The air inside the cave seemed increasingly dense, heavy, as if each breath they took was consuming all the available oxygen. Ester, still pressed against Damon, felt her heart hammering in her chest as if trying to escape. The fire crackled low, casting dancing shadows that sometimes hid, sometimes revealed, the contours of their entwined bodies.
But it was when the intensity of the kisses took her breath away that she reacted. Suddenly, her hands pressed against his chest, not hard enough to hurt him, but with the desperate determination of someone needing to breathe. The movement pushed him away a few inches, just enough for their lips to part.
Ester gasped.
Her face was burning, her lips wet and swollen, her breathing rapid and ragged. Her eyes—normally cool, controlled, and sharp as razors—were now clouded, clouded by a heat she dared not name. The contrast between the calculating woman she had always been and the vulnerable vision Damon saw before him was devastating.
