He didn't chase.
He didn't plead or persuade.
He just existed—with that wicked mouth, that knowing gaze, and a silence loud enough to drown out everything I thought I believed in.
And somehow, that was worse than any love story I'd ever heard.
Because he didn't offer affection.
He offered obsession.
And I took it—greedily.
---
"I want to know you," I said one night.
We weren't even touching, but I could feel him under my skin. Like static waiting to ignite.
He tilted his head like my words amused him. "No, you don't."
"I do."
He looked at me for a long moment. The air between us crackled like a storm about to break. Then he smiled, slow and lethal.
"You want to feel me. Not know me."
I swallowed.
Because maybe… maybe that was true.
Knowing him would mean peeling back layers I wasn't ready for. It would mean understanding the darkness behind those half-smirks and the heat in his eyes. It would mean learning where the burn really came from.
And I wasn't sure I could survive it.
---
Still, I kept showing up.
In all the places I thought I might find him. Bookstores he mentioned once. Coffee shops with no real reason to go to. I hated the game, but I was already playing.
And one day… it paid off.
He was standing outside an old record shop, smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers, head tilted up toward the grey sky like it had secrets only he could hear.
"You always follow the fire?" he asked without looking at me.
I folded my arms. "You think you're fire?"
"No," he said, turning to face me. "I think you're gasoline."
---
We walked.
No destination.
Just silence and footsteps and glances that pressed against my skin harder than any touch ever could.
And then he said it. The one thing that would change everything.
"If you want me… you play by my rules."
I raised an eyebrow. "What rules?"
His eyes flicked to mine, dark and dangerous. "Rule one: no questions about the past."
"And rule two?"
"No lies about the present."
I hesitated. "That's it?"
He smiled. "That's enough."
---
I nodded.
Not because I agreed.
But because I wanted him too badly to care.
And that, right there, was the first piece of me I gave away.
Willingly.
Desperately.
Stupidly.