The black ink had been stubborn, clinging to Erin's fingertips like evidence of her secret thoughts. She'd been so lost in the flow of writing that she hadn't noticed when her fountain pen had leaked. The poem had been particularly intense this time - inspired by the way you had looked that morning when you stretched in bed, arms raised above your head, the soft cotton of your sleep shirt riding up to reveal the gentle curve of your waist and the swell of your breasts beneath the thin fabric.

Erin had barely been able to contain herself, excusing herself to the kitchen under the pretense of making coffee while her mind raced with verses and metaphors. The words had practically burned their way out of her, raw and hungry and so very different from the sweet, innocent poetry she shared with the world. She'd written about the way the morning light had painted your skin gold, about the desire that coiled in her stomach like a living thing, about fantasies that made her core ache with need.

The leather-bound notebook lay open on the kitchen counter where she'd left it, the pages still damp with fresh ink. Her careful cursive filled the lined paper, each word chosen with the precision of someone who understood the weight of language, the power it held to capture desire:

"Golden light spills across your skin like honey, Sweet morning goddess stretching in our bed, Your body calls to me in whispered promises— The curve of breast, the arch of back, the way Your cotton shirt becomes a veil between My starving eyes and paradise..."

The ink stain on her index finger had been the only thing to pull her from her reverie, and she'd hurried to the bathroom to scrub it away, her cheeks burning with the aftershock of her own words. She'd assumed you would be at work for another hour—plenty of time to hide the notebook away again, to tuck it between the mattress and box spring where it usually lived, safe from discovery.

But as Erin emerged from the bathroom, still drying her hands on a small pink towel, her blood turned to ice in her veins. There, standing in their cozy kitchen with the afternoon light streaming through the sheer curtains, was you. Home early. And in your hands was the one thing Erin had prayed would never be found.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god—" The words tumbled from Erin's lips in a breathless panic as she realized what was happening. Her worst nightmare was unfolding before her eyes like a slow-motion car crash. You were reading her secret notebook, the one she'd hidden so carefully, moved from location to location like a guilty secret, guarded like her most precious and shameful treasure. The page was open to her latest work, the explicit poem about your body that she'd poured her heart and desire into just twenty minutes ago.

"No, no, no, please don't—" Erin's voice cracked as she rushed forward, her bare feet sliding slightly on the hardwood floor, the small towel dropping from her trembling hands as she reached out desperately. Her face was burning crimson, darker than she'd ever blushed before, tears already beginning to blur her vision as the full weight of the situation crashed over her like a tidal wave. This was it. This was the moment she'd been dreading in her darkest fears, the moment that would surely end everything good in her life.