Chapter 46: Frostline Touch
The rooftop stretched beneath them, a jagged expanse of cracked cement and twisted metal, silent above the skeleton of the city. The night sky sprawled overhead, stars distant and aloof, their cold gleam offering nothing but silence. Below, the wreckage of forgotten lives lay buried beneath ivy - choked structures and half-collapsed towers. The scent of smoke still clung to the wind, but something sweeter threaded through it — faint blossoms from the overgrown greenhouse two floors down.
Selene stood at the edge, back straight, arms folded across her chest. Her silhouette was sharp against the sky, all harsh lines and quiet stillness. She didn't need to speak. Her presence said everything.
Aria stood beside her, and felt all of it.
The silence between them was its own language — dense, electric, impossible to ignore. Her shoulder brushed Selene's sleeve. A simple thing. Incidental. But it was like brushing against ice that breathed.
Aria's breath caught. Even through her jacket, the cold radiating off Selene made her skin prickle. It wasn't just the temperature. It was her. Selene was winter incarnate — a living, breathing frostline that dared anyone to cross it.
And Aria couldn't stop crossing.
Her fingers curled into her sleeves. She should've stepped back. Should've created space. But her body leaned instead. Her breath hitched again.
Selene's voice came like flint sparking steel. "You're twitching."
Aria flinched. "I am not."
Selene turned just enough to glance at her — just a sliver of a look — but it landed like a blade. Her lips curved, slow and smug. "You're squirming."
"I'm cold," Aria lied, but her voice betrayed her. Too breathy. Too raw.
Selene didn't buy it for a second. Her eyes swept Aria's face like a scan, then dropped — briefly, calculatingly — to her lips. "You're sweating."
"I'm not," Aria said quickly, too quickly. Her cheeks flushed hotter, and that only proved Selene's point.
The corner of Selene's mouth lifted, a knowing smirk that made Aria's pulse stumble.
"You're messing with me," Aria muttered, glaring at a crack in the concrete just to avoid Selene's eyes.
"Am I?" Selene drawled, that smirk deepening. "I don't have to try very hard."
"Because you're smug."
"No." Selene's voice dipped, the humor fading into something darker, slower. "Because your body betrays you before your mouth can."
Aria's throat tightened. Her heart was beating so fast it was almost nauseating.
She turned away, but Selene shifted closer — barely, just enough that her breath tickled Aria's hair. "You should really learn to lie better," she whispered. "Especially when your pulse is stuttering like that."
Aria shoved her hands into her pockets and muttered, "I hate you."
"No," Selene said softly. "You want me. And it's driving you crazy."
Aria's lips parted, and the air seemed to vanish from her lungs. She turned on her heel and stormed off the edge of the roof, teeth gritted, heart pounding. "You're impossible."
Selene didn't follow, not immediately. But Aria felt her watching, that cold gaze tracing her spine, licking along her nerves like frostbite.
Later, inside the hollowed greenhouse, the air was thick with night moisture and decay. The glass above had shattered years ago, and now vines slithered through the rusted beams like nature reclaiming what man abandoned. A tiny flame flickered in a tin can between them — Aria's doing, mostly out of desperation. The light danced shadows across Selene's face, all angles and secrets.
Aria sat on a concrete ledge, arms wrapped around her knees. Her hoodie was zipped to her throat, but it didn't help. The cold had settled into her blood. Into her bones.
Selene, meanwhile, lounged on a cracked crate like it was a throne. She looked too elegant for the ruin, like frost blooming on marble.
"You're quiet," Aria said after a long beat.
Selene didn't answer. She tilted her head slightly, her pale green eyes fixed on Aria like a challenge.
The temperature dropped again.
"I know you're doing that on purpose."
Selene shrugged, slowly. "You didn't complain earlier."
"Earlier I wasn't —" Aria caught herself.
Selene's eyebrow arched. "Wasn't what?"
"Wasn't…" She groaned and stood up, pacing. "You're so irritating."
Selene smiled, slow and wicked. "You're overheating again."
"I am not!" But her skin betrayed her — flush on her cheeks, sweat at the base of her neck despite the chill.
Selene stood and walked toward her. Each step was deliberate. Aria froze.
"You're unraveling," Selene murmured, stopping just shy of touching her. "That little pulse between your thighs —"
"Don't," Aria breathed, eyes wide.
Selene's gaze lowered, unhurried, like she could see through every layer of clothing. "You don't know how to stop it, do you? That ache. The flutter."
Aria backed up, but there was nowhere to go. Her back hit the ivy - covered wall.
Selene leaned in. "You want me. But you're afraid of what wanting means."
"I —" Aria swallowed hard. "It's not — It's confusing."
"No," Selene whispered. "It's simple."
She leaned close, her lips barely grazing the shell of Aria's ear. "I get near, you burn. I get close, and you ache."
Aria's hands curled into fists. "You're doing this on purpose."
Selene pulled back enough to meet her eyes. "Of course I am."
"Why?"
"Because watching you struggle is exquisite." She smiled again, then added with a low, teasing murmur, "And because I want you to feel it. Want it. Until you beg."
"I won't," Aria said, though it sounded more like a plea than a promise.
Selene ghosted a kiss — cheek, jawline, just beneath the ear, never the lips. Each one felt worse than a real kiss. Too delicate. Too restrained.
Aria whimpered softly.
"You crave my mouth," Selene said against her skin. "I know how badly. But not yet. You'll earn it."
And then Selene stepped away.
The absence hit harder than her presence.
Aria sank down against the wall, shivering, her thighs clenched against the steady pressure building inside her. Her core throbbed — not painfully, but insistently. Maddeningly. Her face burned.
Selene returned to her place across the greenhouse, folding one leg over the other, arms resting lazily. She looked like she had all the time in the world.
"I hate you," Aria whispered.
Selene tilted her head. "No. You hate that I know exactly what you want — and that you're too proud to ask for it."
Aria grabbed the edge of her jacket tighter. "Why do you want me to suffer?"
"I don't," Selene said, and there was something honest in it, something dangerous. "I want you to hunger. So when I finally let you have it… you won't ever forget who gave it to you."
That night, sleep didn't come. Aria lay curled in her blanket on the far side of the greenhouse, staring at the warped ceiling and the moonlight spilling through broken panels. Her body was restless. Her skin tingled in every place Selene had almost touched. Her mouth ached. Her thighs refused to relax.
Selene lay across from her, one arm draped casually over her waist, her blade tucked within reach. Eyes half - closed. Watching. Waiting.
Aria tried to shift, but the friction of the fabric against her only made it worse. She groaned softly into her arm.
"Can't sleep?" Selene asked, voice low and velvety.
"Shut up."
Selene chuckled, not unkindly. "Want me to kiss you goodnight?"
Aria glared. "You're evil."
"You liked it last time."
"That was different."
Selene sat up slightly, propping her weight on one arm. Her silhouette was a dark, predatory curve. "You kept kissing me back."
Aria's cheeks flamed.
"You still want to."
"I'll kill you."
"You'll kiss me first."
Silence stretched. Aria turned her face away, pressing her fingers into her brow. "It's worse now. You won't even touch me."
"That's the point," Selene whispered. "You're melting."
"I hate you."
"No, Aria," she purred, drawing out her name like a spell. "You're falling."
And Aria didn't deny it.
Because she was.
Not gently. Not quietly.
She was crashing through frost and flame, lost in the slow - burn torment of Selene's touchless seduction.
And she didn't want to be saved.