Scalding heat rolled off him as if he burned from the inside out. His whole frame quaked, every shiver full of torture.
I froze beneath him, panic colliding with something else, something worse.
Having him touch me. Crush me. His weight and heat and very existence didn’t just push me into the mattress but soaked into my very soul.
All those days we’d spent in each other’s orbit—silently watching but never thawing. All those hours we existed highly aware of the other but too stubborn to actually talk.
I’d spent more time with this man than anyone else in seven years, yet I didn’t know him. Not enough to be so intimately wrapped up in him or for my heart to become so rebellious.
“Lucien...”
He groaned in response, grinding his forehead harder against mine, clinging to me as if I was the only thing keeping him from bursting apart.
Was I allowed to touch him?
How was I supposed to help when I had no idea what I was doing?
My arms stayed rigid at my sides as his weight crushed me, his breath searing over my lips. He wrapped himself around me as if I were the only anchor left in the world, his hands fisting my nightgown, dragging me tighter into his fevered cage.
My crystal raindrop pendant bruised my sternum, trapped against his chest and mine. We were so close, the cold bite of the circular piece of metal over his heart felt horrifically wrong compared to the rest of his burning flesh.
He groaned again, his forehead sliding off mine as he hooked his chin over my shoulder and buried his face into the pillow. He sucked in a shuddering breath. His body hitched violently. His arms spasmed painfully tight.
Whisper whimpered beside us, his whiskers tickling my cheek as he nuzzled me, probably wondering what the hell was going on.
Lucien cried out, guttural and raw, and...I couldn’t do it.
I didn’t care what he’d do to me afterward or how he’d read the scenario of us in bed together but...I reached up with shaking arms. My fingers hovered above his back, hesitant and wary but he jerked again, and my heart made the decision for me.
I let my hands fall.
His skin was fever-hot beneath his shirt, heat billowing off him like waves from a furnace. My palms flattened on his shoulder blades, trembling as I slid them lower, feeling the tremor of muscles knotted tight with pain.
He stiffened; a strangled sound echoed in his chest.
Skimming my fingers up his spine again, I cupped his nape.
He convulsed.
His thick, damp hair rested over my knuckles as I whispered, “It’s okay.”
Lowering my hands again, I followed the contours and tightness of his back. My thumbs traced slow circles along his spine, kneading out the knots I found.
He shuddered and collapsed completely on top of me, his legs settling between my spread ones, his chest to my chest, and that awful hard disc like a large icy medallion against my breast.
“You’re alright,” I whispered, not sure I was doing the right thing but unable to stop.
He shuddered again, but the violent jerks from before began to ebb. His breath slipped into rhythm instead of chaos, hot and heavy against my collarbone. His furnace heat slowly faded as if being this close to me truly did help calm him down.
I lost track of how long we lay like that.
I didn’t stop to think how it would look to others or what it would mean when we broke apart.
I just kept stroking him.
Whisper yawned and lay down beside the bed, his glowing eyes never looking away.
No matter my friendship with the huge cat, I had no doubt he’d bite my hands off if I injured his master.
