The silence in the penthouse after the storm was profound, but the silence that fell between them in the wake of their shared release was something else entirely—a thick, weighted thing humming with unspoken boundaries crossed and new territories claimed.

Lily lay on her stomach, face turned toward the window where dawn had given way to a flat, gray morning. Simon’s body was a solid line of heat along her side, his hand still possessively splayed on the warm, pink skin of her ass.