Isla
Zayne’s hand on my thigh shouldn’t feel like this. Like heat poured directly into my bloodstream. Like a grounding weight and a spark all at once. Like something I shouldn’t allow, something dangerous and comforting tangled together.
But it does.
His palm rests there casually, or at least he pretends it is casual. But nothing about Zayne is ever casual. Not the way he looks at me. Not the way he touches. Not the way he moves, silent, calculating, always three steps ahead of reality.
I’m trying not to think about yesterday, the way he held me, ruined me, pressed me to his chest afterward, his breath still uneven, the way his voice dropped into that dark warning—Don’t even think about pulling away.
But my traitor mind remembers. And now my body remembers too.
Heat crawls up my thi
