Chapter 7: Possession
The soft morning light filtered through the massive window of Kieran’s loft, painting long, lazy stripes across the rumpled sheets. Sloane stretched, the memory of his sketchbook and the intensity in his green eyes as he’d drawn her still a warm hum under her skin. The scent of him—whiskey, ink, and something uniquely male—clung to the pillows.
“I think you stole all the blankets,” she mumbled, her voice husky with sleep.
Kieran, already dressed in a faded black t-shirt and jeans, stood by the cluttered desk, pouring coffee from a French press into two mismatched mugs. “You hog them with a ferocity I did not anticipate,” he said, a faint smile playing on his lips. He handed her a mug. “Black, like your soul.”
“You know me so well.” She took the coffee, letting the heat seep into her palms. Her gaze drifted to the sketchbook lying open on the desk. From this angle, she could see the bold, sure lines of her own sleeping form. It was unnerving, being seen so clearly. “So, do I get to see the final product, or is it going into the vault of mysterious Kieran artifacts?”
“The vault is currently full,” he deadpanned, leaning against the desk. The tattoos on his forearms shifted with the movement, a intricate map she was only beginning to decipher.
A sharp, confident knock echoed from the door downstairs, the one that led directly into the speakeasy. It was too early for customers, too insistent for a delivery.
Kieran’s smile vanished. His posture went rigid, a subtle shift from relaxed to guarded in a heartbeat. “Stay here,” he said, his voice low.
“Who is it?” Sloane asked, but he was already moving, taking the stairs down two at a time with a quiet, practiced efficiency that set her nerves on edge.
She swung her legs out of bed, pulling on Kieran’s discarded flannel shirt over her tank top. It smelled like him. She padded to the top of the stairs, not descending, but positioning herself just enough to hear the murmur of voices floating up from the bar below.
The voice that answered Kieran’s gruff “We’re closed” was female, smooth as honey and laced with a familiar intimacy that made Sloane’s stomach clench. “Since when do you have hours for me, Kieran?”
Sloane crept down a few steps, peering through the wooden slats of the railing. A woman stood just inside the door, backlit by the dim bar lights. She was tall, willowy, dressed in a sharp, expensive-looking coat that screamed SoHo gallery, not Brooklyn speakeasy. Her dark hair was cut in a severe, chic bob that framed a face all sharp angles and confidence.
“Elara.” Kieran’s voice was flat, devoid of the warmth it had held minutes ago.
“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d see if you were still alive.” Elara’s laugh was a light, tinkling sound that felt out of place in the dusty, jazz-soaked air. “I see you are. And still playing bartender in this… charming dive.”
Sloane’s fingers tightened on the railing. Charming dive. The words were a dismissal of everything Kieran had built, everything Sloane had come to find oddly comforting. She felt a hot, prickling jealousy ignite in her chest, mingling with a sudden, sharp insecurity. This woman was a part of his world, a world of sleek coats and casual barbs, a world Sloane with her thrift-store jeans and struggling artist status could never access.
“What do you want, Elara?” Kieran’s tone was a brick wall.
“Can’t a friend check in? I heard a rumor you’ve been… occupied.” Her gaze drifted pointedly upwards, towards the loft, and Sloane instinctively shrank back, though she knew she was hidden in shadow. “Someone new modeling for your little drawings?”
The condescension in her voice was a physical blow. Sloane’s face heated. Little drawings. Her own art, the paintings stacked in her cramped apartment, felt suddenly childish and insignificant.
Kieran didn’t answer directly. “We’re done here.”
“Are we?” Elara took a step closer to him, and Sloane saw her hand reach out, brushing a piece of lint from his shoulder in a gesture that was possessive, practiced. “You know where to find me when you get bored playing house.”
The door clicked shut, and the bar was silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator. Kieran stood motionless for a long moment, his back to the stairs. Sloane could see the tension in his shoulders.
She retreated back to the loft, her heart hammering against her ribs. She busied herself with her coffee mug, pretending to study the cityscape through the window.
When he came back up, the air in the room had shifted. It was thick, charged.
“Who was that?” Sloane asked, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near strained.
“No one.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, a rare gesture of agitation.
“She didn’t seem like no one.” The words tumbled out, sharpened by the jealousy curdling in her gut. “She seemed like a very specific someone. The kind of someone who wears coats that cost more than my rent.”
Kieran’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she’s exactly what I’d picture for you.” Sloane gestured vaguely, the flannel shirt swallowing her hands. “Polished. Cool. Uncomplicated.”
“You don’t know anything about her. Or me.”
“I know she called this place a dive. I know she called your art ‘little drawings.’” Her voice cracked on the last two words, betraying her. She hated the hurt she heard in it, the vulnerability.
He crossed the room in three swift strides, stopping so close she could see the flecks of gold in his green eyes. “And why do you care what she thinks?”
“I don’t!” she lied, her chin lifting in defiance.
“Liar.” The word was soft, but it hit her like a physical force.
His hands came up, not gentle, but firm, calloused palms cupping her face, his thumbs stroking over the apples of her cheeks, smearing the faint tracks of moisture she hadn’t realized were there. His touch was rough, anchoring, silencing the whirlwind in her head.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice a low rasp.
She met his gaze, her breath catching.
“Elara is the past,” he said, each word deliberate, whispered against her skin as he leaned his forehead against hers. “A past I have no interest in revisiting. She’s a ghost in a expensive coat.”
“She knew you,” Sloane whispered, the confession torn from her. “The real you. The one with a history.”
“That wasn’t the real me. That was a man trying to be something he wasn’t.” His hands slid from her face, down her arms, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “This,” he said, his gaze sweeping over the cluttered loft, the unmade bed, her in his shirt, “this is real. You… with your fire and your freckles and the way you look at me like you’re trying to solve a puzzle… you’re real.”
He kissed her then, not with the gentle exploration of the night before, but with a raw, desperate hunger that felt like a truth in itself. It was a kiss that stripped away pretense, that acknowledged the jagged edges they both carried. His hands were in her hair, on her back, pulling her flush against him, and she surrendered to it, to the feel of his heart hammering against hers, a frantic, synchronized rhythm.
When they broke apart, breathless, he kept his arms around her, his mouth close to her ear. “Don’t let ghosts from my life make you doubt this,” he whispered, the words a warm vibration against her skin. “Don’t let her make you doubt you.”
Sloane buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent that was now as familiar as her own. The jealousy was still there, a dull echo, but it was being overwritten by something stronger, something more terrifying and exhilarating. He had seen her doubt, her insecurity, and he hadn’t turned away. He had met it with a truth she hadn’t known she needed to hear.
Outside, the city was waking up, the sounds of traffic and life beginning to filter through the window. But in the loft, surrounded by the ghosts of his past and the unsettling promise of their present, Sloane felt the ground solidify beneath her feet. For the first time, it felt less like standing on the edge of a precipice and more like learning how to fly.