"Eat your lunch, Belle," I murmured, picking up my fork. "You’re going to need your strength."
Chapter 23
Belle
The drive back suffocated me.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, watching the town blur past in streaks of gray and green and water. My pulse hadn't settled. My skin still felt tight, overheated, like I'd been marked from the inside out.
I kept replaying it.
The booth. His hand dragging me into his side instead of across from him. The way his fingers curled around my wrist—firm, possessive, final. The punishment under the table that wasn't a punishment at all, or maybe it was, maybe that was the point. The look on his face when he'd said it, when he'd admitted something I wasn't supposed to hear: No one has ever been mine before.
My chest constricted.
I hated that it mattered. Hated that my pulse had stuttered when he'd said it, that my stupid, traitorous heart had twisted sideways, that some small, pathetic part of me had wanted to be his.
Too warm.
Too exposed.
Too seen.
When he parked in front of the bookstore, I was already reaching for the door handle before the engine cut. Escape. Distance. Space to breathe without his eyes on me, without his voice curling around my thoughts, without?—
He caught my wrist.
"Belle."
I froze.
My hand hovered over the door, breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat. Because his voice—it wasn't commanding. Wasn't demanding. Wasn't the razor-edged tone he used when he gave orders.
It was soft.
Too soft.
The kind of soft that made something inside me crack open when I needed it locked tight.
I didn't turn around. Didn't look at him. Couldn't.
"Let me go," I whispered.
His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse. Once. Twice. A slow, deliberate caress that made my breath hitch despite everything.
"Not yet."
I swallowed hard, eyes burning, hating the way my body leaned back toward him without permission, hating the way my wrist stayed exactly where it was instead of pulling free. Hating how much I didn't want him to let go.
His grip loosened—not releasing, just giving me the choice. And that was somehow worse. Because now I had to decide. Stay. Or run. And I didn't know which terrified me more.
He looked like he wanted to say something but didn't. Just released my wrist. Stepped back. Let me go.
The bookstore swallowed us whole. Quiet. Still. The kind of silence that magnified every breath, every footstep, every unspoken thing crackling between us like static.
I moved between the aisles on instinct, needing something to do with my hands, needing distance even though he followed two steps behind. I felt his eyes tracking my movements—the way I paused at fiction, the way I straightened a crooked spine, the way my fingers trembled when they touched the shelves.
He kept his hands in his pockets. Casual. Unhurried. Like we hadn't just—like he hadn't just?—
