(Emery’s POV)
The apartment was quiet again.
But it wasn’t empty.
Not of pain. Not of fear. Not of everything they still didn’t say.
Emery stood in the dim light of the bedroom, watching Luca as he stripped off his soaked hoodie, his jaw still clenched from whatever happened with Blake.
His body was tense. Rigid. Controlled.
She hated it.
She crossed the room slowly, her fingers brushing the curve of his spine. “You don’t have to hold it all anymore.”
He turned toward her, chest rising and falling fast. “I don’t know how to let it go.”
“Then let me take it from you.”
He didn’t speak.
But when he kissed her — God — he tasted like fury and need and everything she’d missed.
⸻
His mouth was on hers, then her jaw, then the soft spot under her ear that made her tremble. His hands, u
