Unravel Me Slowly

The first time I noticed the way Marcus looked at me, we were both reaching for the same bottle of wine at a party neither of us wanted to be at.

His fingers brushed mine. A spark, quick and electric, like static from a winter coat. He pulled his hand back like I’d burned him.

“Sorry,” he said. “Go ahead.”

I took the bottle. A cheap Malbec, the kind you drink when you’re pretending to like red wine because it makes you look sophisticated. I didn’t want it. I wanted his hand back on mine.

That was three years ago. Three years of backyard barbecues and group hikes and late nights on his couch watching movies I never paid attention to. Three years of sitting close enough to smell his soap, some clean thing that reminded me of rain on hot pavement. Three years of telling myself he was just my friend’s brother and that was the only line I couldn’t cross.

I’m a professional at lying to myself.

Tonight, the air in his apartment is thick with summer heat and the low hum of a fan that barely works. His roommate is gone for the weekend. We’re the only two people in the city who didn’t get invited to something better, or maybe we’re the only two who didn’t want to go.

“You look tired,” he says.

He’s sprawled on the opposite end of the couch, one arm draped over the back, legs stretched out. His t-shirt rides up just enough to show a sliver of stomach. I try not to look. I fail.

“Thanks,” I say. “Really selling the romance here.”

He laughs. That sound. Low and easy, like he’s known me forever. Which he has. That’s the problem.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult.” He tilts his head, studying me. “You just seem… somewhere else tonight.”

I am somewhere else. I’m in a place where I stopped pretending five minutes ago, where every small movement he makes feels like a signal I’m desperate to decode. He shifts. His knee brushes mine. Neither of us moves away.

“Maybe I’m exactly where I want to be,” I say.

The words hang between us. Too honest. Too sharp. I watch them land on his face, watch his expression flicker through surprise, then something darker, something that makes my stomach tighten.

“That’s dangerous,” he says.

“What is?”

“Saying things like that.”

I hold his gaze. My heart is a fist in my chest. “Why?”

He doesn’t answer. He looks at me for a long, heavy moment, and I can feel the weight of everything we’ve never said pressing down on the air between us. Then he looks away, reaches for his beer, takes a drink.

I should let it go. I should change the subject. I should go home and take a cold shower and remind myself that he’s off-limits, that his sister would kill me, that this friendship is worth more than whatever hungry thing is clawing its way up my spine.

I don’t.

I move closer. Just a few inches. Close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his body. He stops mid-sip. The bottle hovers at his lips.

“What are you doing?” His voice is lower now. Rougher.

“Testing a theory.”

“What theory?”

“That you feel this too.”

He sets the bottle down. Slowly. Deliberately. He doesn’t look at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.”

The word comes out soft, almost a whisper. I watch his jaw tighten. His hands curl into fists on his thighs. Every part of him is fighting something, and I want to know what it costs him to hold back.

“You should go,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to be a good person.”

“And if I don’t want you to be?”

That breaks him. He turns to me, and his eyes are dark, full of something he’s been drowning for years. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“Try me.”

He moves so fast I don’t see it coming. One second he’s a foot away, the next his hand is on my thigh, grip firm, thumb pressing into the soft inside. My breath catches. My skin burns where he touches me.

“This,” he says, voice barely a rasp, “is what happens when I stop being good. You sure you want that?”

I should be scared. I should be smart. But all I can feel is the weight of his hand, the way his fingers dig in like he’s trying to anchor himself to me. Three years of wanting. Three years of watching him laugh with other women, date other women, bring other women home while I sat in the guest room and pretended not to hear.

“I’ve wanted this longer than you know,” I say.

His hand slides higher. His thumb traces a slow circle. “Then stop me now. Because if you don’t, I’m not going to be able to.”

I don’t stop him.

I lean in. My lips brush his ear. “I don’t want to stop you. I want to see how far this goes.”

He groans. A sound that starts in his chest and comes out ragged, half-surrender, half-warning. His other hand cups my jaw, tilts my face toward his. He’s close enough that I can count the flecks of gold in his irises, close enough that I can feel his breath on my lips.

“This changes everything,” he says.

“I know.”

“We can’t go back.”

“I don’t want to go back.”

He kisses me.

It’s not gentle. It’s not tentative. It’s the kind of kiss that says I’ve been waiting and I’m done waiting. His hand in my hair, pulling, angling my head. His mouth hot and demanding. I make a sound I didn’t know I was capable of, and he answers with a growl that vibrates through me.

His hands find the hem of my shirt. His fingers slip underneath, touch the bare skin of my waist. I arch into him. I want more. I want all of it.

He pulls back. Just an inch. His forehead rests against mine. We’re both breathing hard.

“If we do this,” he says, “I’m not going to be able to stop at one night.”

“Good.”

“I mean it. I’ve wanted you for so long it’s eating me alive. One night won’t be enough.”

I look at him. Really look. His eyes are wild, his lips red from kissing me, his chest rising and falling like he just ran a mile. He’s terrified. He’s hopeful. He’s right on the edge of something he can’t take back.

I put my hand on his chest, feel his heart hammering under my palm.

“Then don’t stop,” I say. “Don’t ever stop.”

Something in him breaks. Something in both of us. He pulls me onto his lap, and I wrap my legs around his waist, and the world outside this room stops existing. There’s only his hands and his mouth and the sound of his breath hitching when I bite his lower lip.

His phone buzzes on the coffee table. We both ignore it.

It buzzes again. Then a third time.

He reaches for it without letting go of me, glances at the screen. His whole body goes still.

“It’s my sister,” he says.

The air leaves the room. I look at the phone. Her name glows on the screen, and with it, the weight of everything we just decided to ignore.