17
Luke froze at the sight of Agathe standing on his doorstep, his grip on the door so tight, a dull pain radiated through his fingers. Her clothes were drenched and her shoulders rose and fell with sharp, panted breaths, breaths that left puffs of cloudy vapor around her in the cold.
“Agathe.” He whispered her name and stepped aside. Her tangible neediness stretched across the threshold and wrapped his heart within a tangle of barbed panic. “Come in. You’re cold.”
Her focus dropped to his chest, and she swallowed. “I’m not looking for you to be nice to me.”
Of course not. Had she ever?
Her attention met his again, a little more stoic, though still very much wide-eyed. The wobble of her jaw as her teeth chattered only added to the sense of poorly concealed fragility. She’d stormed fro
