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I could feel his breath hitching against my lips. He was tense, barely able to move.

“Okay,” Theo called out from the fifth row. “Eliah, relax a bit. Horatio feels something for Hamlet, so it’s okay for you to tense your body, but this is definitely too much. Dominic, turn a bit more. Eliah is covering you.”

We nodded and switched positions, then we repeated the scene. Again. And again. Even by the fifth time, I still felt nothing but Eliah’s warm lips and his mint-scented breath.

Somehow, I was disappointed because I secretly hoped it would affect my body in some way. After all, when Kilian had kissed me last Friday, I had reacted. Every time my lips met Eliah’s, I was reminded of the time I met with Clarissa after my withdrawal, trying to determine whether I could still get turned on. She had thrown me out after I accidentally revealed that I had used her as a guinea pig—which was completely understandable.

But how could it be that I felt nothing now, especially when I had experienced real desire just last Friday?

“Let’s call it a day,” Theo declared. The stage lights went out as the house lights gradually brightened around us.

Kilian, I thought, gritting my teeth. What did you do to me?

I felt empty as I walked with Eliah to the dressing room to grab my things. No matter how hard I tried to focus on viewing this as just part of the job and fulfilling Dr. Bachmann’s assignment, I felt nothing. Instead, the emptiness inside me grew with every kiss, and the sense of being a complete failure gnawed at me like a pack of rats.

“Do you want to grab a drink?” Eliah asked as we headed toward the exit.

Before I could respond, I felt a hand on my upper arm.

“Sorry, Horatio, but Hamlet’s coming with me.”

Kilian grabbed me and dragged me up the stairs to the upper floor. His fingers dug into my flesh as if I were a hardened criminal and he was an angry cop.

“What’s this about?” I shouted, struggling in vain to break free from his grip.

“What’s this about?” he asked, shoving me into the control room and closing the door behind him. “You tell me!”

I didn’t know what he meant, but I was too busy trying to make sense of what was happening. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness, as the house lights had now gone out, leaving only a laptop, two mixing boards, and a small blue lamp illuminating the cramped space.

So this is where he works.

“I don’t know what you mean.” My eyes landed on some notes next to a headset, a walkie-talkie, and his open bag. “I was just about to go get a drink with Eliah.”

In an instant, he seized my arm again, spinning me around and shoving me backward until I collided into the table. I stared into his fiery eyes, which glared at me like a rabid animal, and my pulse skyrocketed.

“After you’ve been kissing all afternoon?” he growled, just inches from my face.

I swallowed.

Why does his anger turn me on?

There’s definitely something wrong with me.

“Are you jealous?”

He narrowed his dark eyes and tilted his head slightly to the side. “It drives me crazy when I see you kissing someone else.”

I wanted to laugh, to tell him he had no claim over me, but something tightened in my throat, and a tingling sensation shot through my body. When he placed a hand on my throat, it sparked a fire inside me that I hadn’t seen coming.

What am I feeling?

Heat? Desire? Longing?

All of it!

Kilian let his soft lips glide over mine. “Did he do it like this?”

His breath flowed into my mouth, and my breath hitched.