The next night at midnight,

Welcome back, DarkMuse30.

You have one new message from SinEater.

Mrunal’s pulse flickered with a strange thrill as she signed in—midnight sharp, just like he said. The rest of her day had been normal. Mundane, even. She’d eaten a dry sandwich at her desk, made small talk about office budgets, and nodded at meaningless presentations.

But all day long, she’d waited for this. She clicked the message.

SinEater: You came back. Brave girl. Shall I be gentle with you tonight?

A smirk tugged at her lips. In real life, she would’ve second-guessed every word. But here? She wasn’t Mrunal, the almost-girlfriend. She wasn’t the girl men kept as a backup. She was… wanted.

DarkMuse30: Gentle’s never been my thing. Unless it’s the kind that comes before ruin.

SinEater: So the Muse bares her teeth tonight? Careful, sweetheart. I like it when they bite.

She laughed softly, staring at the screen.

DarkMuse30: Good. Because I like it when they bleed.

SinEater: Tell me something you’ve never told anyone, Muse. Something filthy. Something real.

Her fingers hovered above the keys, hesitation buzzing in her chest. Then, almost recklessly, she typed:

DarkMuse30: I once imagined being touched in the office. Behind the glass walls, where anyone could look in. My chair was turning slowly while a man whispered filth into my ear as he ruined my red lipstick. I would never wear that shade again.

There was a pause. Then—

SinEater: Now I’ll think of that every time I see a woman in red lipstick. Tell me—was the man faceless? Or did he look like someone you already knew?

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip. Her pulse hammered. She typed:

DarkMuse30: He looked like someone I was never supposed to want. Someone who never looked at me twice.

SinEater: Then he was blind. Or a fool. Because I don’t need to see you to know—if I had you bent over a desk, Muse, I’d never walk out of that office again.

Her thighs pressed together beneath the blanket. Her body was betraying her.

DarkMuse30:You talk like you’ve done it before.

SinEater: No. I talk like I know what you crave. Not flowers. Not empty promises. You want someone to drag the storm out of you. To make you beg, not for love—but for the parts of yourself you’ve buried under “good girl” smiles.

Her cheeks flamed. But the corners of her lips curved upward.

DarkMuse30:You sound addicted. Do I make you hard behind your screen, SinEater?

SinEater: You make me ravenous. And when I finally get my hands on you, Muse—

A pause.

—It won’t be gentle. It’ll be poetry carved into your skin. And you’ll beg me for every stanza.

She sucked in a sharp breath and snapped the laptop shut, as if the heat spilling from the screen might scorch her. But her body—her heart—was already burning. In the quiet dark, for the first time in years, Mrunal didn’t feel invisible. She felt seen. Desired. Consumed.

She shut the laptop, but it was useless. The words didn’t go away. They clung to her skin, slid down her spine, and curled warm and wicked in her belly. Her room was silent except for her uneven breathing. She pressed her palms into the mattress, as if grounding herself could slow the race of her heart. It didn’t. The blanket felt too heavy, the air too thick. Her body wouldn’t stop buzzing.

She dragged in a breath, but it came out shaky. Flirting. I actually flirted. The word itself felt foreign on her tongue. She wasn’t that girl. She wasn’t the one men lingered on, the one who sparked dirty fantasies behind glass walls. She was the girl who sat in the corner, unnoticed, overlooked, safe.

But tonight—she had dared. And someone had answered.

Her thighs clenched instinctively as heat pooled there, her skin prickling with every remembered line he had typed. Poetry carved into your skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, stifling the sound that wanted to escape.

The laptop sat on the desk across the room, closed but pulsing in her imagination like it was still alive. Like he was still waiting for her on the other side of the screen.

Her gaze kept drifting to it. Her body leaned before her mind could stop it. "No," she whispered to herself, forcing her eyes away. You can’t. You shouldn’t. But her pulse betrayed her. Her skin betrayed her. And her heart—her heart hadn’t felt this alive in years.

She curled into her pillow, burying her face in it, trying to quiet the riot inside her. Yet even in the dark, she smiled. A shaky, guilty smile. Because no one—no one in her real life—had ever made her feel like this. And now, words from a faceless man had set her on fire.

It terrified her. It thrilled her. And worst of all… it left her starving for more.