Our bedroom, I suppose.
I push open the door and step inside. The lights are off, but the city provides illumination through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I can see the bed, massive and perfectly made. The chair where he drapes his suits. The nightstand with a single book—a biography of some long-dead emperor.
I close the door behind me and start to undress.
The zipper of my dress sounds loud in the quiet. I let the fabric pool at my feet and step out of it, leaving me in just my bra and panties.
Then I remove those too.
I stand naked in Nathan's bedroom, and I wait.
I don't have to wait long.
I hear his footsteps in the hall. A pause outside the door. Then it opens, and he's there, silhouetted against the hallway light.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. Neither of us speaks.
Then Nathan steps inside and closes the door behind him.
"Eve," he says quietly. "What are you doing?"
"Making a choice," I whisper. "The only real choice I have left."
He crosses the room slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. When he reaches me, his hands settle on my waist, warm and possessive.
"And what choice is that?"
"You," I say simply. "I choose you. All of you. Even the parts that terrify me."
His hands tighten on my waist. "You don't have to—"
"I know," I interrupt. "That's what makes it a choice."
He searches my face in the dim light, looking for doubt, for fear, for any sign that I don't mean this.
But I do. God help me, I do.
"I love you," he says, his voice raw. "I know I've never said it properly, but Eve, I love you. More than I've ever loved anything."
Tears prick my eyes. "I know. And that's what makes this so terrible. Because I—"
I can't finish. Can't say the words aloud.
But he knows. I see it in his eyes.
"I love you too," I whisper, and it feels like a confession and a condemnation all at once.
He kisses me then, deep and consuming, and I kiss him back with everything I have. All my fear. All my longing. All my terrible, complicated love for this beautiful monster.
He lays me down on the bed with a reverence that makes my chest ache. His hands shake slightly as he undresses, and I realize he's nervous. Nathan Hale, who controls everything and everyone, is nervous.
It makes him human. Vulnerable.
It makes me love him more.
He settles beside me, propped on one elbow, and just looks at me. His hand traces the line of my collarbone, down between my breasts, across the soft curve of my stomach.
"You're so beautiful," he murmurs. "Every inch of you."
