilted her head, watching him the way someone studies a flame. Her fingers set the wine glass down, slow enough that he saw the way her nails caught the light. Then, without a word, she slid closer on the couch—an inch, maybe two, but enough that he felt the heat from her skin.
The silence stretched.
Then her hand brushed his, casual at first, like an accident. He didn’t move. Neither did she. Instead, she let her fingertips rest there, barely touching, tracing lazy, invisible patterns along his knuckles.
Ryan exhaled, shallow, controlled.
“Sheila…” he said, barely above a whisper.
Her lips curved into a small smile, but she didn’t look away. “Don’t,” she murmured. “Not tonight.”
Something shifted after that.
The robe slipped a little from her shoulder, exposing more skin than she probably realized—or maybe exactly as much as she intended. The dim light made her look softer, warmer, older in a way that wasn’t about years but about certainty. She wasn’t guessing. She wasn’t hoping. She knew what she wanted.
And the older she got, the nights seemed… hungrier.
He could feel it in the way she leaned in, the way her knee brushed his thigh and stayed there, unhurried. The way her hand finally took his instead of just touching it. Her grip was warm, firm, quiet but deliberate.
Everything slowed—the sound of his breathing, the hum of the TV, the faint clink of ice melting in her glass.
When her lips finally brushed his, it wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t even gentle. It was inevitable.
And when she pulled back, breath warm against his cheek, she whispered what he already knew:
“Some nights aren’t meant for sleeping.”