Her small, pale fingers reached forward, hovering, hesitating. Then it landed on his hand. On his damaged knuckles. A weight so slight and warm. Impossible softness tarnished by his brutalized flesh.
“Thank you.”
Jack stopped breathing.
Dainty, delicate bones wrapped in silken skin. Smooth and feminine. Her nails were polished the color of ballerina slippers, and chipped at the edges.
Not like the Chancellor’s meaty fingers. Dry, not clammy. Light not suffocating.
What did she want?
His throat constricted.
Her touch asked nothing. Demanded nothing. Simply rested, light as a moth, offering warmth without expectation.
Move. Pull away.
The command echoed through his skull as seconds stretched into an eternity. One heartbeat. Two. His skin burned where she touched him, nerve endings firing in confused alarm, because touch had always meant pain. Always meant transaction.
But she wasn’t taking. She was just... there.
Three heartbeats. Four.
His chest tightened.
Pressure built behind his sternum, vast and terrifying, rising like floodwater against a dam. He wanted to pull away. But also wanted to never stop. Never change.
A sound escaped him, wounded and involuntary, dragged from something hidden deeper than his lungs.
She pulled her hand away.
The absence of her touch hit harder than the contact. His knuckles chilled. Exposed. Ugly.
He shot off the bed. “I’ll get you a clean shirt.” The words came out strangled.
The dressing room swallowed him like a held breath.
Cedar and wool met the faint ghost of cologne. He tried to remember how to breathe.
What are you doing?
His hands shook, flicking away the sensation of her touch. But it clung to him. He stretched his fingers, splaying them wide, then squeezed his hands into popping fists.
He couldn’t keep steady. This was more than tremors. His fingers vibrating with tension, his body couldn’t contain. His whole frame buzzed like a struck bell, every nerve still singing from the phantom pressure of her touch.
He pressed his palms flat against the gilded mirror fastened to the wall. Felt the cool glass against his overheated skin. Tried to anchor himself to something solid, something real, something that wasn’t her.
He fumbled for his phone and checked the time. 3:47 AM. Soon, the sky would shift from black to sapphire, then purple to gold. Three hours, maybe less, until the final bells rung.
Three hours until she walked out of his life.
Three hours until the charter plane carried her back to London.
Three hours until she became a memory, a ghost, a woman he’d touched but never truly…
Never truly what?
He stared at his reflection in the darkened mirror. The glass threw back shadows more than features, but he knew what hid beneath his clothes. Raised ridges. Silver tissue puckered like braille. Marked. Ruined. Branded like someone’s property. Chattel. A boy sold for beans.
