"I hate you," I confessed.
"I know," he whispered.
He pulled back just enough to look down at me, his hungry dark eyes searching mine. "But I won't let you go, Luna," he said roughly. "I can't."
"I thought I'd never see you again. I thought..." A sob caught in my throat. "Tristan, I thought you were dead."
He ran his hand down my arm, his fingers curling around my wrist. Lifting it to his mouth, he pressed a soft kiss to the pulse point there. "I'm not that easy to kill."
"But Gino shot you so many times. I saw it. Ifeltthe bullets hit you."
"Is that why you ran from me?" His eyes flashed with something dark and possessive.
"I thought you were dead," I repeated.
"Even in death, you're mine, Luna," he growled. "You'll always be mine."
I shivered at the intensity in his voice. God help me, I believed him.
He pulled me close again, his mouth crashing down on mine in a scorching kiss, devouring me like a man starved. I melted into him, my fingers tangling in his hair as I kissed him back with all the sorrow and anger and desperation I'd felt these last few months. His tongue swept into my mouth, claiming me, consuming me, and I moaned.
My surrender was a shattering of illusions, a stripping away of the façade I'd tried to cling to since I'd met him. The truth was, in the raw, unfiltered reality of Tristan's arms, I found a twisted liberation, a dark freedom that both thrilled and consumed me.
With a shuddering sigh, I allowed his darkness to claim me.
CHAPTER20
Tristan
“Touch me,” I begged. A shiver of unease crept down my spine as soon as I said the words, but fucking hell, I wanted to feel her hands on me.
I'd stood in the shadows at the back of the club when I arrived, my eyes locked on Luna as she swayed and spun around the pole on the stage. The pulsing beats of the music had faded into the background, drowned out by the pounding of my pulse in my ears. I'd clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached, my hands curling into fists at my sides as I watched her move, her body glistening with a light sheen of sweat under the flashing lights.
The hunger inside me had grown with every passing second, twisting and clawing at my insides like a rabid beast. I'd wanted to storm the stage, to throw her over my shoulder and carry her out of this fucking place. Away from the leering eyes of the men in the audience, their gazes crawling over her skin like filthy insects.
Everything went red, and my blood had boiled with a rage I'd never known before. It set every nerve in my body on fire. I'd wanted to rip their fucking eyes out, and still did, to make them pay for daring to look at her like that.
Luna was mine, and mine alone.
And I was hers.
For months, I'd teetered on the brink of death. And the only thing that kept me in this world was the need to know if Luna was okay, or if Gino had taken her from me too.
I couldn't die. Not yet. Not until I knew whether she'd be waiting for me.
So I'd fought, clawing my way back from the abyss with every ounce of strength left in my broken body. My recovery had been pure hell, each day an endless struggle of pain and frustration. But through it all, through the countless surgeries and agonizing physical therapy sessions, I'd clung to the memory of her like a lifeline. The thought of holding her in my arms again, of burying my face in her silky hair and breathing in her intoxicating scent, had kept me going when I wanted to give up.
Her body had never been found, and neither had her brother's. Somehow, the two of them had made it off Luca's property. And since Gino was dead, I could only assume one of them had killed him.
Then they'd run.
As soon as I was able, I'd torn apart the city looking for her, driven by a desperate, all-consuming need to find her and bring her back to where she belonged—with me. Nothing else mattered. Not the family business, not my own well-being. Only her.
She was mine, and I would have her back at any cost. No matter what it took, no matter who I had to hurt or kill in the process. I would find her, and I would never let her go again.
It took me a few weeks, but I finally tracked her down. And now it almost didn't seem real that I finally held her in my arms again.
"Touch me," I ordered, stronger this time. I'd waited so fucking long for this.
