BRIAN

The quiet after the storm was heavy, but it wasn't the kind of silence that let you breathe. It was the suffocating kind.

I stayed flat against Daisy, my chest rising and falling against the soft curve of her shoulder, my pulse still hammering a violent rhythm against her skin. 

She was completely motionless beneath me, her fingers loosely tangled in the hair at the base of my neck, her breathing shallow and broken.

The heat of the room was intense, trapped under the thick velvet covers and the absolute dark of the iron shutters. 

I could taste the salt of her tears on my tongue, mixed with the...