Page 30 of Bound

The woman who once went with Carlos and left Lucian in the fire is watching the woman who walked into his bed carrying a Moretti weapon.

The room tilts.

How am I different?

The thought tears through me before I can stop it.

How am I different from her?

Isobel believed Carlos and walked away.

I believed my own excuses and walked in.

She left him to burn.

I came to help burn down everything he had built.

My throat closes.

“Erin,” Lucian says.

His voice is rough. No command now. Only pain.

My pain.

I shake my head, not at him.

At myself.

At the screen.

At every version of me who thought love could erase the way we began.

CHAPTER FIVE

Erin

I go back to the room because I choose to.

That is what I tell myself as he presses his palm to the wall and the black door opens beneath my palm and warm gold light spills across my bare feet.

I choose this.

I choose him.

I choose every terrible, beautiful thing we are becoming inside a house at the end of the world while Carlos picks through the bones of our beginning.

The sensual room waits in silence.

Leather. Velvet. Silk. Dark wood. Glass looking out over the black Icelandic coast. The sea beyond it throws itself against the rocks as if it can break the land apart by wanting hard enough.

I understand the impulse.

Lucian stands behind me. He doesn’t touch me yet. That’s how I know he’s angry.

No, not angry.

Worse.