“For giving me a piece of myself I didn’t know was gone,” she said. “All of it.”
His hands stayed at her waist, as if letting go simply wasn’t on the table.
This moment. He’d brought her here on purpose. Maybe to kiss her. Maybe just to feel her close.
He watched her—eyes steady, unflinching.
“Whatever you want. However you want it,” he murmured, voice low, deliberate. “It’s yours.”
It hit her lower than her chest, somewhere old and aching. She wasn’t used to being given choices, only consequences.
And maybe, she believed he meant it.
They stood there, wrapped in the hush between them while the city carried on below, oblivious, electric, and alive.
And that familiar pull to retreat—the urge to step back, shut down, disappear—never came.
She didn’t run. Didn’t flinch. She stayed.
With him.
CHAPTER 31
Ink & Intuition
The city rustled beyond the cracked window, distant and restless. Street sounds came and went, softened by walls that held the hallowed hush.
The lamp beside her glowed against the shadows, casting warm light across the open notebook balanced on her knees. The page sat blank, waiting patiently.
Arden curled deeper into the couch, pulling the throw blanket over her legs, tucking into its small, stubborn warmth. This was her spot. Her calm. The only space she’d carved out that felt wholly hers,a shelter in a world that rarely offered one.
But tonight, not even the familiar cushions could hold her steady.
Not when his words echoed in her head.
But make no mistake… You’re mine. I’ve known it since the night we met.
That sentence, those words, lingered in her chest like a heat she couldn’t shake. Not rage. Not fear. But a claim that branded her from the inside out. She blew out a breath and tapped her pen against the page, trying to drag her thoughts into order.
You’re mine.
A statement. A certainty.
Her fingers gripped the pen tighter. Her pulse climbed as images crashed behind her eyes—his hands on her, deliberate and reverent, like he was learning her. Like this wasn’t new. Like he’d been waiting.
Gideon Blackwell had been inevitable from the beginning. She had known it the first time she saw him at Dot’s—the way he carried himself, the intensity in his gaze,the sharp-edged control that warned her he was a man used to getting what he wanted.
But with her, he had never taken. He had waited. He hadn’t tried to break the walls she’d built so carefully.
He stood there. Waited. Watched.
Letting her decide.
And she had let him in.
Her pen moved, scrawling words across the page before she could second-guess them.
What scares me more than the walls breaking down is that I want him to keep breaking them.
