Page 134 of Broken Blades

But the look in his eyes said otherwise.

My voice came out smaller than I intended. "Don't make promises you don't intend to keep."

He lifted my face again, fingers firm under my chin, and kissed me slowly. Deeply. Like he had all the time in the world and wanted to spend every second of it reminding me exactly who I belonged to now.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against mine. His breath warm on my lips. "I don't say things I don't mean."

My breath stuttered.

And God help me—I believed him.

Every word.

Every touch.

Every kiss.

I believed that last night hadn't just been physical for him. That this wasn't just an extension of whatever game he'd been playing with my father. That somewhere between the forced proximity and the careful pretending, he'd stopped performing too. That maybe—impossibly—we'd both fallen into something neither of us had planned for.

And that might be the most dangerous part of all. Because if he meant it… if this was real… Then I was in far deeper than a month-long arrangement. I was in love with a man I barely knew. A man who'd orchestrated everything that brought us together. A man whose revenge I still didn't fully understand. But lying here in his arms, feeling his heart beat steady against my palm, none of that mattered as much as it should have.

All that mattered was the way he looked at me like I was worth keeping.

He rolled me onto my back with a gentleness that stole my breath. The morning light caught in his eyes as he hovered above me, and for a moment he just looked—taking me in like he was memorizing every detail.

Then he kissed me.

His mouth moved from my lips to my jaw, trailing soft kisses that made my pulse flutter. He kissed the hollow of my throat, lingering there like he could feel my heartbeat against his lips. Each touch deliberate. Each kiss a promise I didn't know how to name.

His hands cradled my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones with such reverence it made my chest ache. He kissed down my throat, along my collarbone, his breath warm against my skin. When his mouth found my chest, I gasped softly, fingers tangling in his hair.

He took his time. No rush. No urgency. Just slow, worshipful attention that made me feel seen in a way I'd never experienced before.

His lips traveled lower, kissing across my ribs, down my stomach. His hands slid along my sides, mapping every curve with a gentleness that contradicted everything I thought I knew about him. The scarred, brutal enforcer everyone feared had disappeared. In his place was a man who touched me like I was something precious. Something worth savoring.

I whispered his name without meaning to.

He lifted his head, eyes dark and warm, and kissed me again—deep and slow. His body covered mine completely, eliminating every inch of space between us. The weight of him felt like safety. Like home. Like everything I didn't know I'd been missing.

My fingers slid down his back, feeling the flex of muscle beneath warm skin. He shuddered slightly at the touch, his breath hitching against my mouth. Then he whispered my name, and it sounded like a prayer, like something sacred he'd been waiting his whole life to say. It broke something open inside me, spilling warmth through every corner of my chest until I thought I might drown in it.

I pulled him closer, needing him—not just his body, but all of him. The broken parts. The angry parts. The parts he kept hidden from everyone else. I wanted them all.

He kissed me again, slow and deep, hands cradling my face like I was the most important thing in his world. And when he looked at me—really looked at me—I saw it.

The shift.

The surrender.

The terrifying truth that neither of us could take back.

This wasn't temporary anymore.

It never would be again.

His weight settled between my thighs, the heat of him pressing me into the mattress. I felt him—hard and thick—against my entrance, and my breath hitched as he pushed inside. Not fast. Not rough. A slow, deliberate invasion that stole every thought from my head.

My fingers dug into his shoulders as he filled me completely, stretching me in a way that bordered on pain but never crossed it. His eyes never left mine. Dark and intense, they burned into me like he was memorizing every reaction, every gasp, every way my body surrendered to his. The connection was too much—too intimate, too real—but I couldn’t look away.