Ayana couldn't sleep.
She lay in her childhood bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the way Nelson's hand had felt covering hers. The desperation in his voice when he'd said i won't stop. The hunger in his eyes before Raven interrupted.
At 1 AM, she gave up. Threw on leggings and an oversized sweater, grabbed her coat, and slipped out the back door. The December air bit at her cheeks, sharp and clarifying. Her breath misted as she walked with no destination in mind.
Her feet carried her to the community centre.
The building was dark except for a single light in the back—Nelson's office. Of course, he was still there. Working himself to exhaustion. Punishing himself with productivity.
The side door was unlocked. She slipped inside, her footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. She could hear classical music playing softly from his office—something melancholy, strings, and piano.
She didn't knock. Just appeared in his doorway.
He looked up from his laptop, and the exhaustion on his face made her chest ache. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. His hair was dishevelled like he'd been running his hands through it. A half-empty coffee cup sat beside files covered in his neat handwriting.
"What are you doing here?" His voice was rough, scraped raw.
"Couldn't sleep. You?"
"Working." He gestured at the mess on his desk. "Grant applications. Budget reviews. The things that keep this place running."
"At one in the morning?"
"Better than lying awake thinking about—" He stopped himself, jaw tightening. "Why are you really here, Ayana?"
"Because I can't stop thinking about you either."
He closed his eyes. "You need to leave."
"Make me." She stepped inside, closed the door behind her. Heard his sharp intake of breath. "You keep saying that. Leave, stop, go away. But you never actually make me. Why is that?"
"Because I'm weak." He opened his eyes, and the pain there was visceral. "Because every time I'm near you, I forget every reason why this is wrong. Because you're standing in my office at one in the morning, looking at me like that, and I can barely breathe."
"Then stop trying to breathe." She moved closer. "Stop trying to resist. Stop trying to be perfect."
"I'm not perfect." His laugh was bitter. "You think I'm perfect? Ayana, if you knew the things I've thought about doing to you—"
"Tell me."
"No."
"Why not?" She stopped on the other side of his desk, hands pressed flat on the surface. "Afraid I'll run? Afraid I'll be shocked? I'm not sixteen anymore, Nelson. I'm a grown woman who knows what she wants."
"And what do you want?" The question was a challenge, rough and dangerous.
"You. All of you. The broken pieces, the guilt, the darkness. I want to know what you taste like when you finally stop fighting. I want to hear the sounds you make when control isn't an option."
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping back. "Stop."
"No." She walked around the desk, closing the distance between them. "I'm tired of pretending. Are you tired of watching you exist instead of live. I'm tired of this dance where we both know how it ends."
"It ends badly." But he didn't move away. "With your father hating me. The community is destroying us both. You regret everything."
"I won't regret it."
"You don't know that." His hands clenched at his sides. "You're twenty-four. You've barely lived. I'm forty-five, broken, carrying more baggage than—"
"I don't care." She placed her palm on his chest again, felt his heart racing. "I don't care about the age gap. I don't care about your past. I care about right now. About the way you look at me like I'm something precious and terrifying. About the way you're fighting yourself every second we're together."
His hand came up, covered hers. Not pushing her away. Holding her there. "You should care. You should run. I'm not—I'm not good for you, Ayana. I'm damaged. Selfish. I've spent twenty years convincing myself I didn't deserve happiness, and then you walked back into my life and—" His voice broke. "And I want things I have no right to want."
"What things?" She stepped closer until their bodies almost touched. "Tell me, Nelson. Be honest."
"I want—" He stopped, breathing hard. "I want to touch you. Taste you. I want to know if your skin is as soft as it looks. I want to hear you say my name when you come apart. I want to corrupt every innocent thought you've ever had." His eyes were dark, tortured. "And I hate myself for it."
"Don't." She rose on her toes, her lips inches from his. "Don't hate yourself for being human. For wanting. For *feeling* something after all these years."
"It's not just wanting." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I've wanted before. This is—you're—" He couldn't finish. Just stared at her like she was salvation and damnation wrapped in one impossible package.
"Then take what you want," she whispered. "Just this once. Just tonight. No one has to know."
"I'll know." But his other hand came up, traced her jaw with shaking fingers. "I'll have to confess it. Live with it. Carry it with everything else."
"Or you could let it set you free."
For one suspended moment, they hovered there—lips almost touching, hearts racing, the weight of twenty years of denial, and four years of distance pressing down on them both.
Then his control shattered.
His mouth crashed onto hers—desperate, hungry, years of buried need exploding to the surface. His hands fisted in her hair, angling her head, deepening the kiss. She gripped his shirt, pulling him closer, opening for him, meeting every thrust of his tongue with her own.
He tasted like coffee and something darker, something that made her blood sing.
His hands roamed—down her back, gripping her hips, lifting her onto the desk. Papers scattered. He stepped between her legs, pressing against her, and she could feel exactly how much he wanted her. She moaned into his mouth, and he swallowed the sound, kissing her harder.
"God," he groaned against her lips. "Ayana, we can't—"
"We are." She pulled him back and kissed him until they were both breathless. His hands slid under her sweater, finding bare skin, and they both shuddered.
"Tell me to stop," he said hoarsely, his forehead pressed against hers.
"No."
His thumb traced her lower lip. "Tell me this is wrong."
"It's not wrong. It's the first right thing either of us has done in years."
He kissed her again, softer this time, but no less intense. Like he was memorizing her. Learning her. When he pulled back, his eyes were wet.
"I don't deserve this," he whispered. "Don't deserve you."
"Yes, you do." She cupped his face, made him look at her. "You've spent twenty years punishing yourself for surviving. But Nelson—Sarah wouldn't have wanted this. She wouldn't have wanted you to die with her."
He flinched like she'd struck him. "You don't know—"
"I know grief. I know guilt. And I know love doesn't demand sacrifice. It demands life." She pressed her forehead to his. "She loved you. Which means she would have wanted you to be happy."
"I don't know how anymore." His voice broke completely. "I don't know how to be anything but this."
"Then let me show you."
She kissed him again, gentle this time. Patient. Giving him space to choose, to want, to live. He kissed her back like she was oxygen, like she was the first good thing he'd felt in decades.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, he rested his forehead against hers.
"This is dangerous," he said quietly.
"I know."
"Your father will never forgive me."
"I know."
"The town will destroy us."
"I don't care." She met his eyes. "Do you?"
He stared at her for a long moment. Then: "No. God help me, no."
He kissed her again, and this time, there was no hesitation. No holding back. Just need and want and twenty years of loneliness finally breaking open.
They stayed in that office until dawn threatened the horizon, learning each other in stolen touches and whispered confessions, knowing that everything was about to change.
And neither of them could bring themselves to regret it.