Rolling me onto my back, he went with me, plastering me beneath him as his burning bulk settled between my legs. With a moan, he buried his face against my neck.
I gasped as he panted and shuddered over me.
His weight. His embrace. He anchored me down and trapped me in every way possible.
I’d thought I was fragile lying on top of him.
But it wasnothingto being beneath him.
I felt both breakable and formidable. Chosen and condemned.
His heart thundered as his hot, burning body fed me the fire in his blood, showing me just how much pain he was in.
His scent surrounded me—bitter and medicinal.
My hands somehow found their way onto his naked back. He arched beneath my touch, gathering me tighter against him as if he wanted to merge us into one. His muscles spasmed along his sweaty spine as he shuddered with another rack of pain.
Whisper whimpered from the floor, watching everything.
I’d never been so scared or so sad.
His despair seeped into me, searing and endless. He burrowed into me as if trying to escape. The more his pain bled into me, the more I wanted to steal it from him. To take it all. Tosavehim.
My arms wrapped around his waist of their own accord. “It’s okay,” I breathed, voice trembling. “You’re okay.”
He clutched me harder, brutal in his need. Our pulses tangled. Our breaths collided. My body betrayed me with heat and want and an ache that had nothing to do with mercy.
Pity turned to yearning. Fear to fire.
He clung to me with cruelty and desperation—like someone who feared they’d cease to exist the moment he let go.
And I let him.
For the longest time, we didn’t move—two strangers merged in the most intimate of embraces. Our bodies kissing in every place. Our breath syncing until he calmed. Rights and wrongs, boundaries and laws—they all vanished thanks to whatever this was.
Piercing clarity cut through my headache as his arms slowly loosened.
I had absolutely no idea how it’d happened but...for the first time since my parents had died, my atrophied heart cracked.
The tiniest fracture in my pain.
The smallest opening to care again.
I couldn’t stop it.
Couldn’t stop him.
And I knew without a doubt, I would never be the same again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
HE PUSHED OFF ME SLOWLY, SHAKILY, almost as if he was about to collapse.
I went to help him—general human kindness flaring to life instead of the terrifying new feelings he’d caused, but he removed my hand from his bare chest and swayed off the bed.
Whisper almost knocked him down again as the panther nuzzled Lucien’s hip, twining around him. His stiff tail almost reached Lucien’s messy, sweaty hair.
“Enough, you stupid beast.” Staggering to the side, Lucien wedged a hand over the silver circle on his chest and moved slowly toward the huge wardrobe. The hulking piece of furniture looked like it would eat him alive with its clawed feet and carved wooden doors.
