The door closed behind you with a soft click.

No words. No announcement. Just your presence — calm, confident, too tired to perform for anyone but him.

Javier didn’t turn around. He was already sprawled across the couch in his low-lit apartment, half-unbuttoned shirt, cigarette dying between his fingers. The ice in his drink had melted. The news hummed low from the TV.

But when he felt you, that unmistakable silence laced with heels and authority, he spoke without looking.

“You’re late.”

You slipped off your coat, let it drape over the chair. “I wasn’t on your schedule.”

That earned the tiniest smirk from him. Still, he didn’t move. His head tilted just slightly, eyes tracking you as you crossed the room.

Your heels clicked until they didn’t. Until you were standing above him, framed by the glow of some dying lamp, casting shadows across your cheekbones, the edge of your mouth, your throat.

He didn’t ask where you’d been. He never did. Because he wasn’t the one waiting for answers.

“You look tired,” he murmured.

Finally, his hand reached for you, calloused fingers trailing up the back of your thigh, under the hem of your silk dress.

“You wanna sit,” he said, lazy and low. “Or keep towering over me like that’s gonna scare me off?”