“You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted,” he finally said, his voice hoarse, the words unpolished. “The only honest part of me is what I feel for you.”
For a moment, the words hovered between them, trembling and alive. His voice, always a careful instrument, was stripped raw now. There was no calculation, no performance, no attempt to charm or deflect. He sounded almost boyish, almost frightened, as though in articulating the depth of his feelings he might be consumed by it.
“Lira, you—” He took a steadying breath. “I don’t deserve you. After everything I’ve put you through I don’t deserve you, and I know that. But I need you to know that you are the reason I keep fighting, the reason I believe there might still be something in this world worth saving. Because if someone like you can exist, if someone as kind and fierce and fucking beautiful as you can still stand tall after everything you’ve endured, then maybe there’s still hope for therest of us.”
Lira’s body felt like it was floating somewhere above her as she listened to his words. His thumb brushed over her cheekbone, wiping away a tear she hadn’t realized had fallen.
“I am in awe of you. In awe of your resilience, your intelligence, your capacity for love in a world that has shown you so little of it. You are a goddamn force of nature, and I am just a man lucky enough to stand in your presence.”
Lira felt her eyes burn, her throat tightening.
“I don’t want to hide from you anymore,” he breathed, his eyes never wavering from her gaze. “I don’t want to pretend I’m anything less than completely, desperately in love with you. I want you to know me—all of me, even the parts I’m ashamed of, even the parts I thought would make you turn away. Because you’re right. You’re not fragile. You’re the strongest fucking person I’ve ever known. And I trust you with my truth, with my heart, with everything I am.”
He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. Their breaths mingled, their lips a hairsbreadth apart.
“I love you,” he whispered again, the words a vow, a prayer. “I will always love you, in this life and whatever comes after. You are my beginning and my end, Lira Serel, and I am sorry.” He took a shuddering breath. “I am so sorry for not telling you that five years ago, for wasting so much of your time.”
In that moment, with those words and the last light of day fading around them, Lira felt something she’d stopped believing in long ago.Hope.
“I love you, Callie.”
Thosefourwordsseepedinto Callum’s chest and his lips crashed against Lira’s before he could second guess himself, before the habit of restraint could reassert itself.
The kiss held none of his usual careful control—it was desperate, hungry, years of wanting poured into a single point of contact. Her mouth opened beneath his, her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer with a strength that challenged his own. Gone was the delicate touch he’d always used with her, replaced by the raw need he’d kept leashed for so long.
His hands found her waist, pulling her against him with an urgency that matched the racing of his heart. Callum’s lips devoured hers, a hunger breaking free after years of starvation. He’d imagined this moment countless times—dreamed of it, ached for it—but reality eclipsed fantasy in ways he couldn’t have predicted. The soft gasp that escaped her as he backed her against the wall sent lightning through his veins.
Five years. Five fucking years wasted on noble intentions and misplaced protection.
He lifted her, hands sliding beneath her thighs as her legs wrapped around his waist. The weight of her, the heat of her body against his, felt like coming home after a lifetime of exile.
“Lira,” he breathed against her lips, reluctantly breaking the kiss to look at her. He needed to see her face, needed to know that this was real—she was real—and not another torturous dream he’d wake from alone and aching. “Are you sure?”
Her eyes met his, pupils dilated with desire, her lips swollen. The sight of her like this—disheveled, wanting, looking at him with such raw need—made his knees weak.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” she whispered, her fingers working frantically at the buttons of his shirt, impatient, demanding.
He captured her mouth again, unable to resist the pull of her any longer. His shirt fell open under her touch, her fingers trailing fireacross his chest, exploring each ridge and plane of muscle as if committing him to memory.
Callum carried her toward the bedroom, unwilling to separate from her even for the short distance. The apartment blurred around them—the luxurious furnishings, the security screens, the evidence of his double life—none of it mattering now. Only this moment, only Lira mattered.
The bedroom door hit the wall with a bang as he kicked it open, not caring about the mark it would leave. The last rays of sunset filtered through the windows, bathing the room in golden light that caught in her hair, illuminating it like a crown of fire. He laid her gently on the bed, his eyes never leaving hers as he shrugged off his shirt and tossed it aside.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, drinking in the sight of her sprawled across his sheets, her hair fanning out around her like a dark flame against the fabric. “So fucking beautiful it hurts to look at you sometimes.”
Callum’s hands stilled on her hips. The trust in her gaze made something twist inside him. After everything—the secrets, the distance, the years of half-truths—she still looked at him like he was worthy of her. Like he was something more than the blood on his hands and the lies on his tongue.
“What is it?” she asked, pushing herself up on her elbows. Concern had begun to replace desire in her expression, and he couldn’t bear it.
“I’m afraid,” he admitted, the words scraping his throat raw. “Afraid that once I have you again, I’ll never be able to let you go.”
“Then don’t,” she answered simply and the last of his restraint shattered.
Callum surged forward, her mouth clashing with his as he pressed her back into the mattress. His hips ground into hers instinctively as he groaned against her mouth.
The dress she wore became an enemy, a barrier between him and what he craved. His fingers found the zipper at her back, dragging it down with a sound that seemed impossibly loud in the quiet room. The fabric parted beneath his touch, revealing inches of soft skin that he immediately claimed with his mouth.
He pressed his lips to each new expanse exposed—the soft curve of her stomach, the delicate arch of her ribs, the swell of her breasts.
