The kiss is desperate.Unfiltered.It tastes like anger and grief and want and the terrible relief of not being alone with it anymore.
For one suspended moment, there is nothing else.
Not the lock.
Not the secrets.
Not the consequences waiting outside the door.
Only this.
Only them.
Chapter14
The kiss leaves her unsteady.
Not dizzy.Not swept.Unmoored, like her spine has forgotten how to hold her upright now that her mouth has done something reckless and honest and completely unplanned.
And oh, how her body responds in ways she’d never dreamed of.Heat infuses her like a volcano spewing hot liquid fire.Her legs feel like they’re made of jelly, and Callum…he’s moaning, or else there is a ghost in this room with them.
Isla presses her palms to Callum’s chest as she pulls back, not because she wants distance, but because if she doesn’t create space, she’s not sure she’ll remember why she should stop at all.His heartbeat is wild beneath her hands.Too fast.Too hard.
Matching hers.
For a suspended moment, neither can talk.
The storage room is cold, stone walls sweating damp into the air, dust clinging to everything like it’s been waiting, but heat coils low in her belly, sharp and unwelcome and undeniable.She tells herself it’s adrenaline.The shock of being trapped.The simple physics of too much tension and too little air.
That lie lasts exactly two seconds.
She can still taste him.
She steps back first.Just one space.Enough to breathe again.
The room comes back into focus slowly.
Wooden shelves.Old trunks.Cardboard boxes stacked in uneven towers.A single bulb overhead that flickers like it’s debating whether to stay alive.
“So,” Isla says, folding her arms tight across her chest, “this is awkward.”
Callum huffs a laugh.
The sound startles them both.
“That’s one word for it,” he says.
Isla’s brows lift.“You’re remarkably calm for someone who just trapped us in a dungeon.”
“It’s not a dungeon,” he replies automatically.“It’s a storage room.”
“With one exit,” Isla points out.“Which is currently refusing to acknowledge our existence.”
Callum turns and grips the handle again, just to be sure.It doesn’t budge.
He tries the lock.The key turns, but the bolt doesn’t lift.
“Old mechanism,” he mutters.“Humidity.Settling.Trapping us together.”
