Salt Kiss – Episode 38
Isolde sat on the edge of the motel bed while Tristan recovered from the nightmare. Neither pretended the storm alone had awakened him.
“Come here,” she said, then immediately softened it. “If you want.”
The correction mattered. Tristan moved from the floor to the chair beside her, keeping enough distance to remember whose fiancée she was.
“All my life, people have told me what I should want,” Isolde said. “My faith, my family, this marriage. Now even fear is supposed to make me obedient.”
Tristan understood too well. “My father called every choice he made for me duty.”
“And Mark?”
“He taught me that obedience could be chosen.” The admission surprised them both.
Isolde looked down at her hands. “Does he love you?”
“He has never said it.”
“Do you love him?”
Tristan could not answer. Love had become entangled with betrayal, control, and the fear of losing another person.
Isolde did not press. She leaned her head against his shoulder, offering comfort without demanding confession.
The contact felt natural enough to become dangerous. Tristan inhaled the clean scent of her hair and remembered that he was bringing her to another man.
“This is a bad idea,” he said.
“Sitting beside me?”
“Wanting to.”
She lifted her head. Their faces were close, her gaze searching his for the boundary neither should cross.
Tristan stood before desire could make the decision. “We leave at dawn.” He returned to the floor, but neither of them slept, and the space between them felt more intimate than a kiss.