For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then, with a quiet murmur of my name, he shifted, brushing a kiss against my temple before pulling away just enough to rise from the bed. The sound of water filled the silence a moment later, the slow rush of the faucet, the soft clink of glass against porcelain. When I looked up, he was at the edge of the adjoining bathroom, sleeves rolled, steam curling around him as he tested the temperature of the bath.
He glanced over his shoulder, eyes dark but tender. “Come here,” he said.
I sat up slowly, the sheet falling around me. He crossed the distance and helped me to my feet, his hands steady as he led me to the warm light spilling from the bathroom. The tub was half full, water glimmering under the soft glow of a candle he’d lit without a word. The faint scent of cedar and soap drifted through the air.
“Get in,” he said softly. “Let me take care of you.”
I did. The warmth wrapped around me instantly, drawing a sigh from my lips. He knelt beside the tub, dipped a hand into the water before reaching for the cloth resting on the edge. His movements were unhurried as he ran it gently along my arm, over my shoulder, down my collarbone. It wasn’t lust, it was reverence.
Neither of us spoke. The silence between us was full, rich, a language of its own. When he finally leaned forward to press a kiss to my damp forehead, I felt it, something in him settling, something in me giving way.
He dried me with the same quiet care, wrapping me in a towel before guiding me back to bed. When I was settled beneath the sheets, he joined me again, pulling me close, his hand resting once more at the small of my back, grounding me.
“Edwina,” he said, his voice deep and certain against the hush of the room.
“Mmm?”
“You’re my flare in the dark. My Little Flare. You’re mine.”
I smiled against his chest, the word no longer a threat, no longer a question. “I know.”
I closed my eyes with his name still on my lips, his heartbeat constant beneath my ear, and let the dark fold itself quietly around us.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hayden
Theroomwasstill,washed in the pale light of morning, but I couldn’t close my eyes. Sleep was a mercy I hadn’t earned in years, and last night had stolen any chance of it.
Edwina lay curled against me, her breath slow and even, her hair spilling over my chest as ink across paper. My arm was draped around her waist, possessive even in stillness, my palm spread across the same bare skin I had touched, kissed, fucking worshipped. I should have felt satisfaction, triumph, even peace, but all I felt was the gnawing ache of obsession, threaded with guilt that refused to fade.
I had promised myself I would never take what wasn’t mine to claim. Yet here she was, warm in my bed, marked by my hands, her voice still echoing in my head. Hayden. The way she hadsaid my name last night hadn’t just been a sound, it had been a surrender. And it had fucking ruined me.
I watched her lips part faintly in sleep, lashes resting on flushed cheeks, and the thought struck deep, sharp as a blade. What if she woke and regretted it? What if she looked at me not with that hunger but with shame?
My chest tightened, rage twisting deep, violent, but not at her, never her. At myself. At the way I had let her crawl beneath my skin and tear through every wall I’d built. I was supposed to keep her at a distance, to maintain control. But the second she knocked on my door with that bottle in her hand and that fire in her fucking eyes, I was a goner.
I brushed a strand of hair from her face, my fingers trembling more than I wanted to admit. Mine. The word tore through me, dangerous and absolute. She was mine, whether she knew it yet or not.
Her body shifted against me, a soft sound escaping her throat, and my breath caught. I wanted her to wake. I wanted her to whisper my name again, to remind me that last night wasn’t a dream I had conjured out of my hunger, but something real, something I had taken, claimed, and would never be able to give back.
When her lashes fluttered and her eyes finally opened, dark and still heavy with sleep, I let my thumb drag over her lower lip before she could speak. “Careful,” I murmured, my voice rough, “you’ll make me believe you’re real.”
The weight of sleep still clung to her, and I should have envied it, the way she surrendered so easily while I remained awake, trapped in the claws of thought. But envy never came. Instead, I watched. I traced every line of her face with my eyes, memorizing her in this quiet hour when she was untouched by the chaos that followed me like a curse.
I had no right to keep her here, pressed against the wreckage of my life, where ghosts still whispered my name. My family. My past. None of it was meant for her. She deserved the light, not the rot buried inside me. The thought of her ever stepping too close to that truth terrified me more than any nightmare I’d ever endured.
I slipped carefully from beneath her, slow enough that she only murmured in protest. The sketchbook waited on the desk, the one I hadn’t touched in months. My hands, restless and fucking traitorous, reached for it before reason could stop me.
The pencil moved without command, driven by that old compulsion that seized me whenever control slipped. Her hair bled across the page in dark strokes, her mouth soft in sleep, her lashes scattering shadows. Each stroke I made carried the weight of a confession I had no right to voice. My hand stilled at her mouth, the curve of her lips, still carrying the ghost of last night’s whispers. A sound escaped me, rough and fractured. She was the one thing in this world untouched by my decay, and still, I was dragging her into it, immortalizing her with the same hands that had already ruined too much.
The pencil caught, cutting across the page harder than I meant. A jagged stroke split the quiet sketch. My jaw clenched. No matter how much I wanted to believe I could protect her, the truth was merciless, people near me ended up in graves. And still, when she shifted and whispered my name in her sleep, I nearly tore the page from the book just to press it against my chest.
I hadn’t meant to fall asleep at the desk. The sketchbook lay open, graphite smeared across my fingers, her face staring backat me in light and shadow. Edwina. Even on paper, she haunted me. Drawing her hadn’t lessened the obsession clawing at my chest, it had fed it.
Morning light bled through the blinds, pale and unforgiving. I forced my eyes open, my back aching from the chair. Then I heard it, the faintest rustle of sheets. I turned.
She was there, curled beneath the covers, her hair spilling over my pillow, her breathing soft, rhythmic. The sheet had slipped from her shoulder, revealing the bare line of skin I had kissed hours ago.
