EMBER’S POV
I wake to cold.
Not the gentle chill of early morning, but the particular emptiness that comes from sleeping alone in a bed that was, moments before, full of another body’s warmth.
My hand reaches across the sheets and finds nothing but cool fabric and the indentation where Knox’s head was pressed into the pillow. The bedside clock reads 4:17 AM.
I should stay in bed. Should roll over and go back to sleep like a rational person.
Instead, I’m padding barefoot through the penthouse, following some instinct I don’t quite understand. It’s not fear. It’s something closer to need.
I find him at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room, the ones that frame the snow-covered Cascade peaks like nature’s most expensive painting.
He’s standing with his back to me, shirtless,
