I know it. He has to know it too.
He had to have felt it.
Over and over, I can't make it stop.
I glance over at him.
His jaw is tight, the muscle flexing beneath the stubble shadowing his face. His gaze is fixed on the road ahead, but I can tell he's not seeing it.
I wonder what he's thinking about.
If he's replaying the kiss too. If he felt the same heat I did, the same pull, the same terrifying, impossible want.
Or if he's regretting it.
I turn away and shake my head to rattle the thoughts from my mind.
The one thing that unsettles me isn't even the kiss, not really.
It's the look he gave me afterward.
When he pulled back and held me against him like the world could burn and he'd still keep me there.
For a second, just a second, I didn't feel like Sister Omega.
I didn't feel like leverage.
I didn't feel like the cult girl people whisper about, the broken thing with scars, the problem someone has to decide what to do with.
I felt like Zaria.
Just a person.
The girl I was before thirteen. Before the Greyhound bus. Before I left Idaho and before I walked into Cormac's arms thinking I'd found a father.
The thoughts make my heart beat too fast, like it's trying to outrun everything that happened tonight.
Callum doesn't look at me once.
Not until the iron gates of the estate come into view and his headlights sweep across them, and the car glides forward like this is just another night.
We pull up in front of the house, and I glance at the clock on the dash.
3:45 a.m.
Callum turns the car off, and the silence becomes unbearable.
He sits for a moment with both hands on the wheel, then he opens his door and steps out.
He comes around the front of the car, opens my door, and holds out his hand.
I stare at it for a moment, his palm, his fingers, the dried blood still under his nails.
Then I take it.
His grip is firm, warm, and I hate how much I want him to keep holding on when I stand.
He doesn't.
