* * * * *
We turned ravenous that night.
Each time we collapsed, we had mere moments before reaching for each other again.
I forgot that I’d locked Whisper outside and couldn’t think of a single thing apart fromher.
It was the best fucking night of my life.
Chapter Fifty-Six
“LUCIEN? YOU AWAKE?” Something sharp pinched my side.
My arms wrapped tightly around Rook as she struggled to get free. “Stop that.”
“We can’t spendanotherday in bed.” She pinched me again. “The sun is up.”
“Are you seriously saying you got enough sleep?” Cracking open my eyes, I squinted at the blazing sun doing its best to incinerate my bedroom. “I’m exhausted.”
“But wasn’t it the best?” She pressed snowy kisses along my shoulder, making a delicious shiver shoot down my back. She snuggled against me again, and every corner of my heart collapsed.
She was the only one.
The only one who would ever tame me.
I would do fuckinganythingto protect her.
My hands balled as my thoughts grew dark.
If my enemies so much as looked at her, I wouldn’t just kill them—I would pull out their tendons, smash apart their bones, flay off their skin, and eat their hearts raw.
“You’re smoking and random images of bloody hearts are popping into my head.” She frowned as she shifted away. “Whatever you’re thinking...stop it.”
I chuckled and shoved away my bloodlust.
Whisper grunted as if he agreed.
At some point, after we’d destroyed each other for the sixth or seventh time, we’d let Whisper inside, apologised profusely to the grumpy panther, then all piled into bed together.
Smacking a kiss on my cheek, she said, “I’m going to take a shower and find Dillon.”
Thatwoke me up.
Rolling onto my back, I dragged her with me, bare skin to bare skin, hot to cold.
Her fingers strayed down my belly, toying with the hair leading straight south.
I held my breath as her fingers kept walking but then she froze with a sharp little breath. “Shit.”
“Shit?” I locked gazes with her even as I grew hard just from the anticipation of her touching me. Seemed I was making up for all those celibate years where I refused to touch a woman just in case I made her—
“Fuck.” I shot upright. “How the hell did we not think of this before?”
Because I knew she thought the exact same thing as me. She was probably the reason why the thought popped into my head—picking up on her worries, and fuck me...what was Ithinking?
“It’s not...” I squeezed the back of my neck, doing my best to be tactful. “It’s not that I don’t want a future with you, Rook...I just.” I swallowed hard. “I can’t have children. Neither can you. Not until we know what we are.”
She nodded frantically. “Oh, I know. And I one thousand percent agree. After everything that’s happened...we definitely cannot have a child. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
