Page 141 of Broken Blades

I blinked. "Don't?"

"Don't hurt me." She said it like it was that simple. Like I could just decide not to destroy the best thing that had ever happened to me through sheer force of will. "Easy peasy."

"Easy peasy?" I couldn't help the rough laugh that escaped. Nothing about this was easy.

"We're human," she said, her hands sliding up to cup my face with a gentleness I didn't deserve. "We're going to make mistakes and let each other down sometimes. Just say sorry. And I'll forgive you."

The words punched through my chest, found something soft and vulnerable I'd thought died years ago.

"Don't make promises you can't keep," I murmured, pulling her off the couch and into my arms. Needing her closer. Needing to feel her heartbeat against mine as proof this wasn't some fever dream I'd wake from.

"I don't," she said simply.

God, she believed it. Believed she could forgive anything I did, any way I failed her. The faith in her eyes destroyed me more thoroughly than Barbara's accusations ever could.

"You're too good for me."

"Probably," she agreed, and despite everything—the guilt, the fear, the certainty I'd eventually ruin this—I smiled. "But I still love you, anyway."

My heart seized in my chest. Stopped beating. Then kicked back to life with painful intensity.

She loved me.

Chastity Harrington—soft and sweet and everything good I'd ever wanted and never thought I deserved—loved me.

I kissed her again. Desperate. Claiming. Trying to pour everything I couldn't say into the press of my mouth against hers. Because the words were stuck in my throat, tangled up with years of damage and fear and the absolute certainty that saying them out loud would make this real. Would make losing her unbearable.

But she'd already said it. Had already handed me her heart like she trusted me not to crush it.

So maybe—just maybe—I could try not to prove Barbara right.

I pressed her back against the wall, not rough but firm enough that she gasped. Her breath hitched in that way that drove me insane, and I bracketed her face between my hands, holding her still while my mouth claimed hers like I needed proof she was real.

She clutched at my shirt, fingers twisting in the fabric, and tried to speak against my lips.

I kissed her again before she could finish. Deeper this time. Rougher. Swallowing whatever question she'd been about to ask because I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything except taste her and feel her and memorize the way she melted into me.

Her laugh broke through—breathless and surprised and so goddamn beautiful it physically hurt. She pulled back just enough to look at me, eyes wide and dazed, clearly trying to ask what had gotten into me.

I silenced her with another kiss.

Then I hooked my hands under her thighs and lifted her effortlessly, the movement automatic after years of hauling equipment and opponents twice her size. Her legs wrapped around my waist on instinct, her small sound of protest dissolving into something softer as I carried her up the stairs toward the bedroom.

She tried to speak again—probably to laugh at me for being ridiculous, for acting like a caveman who'd lost all capacity for rational thought. And she'd be right. I had lost it. Every carefully maintained wall I'd built, every layer of control I'd perfected over years of discipline and denial.

Barbara had shaken something loose. Made me realize with crystal clarity that this girl—this sweet, stubborn, impossible girl who'd somehow wormed past every defense I'd ever constructed—meant everything now.

Everything.

And I'd be damned if I let anyone take her away. Not Barbara with her poison and manipulation. Not her father with his merger politics and image control. Not fate or time or the ticking clock on whatever deal we'd started this with.

No one.

I kicked the bedroom door open and laid her on the bed with a gentleness that contradicted the desperate way I'd carried her here. She looked up at me with those wide eyes, hair fanned across my pillow like she belonged there, like she'd always belonged there.

And for the first time in years—maybe ever—I let myself want something without calculating the cost.

I wanted her. Not as revenge. Not as strategy. Not as some elaborate game designed to destroy the man who'd destroyed me.