My pulse detonates. My grip tightens without permission, fingers curling just enough to feel her warmth. Her breath brushes my mouth, and for a split second, I forget how to be anything but a man who wants.
I see it all. Her lips parting. The sound she’d make. The way she’d melt into me like she already trusts me with everything she is.
Then Lev’s face slams into my mind.
The man who dragged me out of hell. The man who gave me purpose. The man who trusted me with the one thing he loves more than his own life.
His daughter.
Fire rips through my chest. I pull back sharply, my hand dropping as if burned.
“No,” I say, way too harshly. “I’m not.”
Hurt flashes across her face before she can hide it, and it nearly destroys me.
“This,” I continue, forcing air into my lungs, forcing distance between us, “can’t happen, Lily. As much as I want it to. Because god help me, I do.”
“Because of my father.” She says, dropping her head.
“Yes,” I say immediately. “And because I’m supposed to be better than this.”
“But you want to?” There’s a heaviness in her tone, like the words cost her.
And that guts me.
I look at her properly then. Not as a mission. Not as Lev’s daughter. As a woman who has tilted my world for five fucking years, if not longer.
“Yes,” I admit. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
Her breath stutters.
“And that’s exactly why I won’t. Nothing good happens around me; I only hurt.” My voice cracks.
Pressure clamps down behind my sternum. Because it’s the truth.
Silence stretches between us, broken only by the steady hum of the engines and the rush of air outside.
I lean back, deliberately placing my arm on the armrest, forcing distance where my body begs for closeness.
“If I cross that line,” I say quietly, “I don’t stop. And you deserve more than a man who would burn his entire world just to feel you.”
Her lips tremble. “You already are.”
Fuck.
I close my eyes briefly, grounding myself, dragging in air like it’s poison and salvation all at once.
“Lily,” I say softly, opening them again, “I exist to keep you safe. Even from me. Especially from me.”
She nods, pain and understanding colliding in her expression.
The seatbelt sign flickers off, yet neither of us moves.
And the worst part isn’t that I said no. It’s knowing that if she leaned forward right now, if she closed that final inch herself…
I’m not sure I’d survive saying it again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
