We were standing close enough that I heard every word, heard the playful whine threaded through her voice.
"This is your fault, you know. Married this long and you still don't know when to hold back. The other night you were so worked up you actually hurt me. Like some nervous boy on his first time…"
My body went rigid.
My heart felt as if something very thin and very sharp had been pressed into it. A slow, spreading ache, edged with a desolation I had no word for.
Between the two of them, it really had been a first time.
I stood there, silent, hollowed out, and the memories surfaced on their own.
Five years of marriage. He had been attentive in every visible way, generous, considerate, precise. But in that kind of closeness he had always been distant. Cold. Every time felt like an obligation fulfilled, no urgency, no heat, as though he were simply checking a duty off a list.
I had told myself it was just who he was.
After all, I had never once seen him lose control of anything.
Until now. Until he became "Julian Frost."
Now I understood. When it was the person he truly loved, he lost all composure. He burned that way too.