Aveline froze the moment his lips touched hers.
Her eyes, still wet with tears, widened in shock, her breath catching so abruptly it felt as though her body had forgotten how to function altogether. For a second, she stilled, as she could only feel the unfamiliar warmth pressed against her lips.
And then… She saw him.
His eyes were closed, his expression unguarded in a way she had never seen before, and at the corner of his lashes, there was the faintest trace of wetness. His hand still held hers, and that warmth slowly seeped into her, grounding her in a way nothing else could.
Something inside her softened.
In that moment, everything else slipped away.
Her past, her fears, what this meant, what it didn't… every worry that had weighed her down until now dissolved, as if they had never existed to begin with.
All that remained was this.
Him.
The warmth she had unknowingly longed for.
