Ethan’s POV
The sun was warm on my skin, a deep, steady warmth that didn’t just sit on the surface but seeped into me, sinking past muscle and bone until it felt like it was thawing out something I hadn’t realized was frozen.
IThe beach stretched endlessly in both directions, a ribbon of pale, powdery sand meeting the blue green sea in a perfect, lazy line.
For the first time in what felt like forever, I could breathe.
A few feet away, Dominic sat on a large towel, his long legs stretched out in front of him, sunglasses pushed carelessly up on his head. He looked different here, looser somehow, stripped of the sharp edges he carried with him back home.
I could feel his eyes on me whenever I wandered too close to the water or drifted farther down the shoreline.
He wasn’t hovering b
