The cool city air hit us like a shock, but it did nothing to dampen the heat radiating between us. I could feel him breathing—heavy, uneven, slightly frantic—right behind me. He was still trying to process how he had gone from sipping bourbon in solitude to being physically hauled through the streets by a woman who looked like she wanted to eat him alive. I didn't stop walking. I couldn't. If I stopped, the momentum might break, and I needed this fever to reach a boiling point. "Where is it?" I demanded, glancing back at him over my shoulder. I didn't phrase it as a question; I phrased it as an order. "Your place. Where are we going?" He stammered for a second, his eyes still slightly glazed from the sudden shift in reality. "Just... just around the corner. A Brownstone. It’s—" "Perfect," I cut him off, my laugh ringing out against the stone walls of the narrow street. I tightened my grip on his tie, feeling the fine silk strain under my knuckles, and pulled him toward the silhouette of a grand, dark building. Every step was a countdown. The proximity of his home felt like an extension of my own hunger. I wasn't just going to visit; I was going to occupy. As we reached the base of his stone steps, I hauled him upward. He stumbled up the stairs, caught in my gravitational pull, unable to do anything but follow the line of my back and the tension in my hand. Each step closer to his door felt like a step deeper into a territory I was about to conquer. I looked up at the dark windows of the Brownstone, then back at him, a predatory grin stretching across my face. "Don't just stand there," I teased, pulling him even closer until our chests collided on the landing. "The stairs are easy. The real work starts once we're inside."