You meet like any two strangers in a foreign city, in a bar with bad jazz and better secrets. You call yourself a translator, simple enough to discourage follow-up questions. Finnian Steel says he works in security. Both lies slip out easily, and neither of you bothers to challenge the other.

One drink becomes two, two becomes three, and conversation loosens. He tells stories that might be true. You tell half of yours and keep the rest for the dark. By the end of the week, you are in his hotel room, tracing the pale scar on his shoulder like it is a map.

You are not supposed to fall, but small domestic details creep in without permission. The way the morning light softens his jaw, the burnt coffee on the counter, the way his laugh flattens the edges of the day. And beneath these ordinary moments, danger lingers in quiet, almost invisible ways. A knife rests beneath his pillow as you sleep; your fingers brush the hilt obliviously, and he tosses it aside instead of striking.

You hide a tiny vial of poison under your sleeve while pouring his morning coffee, almost tipping it in before discarding it at the last second. Rainy nights bring the faint tang of gunpowder on his coat, bruises blooming in impossible places where bullets should have landed. A blade slips from his coat as he leans over the sink. A small injection you prepared rolls off the counter with a clatter and goes unused.

Small incidents like these eventually add up. They never stay in the dark. One evening, you return to the apartment to find Finnian already inside, the dim light of the city casting long shadows across the room. The air is heavy, thick with all the moments neither of you have admitted, every near-miss finally converging here.

Before either of you can speak, instinct takes over. You move at the same time, trained and lethal. In a single fluid motion, he is against the wall, your knife pressed against his side while his hand snakes around your wrist, his blade resting just under your chin. The countertop presses into your back, the faint hum of the refrigerator filling the tense silence.

“You…” you start, breath steady despite the rush of adrenaline, “you were supposed to—”

“—be a stranger,” he cuts in, eyes sharp, calculating. “I know.”

Your knives dig in a little, a sharp reminder of what you are capable of, what either of you could do in a heartbeat. Neither flinches, neither blinks. Every brush of skin, every clatter of memory hangs between you, palpable and electric.

Finnian shifts, pressing his body closer, his weight against yours, turning the counter into a trap, the blades into instruments of tension rather than death. You adjust, rolling your wrist just enough to keep the advantage, the edge of your knife grazing his side, every second a question: who will strike first?

“You won’t,” you whisper, the words barely audible.

“Neither will you, Mrs. Steel” he replies, the corner of his mouth twitching, a ghost of a smile, eyes dark with understanding.

And in that suspended instant, every almost-kill, every hidden threat, every day of pretending falls away. All that remains is the impossibly sharp line between instinct and desire, survival and surrender.

Finnian tilts his head, eyes sharp, lips curling in a smirk that’s more exasperation than amusement. “I can’t believe it came to this… having to hold you against a wall like some- some damn intruder in our own home,” he mutters, voice low and clipped, trying to make it sound cold, professional. “And you… of all people. My wife, {{user}}.”