The morning sun hit my eyes through the window. The room was filled with an unfamiliar but pleasant scent—something floral and rain. The bed felt warmer than it should. My eyes were still closed. I had planned to sleep a bit more before venturing out into this magical place.
But when I tried to turn to my other side, something pulled me back—a strange resistance that held my right hand firmly in place.
My eyes snapped open.
And there he was. A man. Lying on my arm, peacefully asleep. His face inches from mine.
For a heartbeat, I wondered if I was still dreaming. But the weight of his head was real, pressing against my skin, sending a ripple of shock through me.
My self-defense instinct took over. I screamed—loud, wild—and kicked him off the bed, desperate to reclaim my space, my safety. My mind scrambled: had someone broken in? Had I been drugged? Panic flared as I checked beneath the sheets. My clothes were intact. But he was naked.
The man groaned, a heavy sound, as he hit the floor.
How did he get in here? Did I forget to lock the door? Did someone let him in? Did he follow me home from the restaurant? Did he—
The thoughts came too fast, too fragmented. I couldn't hold onto a single one. All I knew was that I was alone in a foreign country, in a villa no one knew I was staying at, with a naked man in my bed.
Fear sharpened within me. I grabbed the golden pen from the nightstand, holding it like a weapon.
"Who are you? What do you want? And why are you naked?" My voice trembled, but I forced it steady.
He groaned again, massaging his head, then his arms—probably feeling the pain from the fall. My throat tightened with suspicion. I scanned the room for my phone. Nowhere. If I screamed and no one came, I'd be alone, vulnerable, possibly infuriating the intruder. Better to stay calm. Reach the door. Lock it behind me. Run.
"Who are you?" I demanded again. "How did you get in here?"
He blinked slowly, locking eyes with me.
I noticed a few things despite being scared to hell. He was tall. Broad. His lips were full, a soft, natural light brown. His eyes were a deep, warm brown that seemed to catch the morning light.
I forced myself to look away. What are you doing? This man broke into your room. He could be dangerous. Stop looking at him like—
"I don't know," he said. His voice was low, confused. "I don't know who I am. I don't know how I got here. The last thing I remember is my head spinning, and then... I woke up here."
He was still on the ground, the bedsheet now wrapped around his waist.
I frowned, disbelief creeping in. "What do you mean you don't know? What's your name?"
His voice faltered. "I... don't know."
There was something honest in his gaze. Something raw and unfiltered that made his words seem believable. I studied the way his eyes searched mine—confused, vulnerable, stripped of any hint of deceit.
But I'd been fooled before. I'd spent five years believing a man who once looked at me with kind eyes and said sweet things while building a life on my labor and my love. I wasn't going to make that mistake again.
"Stay there," I said, my voice harder now. "Don't move. If you come near me, I will scream, and I will use this pen to gouge your eyes out if I have to."
He didn't move. He just watched me with those wide, confused eyes.
I leaned against the headboard and pressed my back against it and tried to breathe and figure out if I invited him in...if I had a one-night stand with him.
I ran through the previous night in my head. Dinner with the fans. The golden pen. Coming back to the room. Writing in my journal. I was writing about the male lead for my next novel. I had written about what he would look like. How he would move. What kind of man he would be. A dangerous and impossible thought dared to pop up in my mind—
No. That's insane. People don't just—things don't just appear because you write them down.
But the pen. The way it had hummed in my hand. The way the words had poured out of me like something else was guiding them.
I squeezed my eyes shut. You're panicking. You're not thinking clearly. There's a logical explanation. There has to be.
I took a deep breath. Then another. My journal was on the bed; I grabbed it and opened to the pages I'd written last night.
I glanced at him. He was looking at me as if he was trying to figure out the situation as much as I was.
I looked down at the journal.
Six feet tall. Full lips, soft taupe. Dark brown eyes that turn lighter in sunlight. Lean muscle—his arms and back shaped with what the Japanese call "thread-like muscle."
My eyes lifted from the page. I looked at him. His arms. The lean, long muscles beneath his skin.
Thread-like muscle.
I looked back at the journal.
Skin the warm hue of sun-kissed sandalwood.
His skin was exactly that color. Exactly.
My hands were shaking. I looked back and forth between the page and the man, between the words I'd written and the impossible reality sitting on my floor.
No. No, this isn't—this can't be—
I read the next line.
His chest firm, narrowing to a slim waist—the classic V-shape of a body crafted for movement.
His body was exactly as I'd described. Every detail. Every word.
The pen slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the desk.
He looked up at the sound. "Are you okay?"
I couldn't answer. I couldn't breathe. I could only stare at the journal, then at him, then back at the journal.
I wrote him. I wrote him and he—he appeared. He's here. He's real.
"You're shaking," he said. He started to get up.
"Don't." My voice came out sharp. "Don't move. Don't come near me."
He stopped. Lowered himself back to the floor. His hands were raised slightly, like he was trying to show me he wasn't a threat.
"What's the last thing you remember?" My voice was barely a whisper.
He frowned, thinking. "Spinning. A feeling like falling. And then... light. And then your face...before everything went dark."
"My face?"
"Yes, you were asleep." He paused. "I didn't want to wake you. I didn't know where I was or what was happening, but you looked... peaceful. I didn't want to disturb that."
I stared at him. This man—this impossible, beautiful man who had appeared in my bed like something from a dream.
I wrote him to be kind. I wrote him to be gentle. I wrote him to be everything Rhys wasn't.
A sound escaped me. Something between a laugh and a sob.
He tilted his head. "What is it?"
I looked at the journal. Then at him. Then at the golden pen, glinting in the morning light.
"I think," I said slowly, the words feeling insane even as I spoke them, "I think I wrote you."
He blinked. "What?"
"Last night. I was writing. About a man." I gestured weakly at the journal. "And then this morning, you were here—" I shook my head. "It sounds insane. I know it sounds insane. But look at you." I pointed at the journal. "Look at what I wrote."
He rose slowly—not approaching, just reaching a height where he could see the open pages. His eyes moved across my handwriting, and I watched his face change. Recognition. Disbelief. Something that looked almost like wonder.
"This is..." He didn't finish the sentence.
"The eyes," I said. "The skin. The—the thread-like muscle. It's all there. Every detail."
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft. "If I'm something you wrote, then why don't I have a name?"
I blinked. "What?"
"There's no name here." He pointed at the page. "I looked. There's no name. What's your character's name?" he asked.
The realization hit me in waves. I pulled my journal toward me and the page that held him, my male lead for the next novel. The perfect man... yet to be named.
I scribbled a name that popped in my head—Caelum, a name I had long decided for my main male character for my next novel.
"I think I remember my name now. It's Caelum." The man spoke after some time breaking the silence.
I couldn't believe it. I was dreading to hear it but was expecting it. Slowly, I added one more word—my surname—Moore. The line between my creation and this strange reality blurred, and I wasn't sure if I was terrified or fascinated. My heart pounded with questions louder than my voice dared to speak.
He was still seated on the cold floor where I kicked him, "I remember my full name now. It's Caelum Moore."
I decided to test it one more time. I wrote in my notebook—
He had a tattoo of a crescent moon on his right wrist.
The pen moved on the journal almost on its own. And before I could blink, black ink materializing over skin like fate revealing itself. Caelum let out a whispery groan as it appeared on his skin and was trying to rub off the ink. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Is it the pen? I wondered.
I reached for an ordinary pen from the bedstand—my heart pounding, desperate to know if it was me or the pen that held the power. I wrote on my journal; Clouds were drawn around the moon on the right wrist.
Nothing happens. Then I tried the same with the golden pen and slowly but surely clouds started to appear around the moon tattoo. Caelum's low groan was the proof.