The silence between us had changed.

It wasn’t the silence of fear anymore, not the kind that had pressed down on me all day while I sat on that kitchen floor counting my own heartbeats. This was something else entirely. Something charged and dangerous in a completely different way.

Ace’s thumb traced the line of my jaw slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. It was as if there wasn’t a dead man in the room, as if the last twenty-four hours hadn’t happened at all.

His gaze dropped from my eyes to my lips, and something in his expression shifted. The coldness didn’t disappear exactly,...