The granite counter is cold under Olivia’s palms. She presses both hands flat, arms locked, elbows pointing toward the frigid gleam of the kitchen island, and for a long moment she doesn’t move. Her back is half-turned to Adrian, but not entirely—enough that she can track him in her periphery if she needs to, enough that he can’t mistake her posture for anything but what it is: a barricade.
The refrigerator hums, a low monotone that knits together the silence. Even the city traffic outside seems to have paused, ceding the air to the memory of what almost happened: his hand closing around hers, the electric gravity at her jaw, her own disastrous tilt toward him instead of away. Her body still remembers the brush of his thumb, the fraction of a degree their faces leaned, the flare of heat u
