But it’s mixed with a hint of disappointment, and that bothers me more than anything.
“We should head back before the rain worsens.” Dragging a hand through his soaked hair, he blinks several times before scooping up the umbrella.
I fall into step beside him, gravel crunching under our shoes, and the want that flared in my blood doesn’t fade with distance.
It turns to coal, searing under the guilt trying to smother it.
I gave myself to Sebastian not even twenty-four hours ago, but for one insane rain-soaked breath, IwantedOliver’s kiss.
What kind of person does that make me?
The sedan waits with its engine running, headlights cutting pale tunnels through the fog.
Tomorrow we fly home.
Back to the island, the tower…the House of Aquarius.
I glance over my shoulder one last time. The lighthouse beam sweeps through the dying afternoon, a thin stroke of light swallowed whole before it completes the arc.
6
Despite what I let Oliver believe the morning after I gave Sebastian my virginity, when I woke up to an empty and cold bed, I have not, in fact, made myself come.
Not for lack of trying.
Between the promise I made to Liam all those months ago and Dr. Price’s therapeuticmethods—which only seem to have conditioned me to reach that edge and not a step further—I haven’t been able to let go.
God, I want to let go.
As Oliver and I step into the elevator, it’s all I can think about. It doesn’t help that this space reminds me of Sebastian and how he took me on the floor, full of rawness and passion and heat.
Oliver keys a code into the sleek panel, unaware of the emotions swirling in my gut, and the car begins its short trip down the tower.
Three floors.
That’s all that’s left—two more months above ground zero.
Two more months until the auction, at which point Sebastian will be home.
A pang of hope rises in me at the thought, even as something deep inside sinks with the elevator, because the brooding man across from me has turned into a locked door I can’t get through.
Oliver leans against the opposite wall, arms crossed, jaw wired tight, his gaze fixed on the descending numbers.
Distant…closed off.
He’s been like this since the cape.
We returned to Zodiac Island several days ago, but that moment in the rain came back with us. On the ride up, he positioned himself the way he’s standing now, with a careful gap between us.
And in my quarters, after he set my suitcase by the bed, he paused as if he meant to say something.
But he never did.
By the time I’d unpacked, he’d already shut himself in his office. At first, I assumed he had work to catch up on, but even busy men eat dinner. They sit across the table and stare with unnerving insight, nonchalantly sipping wine.
Busy men still find the time to haunt doorways at night.
So why did Oliver stop haunting mine?