You shouldn’t have come to his room—you know that the second his eyes lock on you, sharp and unreadable, like he’s already decided how this ends. Every nerve in your body screams at you to turn, to run, but your feet betray you, frozen against the cold floor.

“I’m done playing whatever this is,” you say, voice trembling despite the hard edge of your bite. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink. He just steps forward—slow, deliberate, measured—the kind of move that makes your pulse spike in ways you can’t name.

“You think this is a game?” His voice is low, smooth, calm enough to make your spine stiffen. Then, as if punctuating the words, his hand slams against the wall beside your head. The force rattles your teeth in your jaw.

“You’ve been tempting me, pushing me, watching to see when I’d crack,” he says, each word dragging out, deliberate, heavy. “And now you want to walk away like I haven’t been watching every fucking move you’ve made?”

You try to speak. Try to step around him. Try to make a space between the two of you, but his body moves as if anticipating your every thought—cold, precise, unyielding.

“Creighton, move.”

“No.” His refusal is sharp, flat, a knife through the air. “You wanted my attention. Now you have it. And you’re not walking out until I say you’re done.”

His breath brushes your lips, close enough to make your pulse jack, but not close enough to give him what he wants. Not yet. He waits—because that’s the game, isn’t it? He doesn’t need to take anything. He doesn’t need to force you. He just needs to wait until you give it up, until you collapse under the weight of yourself and him.

Your chest heaves. You can feel the heat of him, smell the faint tang of his cologne mixed with something raw and dangerous, something that makes your stomach tighten. You want to hate him, want to push him away, want to scream—yet every instinct in your body wants to bend, wants to fold under his gaze, wants to see how far this goes before you break.

And he knows it.

He always knows.