“You’re more fragile than you think.” His hand comes up to cup my face, thumb brushing across my cheekbone. “I’ve already broken enough tonight.”
“You didn’t break me.” I turn my face into his palm, pressing a kiss there. “You saved me.”
The admission seems to undo something in him. His other hand comes to the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair, and when he kisses me this time there’s lessrestraint in it. Less calculation. More raw need that matches the chaos churning inside me.
My shirt comes off—I’m not sure if I remove it or he does—and then his hands are on bare skin, exploring with a reverence that contradicts everything I know about him. The killer, the strategist, the man who executes people without hesitation—right now he’s touching me like I’m something precious. Breakable.
“I’m not glass,” I remind him, nipping at his lower lip hard enough to sting.
He makes a sound low in his throat—half warning, half approval. “Careful what you’re asking for.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for.” I pull at his shirt, frustrated with the barrier between us. “Stop treating me like I’ll shatter.”
For a moment he just looks at me, searching my face for something. Then his expression shifts, that careful gentleness replaced by something darker, more primal. More honest.
“Last chance to change your mind,” he says, but he’s already backing me toward the bed with deliberate intent.
“I won’t.”
“You should.” His hands go to my waist, grip firm enough to feel the power in them. “This doesn’t solve anything, Elara. Tomorrow you’ll still hate me. Tomorrow this will still be complicated.”
“Tomorrow can fuck itself.” The words come out breathless as the back of my knees hit the mattress. “Tonight I just want to feel something other than fear.”
He stops, hands still on my waist, and for a second I think he’s going to pull away. Going to be noble and controlled and all the things that make me want to scream.
Instead, he leans in close, lips brushing my ear. “Then feel this.”
The kiss that follows is nothing like the ones before; it’s claiming, consuming, stripped of all the careful restraint he’s been maintaining. His hands are everywhere, mapping the curves of my body with a possessiveness that should bother me but doesn’t.
I’m matching him touch for touch, claiming him right back, refusing to be passive in this.
We fall onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and frustrated fabric removal. His shirt finally comes off, and I get my first real look at the damage his life has done to him—the scars are more extensive than I thought, a roadmap of violence written across muscle and skin.
“You’re staring,” he says, but there’s no self-consciousness in it.
“You’re covered in scars.”
“Hazard of the profession.” He catches my wrist when I reach for another one, bringing my hand to his mouth instead. “They don’t bother you?”
“They terrify me,” I admit. “Just not for the reason you think.”
“Why, then?”
I meet his eyes. “Because every one of them is a reminder that you could die. That this whole structure you’ve built around me could collapse, and I’d be left in a world where you don’t exist anymore.”
Something flashes across his face: surprise, maybe, or satisfaction that I’ve finally admitted what we both know. That somewhere in all the anger and fear and resentment, I’ve started caring whether he lives or dies.
“I’m not easy to kill,” he says, lowering himself over me, caging me in with his arms.
“Neither was that man in the alley. Until you shot him.”
“He threatened you.” His voice drops to something dangerous. “Anyone who threatens you forfeits their right to keep breathing.”
The possessiveness in those words should trigger every feminist instinct I have. Should make me furious at being treated like property to be defended. Instead, it sends heat pooling low in my belly, makes my breath catch in my throat.
“That’s messed up,” I whisper.
“Yes.” He doesn’t deny it, doesn’t apologize for it. “Most things about me are.”
