“I don’t care,” I breathe.
“You should.”
He doesn’t sound smug. He sounds like he means it. And maybe I should care. About the danger. About the line we crossed. About all the things that will come unraveled if we keep doing this. But none of that matters. Not when I’m looking at him like this, inches from his mouth, fingers aching to reach for him.
My hand lifts on its own. Finds the rough line of his jaw, where stubble has darkened since yesterday. He leans into my palm like it costs him nothing. But I can feel the tension straining beneath his skin. Can feel the heat radiating from his body.
He’s not cold.
He’s fire, banked and waiting.
“You scared?” he asks.
“Yes.”
His thumb brushes my side, a silenttether.
“Of me?”
“No,” I say, and the answer is immediate, undeniable. “Of what I want.”
The words taste like confession. The kind I never thought I’d speak out loud. But with him, everything feels stripped down. Honest. Exposed.
His eyes change.
They go dark—not cruel, not harsh. Just hungry. That quiet, calculated shift I’ve only ever seen on the battlefield of his body, when he’s about to make a call no one else would dare.
“You know what that tells me?” he says, voice sandpaper and steel.
“What?”
“That you’re not here to comfort me anymore.”
My stomach drops.
“You’re here to be undone.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. My breath is stuck somewhere in my throat, and my knees feel liquid. He watches me absorb the weight of his words, and then he positions me between his legs—slowly, carefully, but with intent. Even injured, he moves like a conqueror. Like the warrior I dreamed of before I ever knew his name.
His hand slides up my spine, from the small of my back to the base of my neck, where his fingers tighten. Not painful. Just—claiming. “Not Cooper,” he murmurs, almost to himself.
I blink, confused. But then I see it. See him.
He’s not playing a part.
He’s becoming it. The gladiator I dreamed up in the dark. The victor, bloody and brutal, walking off the sand to collect his reward.
“Do you remember what you told me?” he murmurs, thumb stroking behind my ear. “Your fantasy?”
I nod, throat dry.
“You didn’t say a soldier. You didn’t say a protector.” His hand curls into my hair, fisting just enough to make me gasp. “You said a champion. The one who fought and bled and won you.”
“Yes,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. “But that wasn’t real.”
“You don’t think I’m real?”
He’s so close now. Heat radiates between us, his breath ghosting over my cheek as he studies every inch of my face. His ribs must be screaming. His shoulder’s torn. But you’d never know it from the way he holds himself—imposing, immovable, mine.
