Her lips part, just a little. Her throat moves as she swallows, but no sound comes out.
“He has no soul. No lines he won’t cross. What he did to her… what he’s doing now…” I shake my head and look away, my jaw tight. My fists are still clenched at my sides. “I can’t lose you, Lo. I loved Laura, butyou? What I feel for you? It’s beyond love. It’s obsession. It’s need. It’s fucking survival. You’re in every part of me, even the ones I hate. I wake up choking on it, sleep with it under my skin. And if you walk away right now, I would understand, but I don’t know what the hell is going to be left of me.”
Then she moves. There’s no warning, no hesitation. One second she’s frozen, the next she’s wrapping herself around me like none of it scares her. Like the blood, the guilt, the monster in me doesn’t matter. Like she still sees me beneath it all.
My body locks up at first, too stunned to move. Then my hands find her waist, her back, gripping hard, afraid she’ll disappear if I let go. My chest caves in, all the rage and anguish folding beneath the warmth of her touch. I press my face to her temple and breathe her in. Smoke and sweat and something soft I thought I’d lost for good.
“I hired Reese to keep an eye on you,” I say quietly, still holding her against me. “Just an extra pair of eyes. That’s all it was. There was no other woman. There is no one else. There never will be again, Angel. You’re it for me. I got Reese because I didn’t want you walking around with a target on your back while I was scrambling to figure out what Clay was planning.”
She doesn’t say anything, so I keep going. My voice is lower now, tighter. “I had my contact follow Clay. Watched him pull into a motel. He wasn’t alone. Your half-sister was there.”
She stiffens in my arms. Fuck. I knew this part would hit different. “He met with her for a few hours,” I add. “Then left.”
She pulls back, slowly. Her eyes climb up to meet mine, but they don’t hold fear like I expected. They hold fire. “Taylor?” she grinds out.
I nod once.
Her jaw clenches. Her eyes narrow. Her whole body tenses like she might throw something. “You think she fucked me over again?”
I cup her face in both hands, my thumbs brushing the heat in her cheeks. I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to say another word. I just want her to stop looking at me like that, like she’s about to break into a thousand pieces, not from fear—but from more betrayal.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. I study her, every inch of her. The wild, beautiful rage in her expression. The way she’s barely holding it in.
And all I want—God help me—is to shut her up with my mouth on hers. To crawl inside her and lose myself there. To make her forget every single reason she should walk away from me. I want to feel her hips tremble under my hands, hear her lose control against my lips. I want to taste her anger, her heartbreak, her need. I want to feel the scrape of her teeth when she bites back a moan, the sting of her nails dragging down my back as I pin her to the mattress and remind her that even if the world is burning, she’s mine. I want her thighs wrapped tight around me, shaking, her pussy throbbing around my cock. I want to kiss her so hard it resets her memories. I want to make her come apart in my hands. That’s the only language I know how to speak right now. And God, I want to hear her scream it.
Marlowe tilts her head, eyes narrowed with that wicked glint I never see coming until it’s already cutting me down. “Stop fucking me in your head,” she says, and it lands like a slap and a kiss all at once.
The words burn across my chest. I drag in a breath and meet her gaze. “How do you know that’s what I’m thinking?”
She smirks, slow and devastating. “Because your pupils are blown, your jaw’s clenched, and you keep looking at my mouth like it owes you a blowjob.” She crosses her arms, still watching me like I’m on trial. “I’m still really pissed off at you,” she says, not letting me off the hook for even a second. “You’ve been using sex to avoid talking about things. Every time I asked you something, you kissed the questions right out of my head.”
That hits harder than I expect. I flinch. Not outwardly, not enough for her to catch unless she’s really looking, but inside, it hits deep. “I’m sorry,” I say, the words thick in my throat. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. It wasn’t what I was trying to do.” It takes everything in me to admit the rest. To be soft in this way, with her, now. “I just… it calms me down,” I say, voice lower now. “Being inside you. It’s the only time I feel right. Like I’m not some weapon just waiting to go off. You make me feel human. You make it all fade into the background. All the noise. All the rage. Everything settles inside me when I’m with you like that.”
Her eyes soften, those ocean-colored eyes locking with mine like she’s searching for a lie and not finding one. My ribs feel like they’re caving in, the way she looks at me—like she’s still deciding whether she’s staying.
"I love you, Marlowe. I fucking love you like I’ve never loved anyone in my entire life. This—" I breathe her in, tuck that wild strand of hair off her forehead, let my fingers linger there like maybe it’ll keep her here with me, "—this is all new to me."
She looks at me, waiting, needing more.
“That’s everything I’ve been hiding from you.”
Her voice is soft but sharp enough to cut. “Why did you hide it all? Why didn’t you think you could tell me any of it?”
I swallow hard. Because this truth is ugly too. “You’ve got enough on your shoulders already,” I say, slowly, carefully, like I’m laying the words at her feet. “You wake up every day fighting your own demons. You’re always bracing for the next panic attack. And I see it, even when you think I don’t.” My voice thickens, but I keep going. “You didn’t need my fucked-up world added to that. I didn’t want to be another weight pressing down on you. I didn’t want to be one of your triggers, Lo, like Bridger says. I wanted to be your anchor. The one thing that made it easier to breathe.”
I cup her jaw, fingers gentle even though everything in me feels wrecked. “I thought keeping it all away from you would protect you. I thought I was doing the right thing. But maybe I was just scared you’d see the truth and decide I wasn’t worth the trouble.” I pause, watching her eyes, watching her process. “But I see now, not telling you only made it worse. And I’m done doing this halfway. If you’re in, I’m all in. No more secrets. Not from you.”
Her blue eyes stare right into my soul.
“The night we first met, I told you I wasn’t a good man,” I say, my voice low, steady, even though everything inside me is trembling with how close I am to her. “I warned you. But fuck, Angel. I want to be a better man, if only for you.”
The corner of her perfect mouth lifts, barely. Just the hint of a smile, like she doesn’t want to give it to me but can’t help it. “I nicknamed you Trouble before I even knew your name.”
I run my thumb over her bottom lip, slow and reverent, aching to kiss her. But I don’t. I won’t. Not until she wants it. Not until she asks.
She breathes me in like she’s trying to memorize the way I smell, and I swear it does something violent inside my chest.
“Marlowe,” I murmur, “how come you’re not more freaked out that I told you I put a hit out on my father?” Because it’sbeen haunting me since I said it. Because it doesn’t make sense that someone like her—someone soft and sharp and full of light—would still want to be near a man like me. A man who can saythosewords and mean them.
