Priya woke before the sun fully rose, the events of the previous night returning in a slow, heavy wave. The power cut. The candles. His fingers inside her. The taste of him on her tongue. The way he had looked at her afterward—like something irreversible had settled between them.

She was alone in her own bed. At some point in the night they had separated, the return of the lights and the fans forcing a fragile return to separate rooms. But her body still carried the memory of him: the faint ache between her legs where his fingers had stretched her, the residual taste of his release, the scent of his skin on her own.