"This… this can't be happening," Kate whispered, almost too softly to hear.
Yet no matter how she tried to deny it, the truth pressed down on her with merciless clarity.
Her body was betraying her—alive, trembling, so painfully sensitive that every breath felt like fire in her veins.
It wasn't just want; it was need.
A desperate, aching hunger that had been buried for far too long.
It had been more than twenty years since she had last lain with a man.
Two long decades since her husband's touch, and even then, his love had proven false.
He had betrayed her, leaving her dignity shattered and her trust hollow.
After that, she had closed her heart and body to all others.
No lovers, no stolen moments—only the lonely comfort of her own hands in the silence of the night.
But those fleeting acts were hollow imitations, pale shadows of the intimacy she had once known.
Now, in Ross' presence, the dam she had built inside herself began to crack.
