Kylian didn’t leave.
Instead of dressing and walking out like he usually did after pouring his frustration into her, he stayed. His breathing was still heavy against her neck, his body pressed flush to hers. Rachel lay beneath him, trembling from the intensity of their earlier coupling, her skin slick with sweat and marked by his hands.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The only sound in the room was their ragged breathing and the faint crackle of the dying fireplace.
Then Kylian shifted.
He pulled out of her slowly, almost carefully, and rolled onto his side. Rachel expected him to get up. To remind her again that she was nothing to him. But instead, he turned her gently onto her back and looked down at her with eyes that burned with something far more complicated than anger.
