Chapter 12
Ember
I follow him out of the alcove, fighting not to remember how his arms felt wrapped around me. How his heart beat beneath my palm. How much I wanted to stay exactly where I was.
The embarrassment is still there, settling cold in my stomach. But underneath it runs something sharper.
Disappointment.
Stop thinking about it, you idiot!
Gritting my teeth to focus on what we’re doing, I turn my full attention to where he’s walking ahead. Within minutes, we’ve picked up the steady pace we’d set previously, making our way past dripping walls and rock that gleams in the dim light.
The tunnel narrows as we descend.
Luke moves ahead with that same fluid grace, reading the stone and shadows like a language I don’t speak. His torch beam sweeps across walls slick with moisture, and I watch the way hisshoulders shift beneath his gear. Try not to notice how the vest fits him snugly. Fail.
My hands still remember the feel of his skin. Warm and solid and so completely different from the man he shows the world.
I curl them into fists.
Stop it.
But I can’t. The memory follows me with every step. The weight of his arms around my body. The way his breathing matched mine. The hard evidence that his body responded to me, even if he won’t.
Heat floods my face again as I recall the pressure of his cock against my hip. I could have slid my hand down and curled my fingers around it. And of course, he would have stopped me.
God, this is humiliating.
I’m twenty-one years old, and I’ve never felt so completely out of my depth. Every other part of my life, I’ve managed to fake competence. Magic. Politics. Survival. But this? Whatever this is between us that he keeps shutting down?
I have no idea what I’m doing.
And he knows it. That’s the worst part. He sees right through every attempt I make to seem older, more experienced, more in control. Sees the girl underneath who doesn’t have the first clue how to navigate whatever this tension is.
The tunnel floor slopes downward. My boot catches on loose rock, and I stumble.
Luke’s hand shoots out immediately, steadying me without even looking back.
“Careful.”
His touch burns through fabric. Then he’s released me and kept moving like it meant nothing.
Maybe it did. Mean nothing.
Of course it meant nothing, Ember.
I’m reading significance into moments that are just practical necessity. Body heat for survival. Steadying hands to prevent falls. Physical reactions that don’t mean anything beyond biology.
Morning wood, right? Isn’t that what they call it?
No big deal.
The thought should be reassuring.
It’s not.
I force myself to focus. We’re in Syndicate territory with agents hunting us, and no magic to defend myself. Now is not the time to obsess over a man who’s made it perfectly clear nothing is going to happen between us.
