(Adelaide )
The silence after he slammed the door wasn’t silence at all.
It throbbed.
It rolled through the chamber in suffocating waves, vibrating across the stone walls and humming beneath the floor like something alive. The iron in the door still rang with the echo of his exit, a faint metallic tremor that crawled up through her bare feet and set her bones on edge. Adelaide stayed pinned against the wall where he’d left her, breath shallow, limbs trembling, her heart clawing up her throat like it was trying to escape her body.
Her lips tingled. Her skin burned. Her legs barely held her weight. The imprint of his hands on her waist felt like phantom bruises, hot and shaping the air around her even though he was gone.
She didn’t move for several seconds. Couldn’t. The kiss — if she c
