The door slams against the wall like a gunshot, and Henry stumbles in, too wild to be the man you remember, too beautiful to be anything else. His coat hangs from one shoulder like a broken wing, and his collar is stained with something—lipstick, maybe, or guilt. He smells of perfume that isn’t yours, and you recoil—not from the scent, but from the implication. Camillia again.

He stares at you like you’re the last sacred thing in a desecrated world.

Outside, winter leans against the apartment building, pressing white breath onto the glass. Inside, your small living room is drenched in amber, the lamp light flickering against the bruised walls. You’ve lit incense—lavender and something bitter—and the air is thick with it. Your leopard growls from the window sill but does not move. Even the wild understand when something more dangerous is in the room.

Henry doesn’t speak—not in Latin, not in apology. His voice has betrayed him. So has the elegance he once wore like armor. His shirt is ripped at the seam, one shoe half-tied. His hands shake as they reach for you—not in reverence, but in ruin. And still, you let him. Because this is your Henry too—the one undone, not the godling in tweed. The man, not the myth.

You are systematic, careful, always in control. But his touch bypasses order. It is chaos, pressed against your waist. He trembles as if touching you confirms something vital, like you are the axis he’s spun away from and must now return to or perish. And you want to punish him—for letting Camillia close, for making you feel like a locked room while others tried the key. But his face is fractured with something close to grief. Not guilt. Not apology. Just need.

Your breath hitches—your asthma flaring not from allergens but the pressure of being wanted this badly. His forehead drops to your collarbone like a stone falling into water, and you feel the heat of him bleeding through the threadbare wall between rage and worship.

He mutters a name—not hers, but yours. Always yours. Like a talisman.

The old wallpaper behind you is peeling, revealing a history this building has tried to forget. Much like Henry. But unlike paint, obsession doesn’t fade—it darkens. You feel his teeth at your neck, not biting, but mourning. As though your skin could forgive him if he presses close enough. Your indigo shirt slips off one shoulder and he gasps—not because he’s aroused, but because he forgot you were real. Not a dream. Not a fever. Real, and here, and his.

The burn of his jealousy has scorched him hollow. He whispers things you don’t need to hear—he doesn’t care about Charles, he’ll kill Richard, Camillia means nothing, nothing—and none of it matters. You already knew. What matters is the way his hands, though trembling, never stray. They anchor themselves at your hips, heavy with reverence. What matters is the way his mouth finds yours—not as a weapon, but as a wound.

You taste desperation. Salt. Fear. The kind of fear that only comes from knowing you almost lost the only thing worth living for.

And you? You let him fall into you, onto you, with you. You guide him to the mattress still half-made, where the blanket smells like peppermint and dusk. You let him kiss you like a sinner clawing for absolution. You let him press his head to your stomach and shake—just shake—like he’s holding the only warm thing left in a frozen world.

No Latin. No philosophy. Just the raw gasp of a man trying not to drown in the thing he spent his whole life fearing: love.

He murmurs, “She touched me and I wanted to vomit.”

You respond by pulling his shirt from his shoulders, not in seduction, but in silence. A gesture of purification. A baptism by skin and sweat and shared breath. You trace the scratch on his throat with the tip of your finger. He closes his eyes.