The penthouse door clicks shut behind us with a finality that should terrify me.

It doesn't.

His hands are on me before the lock engages, spinning me against the door, his mouth claiming mine with a hunger that steals my breath. I kiss him back with equal desperation, fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer even though there's no space left between us.

This is insane. Reckless. Completely out of character for the woman who color-codes her closet and never forgets to floss.

I don't give a single fuck.

"Tell me to stop," he growls against my lips, his hands sliding up my thighs, bunching my dress higher. "Tell me this is a mistake."

"Don't you dare stop."

The words come out breathless, needy. Foreign. When was the last time I sounded like this? Wanted like this?

Never. The answer is never.

Marcus always made me feel like intimacy was a chore, something to be gotten through quickly, preferably with the lights off. Like my desire was inconvenient at best, embarrassing at worst.

This man—this beautiful stranger whose name I still don't know—looks at me like I'm the only thing in the world worth consuming.

He lifts me effortlessly, my legs wrapping around his waist as he carries me deeper into the penthouse. I catch glimpses of floor-to-ceiling windows, city lights sprawling below us like scattered diamonds, but I can't focus on anything except the feel of his hands on my skin, the cedar and bourbon scent of him drowning my senses.

The bedroom is all shadows and expensive taste—king-sized bed, dark wood, the kind of luxury I stopped noticing in my own home years ago. But I'm not here to admire the décor.

He sets me down beside the bed, and for a moment we just stand there, breathing hard, staring at each other in the dim light filtering through the windows.

"You're sure?" His voice is rough, but there's something underneath—a gentleness that makes my chest ache. "Because once I start, I won't want to stop."

I reach for the zipper of my dress, the one I'd worn thinking Marcus might actually notice me for once. The irony tastes bitter.

"I'm sure."

The dress pools at my feet—black silk that cost too much and meant nothing. I'm standing in the lingerie I'd bought for a husband who was too busy fucking my sister to care.

The stranger's eyes go dark, his jaw clenching.

"Christ," he breathes. "You're perfect."

No one has called me perfect in a decade. No one has looked at me like this—like I'm something precious and profane all at once.

I should feel exposed. Vulnerable.

Instead, I feel powerful.

"Your turn," I say, surprised by the steadiness in my voice.

He strips with efficient grace, and oh God, he's beautiful. All lean muscle and controlled strength, the body of a man who's spent years honing himself into a weapon. There's a scar on his neck—old, jagged, like something that healed badly—and for a split second, familiarity tugs at the edges of my consciousness.

But then he's kissing me again, lowering me onto the bed, and thought becomes impossible.

His hands are everywhere—tracing the curve of my waist, the swell of my breasts, learning me like I'm a language he's determined to master. When his mouth follows the path his hands blazed, I arch off the bed, a sound escaping me that I didn't know I could make.

"That's it," he murmurs against my skin. "Don't hold back. I want to hear every sound, feel every tremor."

Marcus always told me to be quiet. Said my pleasure was distracting.

This man demands it.

He worships me with his mouth, his hands, his entire focus narrowed to my body's responses. When he finally slides inside me, we both go still, the moment stretching taut between us.

"Fuck," he groans, his forehead pressed to mine. "You feel—"

"I know," I gasp, because I do. This feels like coming home and falling off a cliff simultaneously. Terrifying. Perfect.

Wrong in all the right ways.

He moves, and I move with him, finding a rhythm that feels ancient and new all at once. There's nothing gentle about it—this is raw, desperate, two people trying to outrun their demons in the only way that makes sense right now.

But there's also tenderness in the way he kisses me between thrusts, the way his hand cradles my face like I'm something breakable, the way he watches me like he's memorizing every expression.

"Look at me," he commands when my eyes flutter closed. "I want to see you when you come apart."

I obey, meeting those steel-gray eyes, and the intensity there nearly undoes me.

He shifts the angle, hitting something inside me that makes stars explode behind my eyes, and I'm falling, shattering, crying out his name—

Except I don't know his name.

"Please," I gasp instead. "Please—"

"I've got you," he promises, his rhythm becoming erratic. "Let go. I've got you."

And I do. I let go of everything—the hurt, the humiliation, the decade of settling for scraps of affection. I let it all burn away in the heat of this moment, this man, this impossible connection.

He follows me over the edge seconds later, my name on his lips—

No. Not my name. He doesn't know my name either.

We collapse together, tangled and breathing hard, sweat cooling on our skin.

Reality should crash back now. Shame, regret, the weight of what I've done.

It doesn't.

Instead, I feel lighter than I have in years.

---

We don't talk much after.

There's nothing to say that won't ruin this, won't drag the real world into this perfect bubble we've created.

He pulls me against his chest, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my shoulder, and I let myself drift in the warmth of his embrace. The city pulses beyond the windows, indifferent to the fact that my entire life imploded six hours ago.

"Tell me something," he says eventually, his voice a low rumble against my back. "Something real."

I should deflect. Keep this superficial, meaningless.

"I forgot what this felt like," I whisper instead. "Feeling wanted."

His arms tighten around me. "How is that possible?"

"You'd be surprised how easy it is to become invisible. One day you're someone's everything, and the next..." I trail off, because finishing that sentence means thinking about Marcus, and I refuse to give him any more of tonight.

"His loss," the stranger says fiercely. "Whatever asshole made you feel invisible is a fucking idiot."

I laugh, the sound watery. "You don't even know me."

"I know enough." His lips brush my temple. "I know you're brave enough to walk away from whatever hurt you. I know you kiss like you're afraid it might be your last chance. I know you're stronger than you think you are."

Tears prick my eyes, because he's wrong. I'm not brave. Brave women don't spend a decade in a loveless marriage, don't enable their husband's emotional abuse with silence, don't take in their toxic sister out of misplaced guilt.

Brave women don't run to a stranger's bed instead of facing their problems.

But for tonight, I'll let him believe I'm someone worth those words.

---

I wake to early dawn light painting the penthouse in shades of gray and gold.

The stranger—I really need to stop calling him that, but asking his name now feels absurd—is still asleep, one arm thrown over his eyes, the sheet riding low on his hips. In sleep, he looks younger, the harsh lines of his face softened.

Beautiful and dangerous and absolutely not mine.

This was one night. An escape. A moment of madness that has no place in my actual life.

My actual life.

The thought hits like a bucket of ice water. Marcus. Lily. The house I need to return to, the confrontation I've been avoiding.

The shattered remains of everything I built.

I slip from the bed carefully, gathering my scattered clothes in the dim light. The black dress feels different now—not like armor for a disappointing Valentine's dinner, but like a costume I'm ready to shed.

I'm halfway to the door when his voice stops me.

"Leaving without saying goodbye?"

I turn. He's propped up on one elbow, watching me with those devastating gray eyes, hair mussed from sleep and my hands.

"I thought it would be easier," I admit.

"Easier for who?"

Good question. I don't have a good answer.

"Thank you," I say instead. "For last night. For making me feel—"

"Don't." He swings his legs out of bed, gloriously naked and completely unselfconscious. "Don't thank me like this was charity. Like I did you a favor."

"Wasn't it?"

He crosses to me in three strides, cupping my face in his hands. "Last night was the first time in ten years I've felt alive. So if anyone should be grateful, it's me."

Ten years. The same amount of time I've been married.

The same amount of time I've been dead inside.

Coincidence.

"I should go," I whisper, even as I lean into his touch.

"You should stay." His thumb traces my lower lip. "Let me make you breakfast. Let me learn your real name. Let me—"

"This isn't real," I interrupt, pulling away before I do something stupid like agree. "This was one perfect night, and that's all it can be. I have a life I need to get back to, no matter how much of a disaster it is."

"Then let me help you fix it."

The offer is tempting. Dangerously so.

But I've spent ten years letting people fix things for me, make decisions for me, tell me what I should want. I need to do this myself, even if I fail spectacularly.

"I can't," I say, and it's the hardest thing I've said all night.

He studies me for a long moment, something like pain flickering across his features. Then he nods, stepping back.

"At least tell me your name. Give me that much."

I should. It's a small thing, meaningless really.

But giving him my name makes this real. Makes it something I'll have to remember, to regret, to mourn when it's over.

"Better this way," I say softly. "A perfect stranger for a perfect night."

"Nothing about this is perfect if you walk away."

But I do anyway. Because staying means hope, and hope is more dangerous than heartbreak.

The elevator ride down feels longer than the one up. I catch my reflection in the mirrored walls—smudged makeup, sex-messed hair, a woman I barely recognize.

She looks alive.