Page 144 of Caterina
Everything in me goes still.
I am careful not to react.
But she sees it anyway. Of course she does.
She keeps going.
“I thought I came in here because I was scared and humiliated and guilty and desperate to feel something that wasn’t terror.” Her voice stays quiet, but it does not shake. “I thought kissing you was some awful trauma response I needed to be ashamed of.”
“It's not something to be ashamed of, but it was a trauma response.”
“Partly,” she says. “Maybe. But not only.”
I say nothing.
She takes another step closer.
The robe shifts around her legs.
My body reacts before my brain can stop it.
Bad.
Very bad.
I keep my hands at my sides, towel hanging low at my hips, water cooling on my skin, every part of me suddenly too aware of the locked door, the bed behind me, the fact that I am not dressed, and the fact that she is looking at me like she has already decided how this ends.
And I'm not sure I want to change the ending
“You were right,” she says. “Fear does things to your head. Adrenaline does. Nearly dying does. But I spent all day thinking about it, and I know myself well enough to know the difference between panic and wanting something.”
My throat feels dry.
“Do you?”
Her eyes flash faintly. “Yes.”
“No,” I say, because if I let even half of what I want into my voice, we are done. “You don’t. Not tonight.”
Her chin lifts. “Do not tell me what I know.”
“I’m telling you what I know.”
“Which is?”
“That you almost died two nights ago. That your whole family is locked down under your father’s roof. That you are embarrassedabout what happened last night and trying to take back control in the most dangerous way available.”
Her mouth tightens.
Good. Let her be angry.
Anger is safer than whatever is in her eyes right now.
“That is not what this is.”
“It is part of what this is.”
“And the rest?”
