Heavy. Certain. Possessive in a way that doesn’t make me feel safe. I go back to sleep.
After that, it becomes routine. I leave my room untouched; the bed made every morning by staff who don’t comment on the fact that no one has slept in it. I keep a few things in Lucian’s bathroom now. A toothbrush. A hoodie I like. The book I pretend to read but mostly just hold when I can’t sleep.
Lucian doesn’t say anything about it. He never has to. His room swallows me whole, and somehow, I fit.
There are nights he isn’t there when I fall asleep. Those are the hardest. I lie in his bed anyway, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the house shift around me. Distant doors. Footsteps. The low hum of a place that never truly rests. I tell myself I’m not waiting. That I’m just used to this room now.
That’s a lie.
One night, after he works especially late, I try to be good. For some reason I felt the need to test if we could survive with space between us. I take myself back to my assigned room, lie down in a bed that feels too wide and too unfamiliar, and stare at the wall until my chest feels tight.
I don’t sleep. I feel like the walls are closing in. A prison cell coated in a layer of paint and gold finishings.
I must drift eventually, because the next thing I know, strong arms slide beneath me. I gasp, instinct flaring, but it dies the moment I register the scent.
“Lucian?”
“Yes.” He says only one word, but I can hear the hundreds of things racing through his mind.
He doesn’t speak further. He never does on nights like this. He lifts me like 185 pounds of muscle is nothing, my face pressed against his chest, his heartbeat hard and fast beneath my ear. He carries me down the hall and back into his room like this is where I belong.
I don’t argue. I never try to leave his room again.
After that, I stop pretending. I leave my things where they are. Curl up in his bed even when he isn’t there yet. Sometimes I fall asleep clutching his pillow, which is humiliating and I refuse to think about it too deeply.
When Lucian comes home late, I hear him before I feel him.
The door opens quietly. The room changes. The air goes taut, like it knows he’s arrived.
He smells different on those nights.
Metal. Blood. Smoke. Something raw and violent that crawls into my lungs and settles there. I wake up every time, no matter how deep I was sleeping. My body recognizes him before my mind does.
He moves slowly, deliberately, like he’s holding himself together by force. He strips out of his clothes piece by piece, each item discarded with careful precision, like he’s afraid of what might happen if he rushes.
I don’t speak. I’ve learned better.
He slides into bed behind me, bare skin to bare skin, and for a moment he just…hesitates. Like he’s unsure. Like he doesn’t deserve to touch me when he smells like this.
Then his arms wrap around me.
Tight. Almost desperate.
He presses his face into the back of my neck, breath shuddering, and I feel him shake. Just once. A single crack in the armor.
He doesn’t relax until I turn.
I roll onto my back and guide him without words, hands on his shoulders, until he’s half on top of me, head tucked against my chest. He exhales like he’s been holding his breath all night.
I run my fingers through his hair.
It’s softer than it looks. Always surprises me.
His ear rests over my heart, and I can feel the moment it steadies him. Like he needs proof. Like the sound of me alive and warm and real anchors him back in his body.
He smells like sin on these nights. Like everything he’s done and everything he refuses to regret. I don’t ask questions. I don’t want the answers.
I just hold him.
