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My arms circle his neck while my heart pounds a frantic beat against his chest.

“Dance with me.” With the way he’s gazing at me, dark eyes boring into my soul, there’s nothing I would deny him.

Though I think exhaustion just might kill me, dying in his arms doesn’t sound so bad.

We move slowly at first, tentative as new lovers. The room spins around us. My fears and doubts spin with it. “Don’t let me go.”

“Never.” He steps backward, dragging me with him. “Not even if the world burns.”

“Or drowns.” That hits way too close to home and shouldn’t be funny but somehow, we both laugh. Laughter gives way to sensual kisses.

Sterling rears back, the smile on his face pure mischief. He knows how that boyish expression of his disarms me. “We’ll be fine. Trust me.”

“I do.”

“Then close your eyes.”

“I don’t—” The words don’t have the chance to leave my lips.

“Close them.” He gives me no real choice by pressing a kiss against my eyelids.

I expect him to sweep me off my feet. Instead, the softest, gentlest chime surrounds us. I open my eyes just as Sterling wraps his arms around me.

Cold, silvery light that shimmers like ice fills the room.

Tiny droplets hang suspended in the air before falling slowly, beautifully, impossibly. Each one reflects us—two small figures caught in a vast and uncertain world—a thousand times over.

The droplets fall, glistening in the dim light. We’re alone beneath their glowing cascade. Alone in the universe. Alone and together. Nothing else matters.

We begin to move, turning in slow circles. The motion is awkward at first, a jerky kind of swaying. But as we find our rhythm, my heart does a terrible thing. It dares to hope.

Then we dance.

We dance like this might be our last night of peace.

My lips tremble, straining against the weight of my own need. How can something so gorgeous hurt so much? “I don’t want to lose you.”

His grip tightens, drawing me closer. “You won’t.”

But he can’t promise that. I can’t promise that. We can’t promise each other anything except this moment.

We’re spinning now, fast and out of control. The air glistens with uncertainty. My dark fears twist and curl, looming in the periphery. I catch glimpses of them between the droplets, reflections of all the ways this could end. Reflections of what happens if we fail.

Reflections of who I am without him.

The tears I didn’t know I had start to run freely, each one a fragment of longing, of fear, of love too big for me to hold. Sterling wipes them away with his thumb, and warmth blooms in my chest.

I love this man more than life itself.

Our bodies move as one, the way they always have. But this time, there’s an urgency that neither of us can ignore.

The water brightens his face. It’s so fucking gorgeous that I can’t breathe.

Without a thought, little flames dance with us through suspended water drops. A thousand reflections spin around and around and around, blurring into a single, shining truth.

I love him.

I love him, and I’m not strong enough to let him go.