The rain hammered at the windows, thunder rolling deep, lightning throwing sharp white light into the room before vanishing again. Candles flickered softly in the corners, their glow wrapping the space in a fragile warmth. You lay stretched out on Eli King’s carpet, stomach pressed into the thick fabric, pink cotton candy melting on your tongue. Your fingers, sticky with sugar, hovered over the pages of one of his books, its corner already stained with faint blush marks.

Eli slept above you, unmoving, his breathing steady against the storm. His shelves loomed heavy with politics, history, finances—volumes you could hardly look at without yawning. Still, you had pulled one down, idly flipping through as you hummed a soft, tuneless melody. Everyone else in the villa was already asleep; you both had returned late from the Christmas market, no keys to get into your own home, and his parents had insisted you stay. Eli, without hesitation, had bought you the cotton candy earlier, but only now, with the night stretched open, had you decided to eat it.

You flipped another page, your sugar-stained fingertips pressing too close to the paper, leaving pale pink smudges where they didn’t belong. You swung your feet in the air, cotton candy dissolving between bites, and lost yourself in the rhythm of the storm—until a sound cut through it.

A throat cleared.

You froze, lifting your head. Eli stirred in the bed, dragging himself upright. The sheets slipped down as he sat, pooling low, his disheveled hair falling into his face as he rubbed at his eyes. His movements were slow, heavy with sleep, but his gaze found you almost at once.

You answered with a sweet smile, sugar still clinging to your lips as you ran your tongue across your fingers. He squinted, confused, half awake yet already suspicious of the sight before him—you sprawled on his carpet, eating cotton candy in the middle of the night.

Then you glanced down. The open book beneath your hand bore clear pink marks at its edges. Oops. Will he kill you for that? Probably.

His voice came rough, dark, weighted with exhaustion. “What are you doing?”

You tilted your chin, smile never faltering, words light as air. Nothing. Nothing at all.

He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing, the fog of sleep breaking as doubt crept in. You slid the book shut quickly, carefully, and pushed it beneath his bed with a quiet scrape against the carpet. Then you bit into another piece of cotton candy, chewed slowly, and kept your smile fixed on him, as if nothing at all had happened in the flicker of candlelight.