“I can’t do it anymore,” I choked. “He’s arranging a... a deal. Like I’m a piece on a chessboard. A merger in human skin. And he said—hepromised—he could take it all away. Everything. I believe him.”
Sinclair wrapped his arms around me like armor. One hand on the back of my head, the other holding me so close I could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat.
“You’re not a deal,” he said, low and sure. “You’re not his to trade.”
“My mother… he never loved her. She was a transaction. Heusedher. And now I’m just the next part of the plan.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I know what that’s like.”
I froze, pulled back just enough to see his face. “What?”
“My parents didn’t raise me. They placed me. Used me as a headline. A great photo opp. Then, when I didn’t meet their expectations, they cut me off and sent me to my aunt because I wasn’t good enough to keep around. And she—” his jaw clenched, “—she reminds me of that every single day. Who Iam not. What I’ll never be. That no one wants anything to do with me.”
The way he said it—flat, matter-of-fact, like he’d said it to himself a thousand times—hit something deep in my chest.
“I didn’t know,” I said softly.
“No one does. No one cares enough to ask.”
“I care.”
His eyes locked on mine. A silent conversation passed between us that I couldn’t decode. Eventually he nodded. “Then stay.”
I didn’t hesitate. I kissed him like I’d been starving for it. I needed his mouth just to remember I was alive. My hands fisted in his hair, pulling him closer, dragging him down with me into something that wasn’t safe or rational—but it was ours.
We kissed for survival as if the walls around us might crumble at any moment, and if they did, we’d go down together.
His hands slipped beneath my shirt, fingers tracing up my sides like he was learning me by touch alone. Each movement sent a jolt through me—not just pleasure, but recognition. Likehis hands knew something I hadn’t let myself admit. I couldn’t stop trembling.
When he pulled back, just enough to meet my eyes, I saw the hesitation in his expression. Not reluctance—care. Something that had never been directed at me before. Something that had never come from him in all our stolen moments.
“Are you sure?” he asked, voice low, trembling with restraint.
I didn’t even have to think. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
His breath hitched, and something in his gaze softened. His fingers found the hem of my shirt again, slower this time, reverent. He lifted it over my head like he was unwrapping something fragile, something he didn’t want to break. He kissed my shoulder first, then the hollow beneath my throat, his lips warm and careful, like they were asking permission.
Piece by piece, my clothes came off. Every inch of exposed skin felt like it mattered. He didn’t rush. It wasn’t just undressing—it was unveiling. His hands moved like he was committing every part of me to memory. When he reached my belt, he paused again, eyes flicking up to mine.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”
I nodded, unable to speak. My chest ached with something sharp and full. Not fear exactly—just the weight of being truly seen for the first time.
When his boxers slid to the floor, and we were bare together, I felt my breath catch in my throat. There was nothing left to hide behind. Just skin and heat and years of hunger I didn’t know how to name.
He kissed me again—slow, deep, grounding. I clung to him, fingers digging into his back as we shifted positions, tangled in sheets that smelled like him. He didn’t take. He gave. His hands guided, his mouth worshipped. We moved in sync, a language all of our own that we were inventing in real time. His thigh pressedbetween mine, and I arched into him instinctively, gasping against his mouth as my length brushed against his skin.
“Tell me if anything’s too much,” he murmured against my jaw, his breath warm, his lips brushing down to my collarbone. “We stop the second you need to.”
“I don’t want to stop,” I breathed. “I just wantyou.”
And I meant it—every raw, cracked-open word. I wantedhim.
The way Sin looked at me like I wasn’t broken. Like I wasn’t a burden, or a mistake made flesh. The way his touch rewrote everything I thought I knew about myself, what I deserved.
He smiled at that, soft and devastating, like it was the first timehehad been chosen too. And maybe it was. There was pain in his eyes—old, familiar—and I knew it because I wore it too. We recognized each other’s ruin.
“I’ll take it slow,” he murmured, his voice rough velvet as he moved down my body. Open-mouthed kisses trailed across my stomach, his stubble scraping sensitive skin, igniting nerve endings I didn’t know existed. “Work you open with my tongue and fingers before I sink inside of you.”
