Liora's POV
The kiss stole my breath before I even realized it had begun. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t planned. It was the kind that felt like the inevitable result of every word we hadn’t said, every glance that had lingered too long.
For hours, I’d told myself I was imagining it, the pull, the tension, the way Rowan’s gaze seemed to linger just a second longer than it should. But when his lips met mine, all those careful lies unraveled at once.
He kissed me like a man who had run out of patience. There was nothing hesitant in it, only heat, control, and something dangerously close to hunger. I should’ve pushed him away. I should’ve stopped it before it became something I couldn’t take back. But every thought fractured under the weight of his nearness.
When he finally broke t
