Palms Up in the Dark

In a velvet-draped salon deep in a ship's hull — candlelight bending in the salt-thick air, old wood breathing beneath their hands — Raven kneels before a dark pillar and three people who have been waiting for her to arrive at herself. Xavier anchors the ritual with a voice that commands before it speaks; Isla guides from beside rather than above, having knelt at this same pillar before; and Ivy bears witness from the bench, the burning gaze Raven confessed she needed more than any touch. Raven enters believing she can stay in control, yet with each answered question and each syllable surrendered — *sir*, *kept*, *please* — she moves from the exhausting authority of self-management into a rare, cracked-open release, her body knowing it has arrived somewhere before her mind gives permission. Readers who crave the ache of being truly seen, truly held by a room rather than a person, will find in these pages the precise emotional geography of that longing fulfilled.