It was later in the day when the quiet settled again—different from the quiet earlier, deeper somehow, like the mansion itself was holding its breath. Maybe I was too. Everything since stepping into Ray’s private room, since flipping through those sketches, since the way he held me like he didn’t quite know how to let go anymore… it all lingered on my skin, wrapped around me like something warm, something heavy, something impossible to shake off even if I tried.
We eventually drifted out of the room, but his hand stayed at my lower back the whole walk, the heat of his palm a steady reminder that whatever line we’d been dancing along all this time wasn’t a line anymore. We weren’t orbiting each other cautiously. We weren’t pretending anymore. There was a pull now—open, unmistakable, charge
