I've Known for Three Years

In a candlelit corridor of a retreat house, rose-gold silk panels breathing with each creak of the floorboards, rain ticking against the gutters. Camila walks a corridor of her own making while Nico holds perfectly, devastatingly still, a man who has never once reached first in three years of waiting. She carries a smooth river stone as her only rule, her only exit, a self-made shield against the desire she has never allowed herself to claim without blame. Nico's quiet act of mind-reading, naming what she wants before she can, strips her of the distance she has always used to stay safe, transforming her reluctance into a surrender that feels less like defeat and more like finally being known. Readers can expect to feel the exquisite tension of being seen completely, and the deep, aching release of letting someone hold both your hunger and your tenderness at once.