Not the furniture. Not the lights. Not the skyline beyond the windows. Only the air between the two of you, which cools so sharply it feels as if someone opened a freezer door inside your chest.
Ethan goes completely still.
He does not smile. He does not move toward you. He does not reach out in reassurance the way you had imagined he might if you lost your nerve and confessed your fear. He only stares at you, and there is something on his face that frightens you more than hunger ever could.
It is not lust.
It is not surprise.
It is recognition.
Your throat tightens. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
He exhales once, very slowly, as if he has been punched somewhere deep and invisible.
“Because,” he says, “your mother stood in a hotel room with me once and said almost those exact same words.”
For a moment, your brain refuses to understand English.
