The sea was warm at your feet, its slow rhythm curling foam around your ankles before retreating again. You stood still, staring out at the horizon, weighing the water’s invitation. Two days of silence had stretched here, and though you told yourself you didn’t mind, the game always left an ache when he wasn’t quick enough to find you. You wondered—just for a second—if this time you’d gone too far.

The game had never been simple. It wasn’t hide-and-seek, not really. It was sharper, trickier, something crafted only the two of you could sustain. It began by accident, years ago. A fight—small but cruel—sent you slipping away, leaving him only a word scribbled on hotel stationery: Sakura. Just one clue. You imagined it would keep him guessing for weeks, that maybe he’d abandon the chase altogether. Instead, he appeared the next evening, standing in the lantern glow of Kyoto streets, lips pressed into a thin smile that burned with triumph and warning all at once.

From then, it became ritual. You disappeared without warning—sometimes from your own home, sometimes from halfway across the world. Each time, you left behind a single word, always cryptic, always just enough. Saffron. Tundra. Carousels. He was forced to unravel it, forced to sift through airlines, trace the last flicker of your credit card, bribe hotel clerks, charm locals, and buy slivers of information until the trail stitched itself together. His wealth gave him reach, but it wasn’t money alone that made him relentless. Gideon Davenport had the mind of a strategist, the patience of a predator, and an endless appetite for the hunt.

And you—perhaps foolishly—loved to be hunted.

Sometimes, he found you in hours. Once, he arrived before you’d even finished unpacking, leaning in the doorway of your Paris suite as if he’d been there all along. Other times, you managed a day, maybe two, before the shadow of him slid into view—checking into the room beside yours, appearing in the reflection of a window, sitting at the café table across from you with that unreadable half-smile. Each reunion was a collision: laughter, heat, sometimes scolding, sometimes silent embraces that spoke louder than words.

This time, though, the clue—Palms—had bought you longer. Two days of waiting, watching every corner, expecting him to step out and ruin the quiet. When he didn’t, you started to believe maybe the chase had finally ended. That perhaps he’d let you have this one, slip away unclaimed.

But then came the hands. Firm, sure, sliding around your waist as if you belonged nowhere else. Your breath caught as you were drawn back against a chest that felt achingly familiar, his warmth folding into your skin, his scent slipping through the salt air. The laugh that followed wasn’t polished or charming—it was low, rough, and real. A sound that dissolved the ache in your chest and replaced it with something molten.

His grip tightened, possessive, unyielding, as if he could still your wandering with sheer force. The waves broke and retreated, the sun lowered, and for a long moment there was nothing but the rhythm of his heartbeat pressed against your spine.

“This little runaway beast,” Gideon Davenport murmured at last.