Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LUCIAN
When Erin tells me to come in, I know the world is about to change.
Some instincts arrive before facts.
I open the door slowly.
That alone should terrify everyone. I do not do slowly when Erin is hurt. I do not do careful. I break locks, tear doors from hinges, drag truth into the light by its throat.
Cass rolled into the hallway to talk to me privately before letting me into the room with Erin. Her words from the hallway stay in my head.
Don’t make this about your rage.
I stare down at my girl. Her dark hair hangs over her face like a curtain. An attempt to hide.
My chest tightens. She’s wrecked.
She looks up at me, and every violent thought in my head goes silent for one brutal second.
I step inside and close the door behind. I leave it unlocked in case she needs to run.
Sometimes, she needs a moment.
Erin lets out a tiny sound. It might have been a laugh if it had not broken in the middle. She’s staring at her hands.
I lower myself slowly into the chair that sits near her. Not beside. Not touching.
Close enough to reach. Far enough that she can breathe.
Her fingers twist together. “I hate this,” she says. Her voice is raw.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Fair. No,” I say. “I don’t.”
She looks up then. Beautiful in a way that makes me want to destroy the world for the privilege of touching her first.
“Carlos sent the recording because he knew I hadn’t told you everything,” she says.
I keep my hands still. “He knew about Caleb?”
“Yes.” She nods.
“He did more to you than you told me.”
She doesn’t answer.
Every muscle in my body locks. Not enough for her to notice, I hope. She notices.
“He cornered me once,” she says.
The room narrows.
She says, “I fought at first.”
I grip the arms of the chair. The edges bit into my palms.
“He said if I screamed, he’d wake Ryan.”
I stop breathing. I become the chair. The walls. Anything but the man who wants to put his fist through every wall in this room.
I listen. She speaks.
Caleb’s dead face flashes through my mind. Not dead enough. Not nearly dead enough. I killed him too quickly. I should have taken him apart with patience. I should have made him understand pain in languages even monsters fear.
“Lucian.” Her voice drags me back.
I look at her.
Don’t make this about your rage.
I force my hands open. Slowly. One finger at a time.
This isn’t about me. This is about her. And this time, I won’t fail her. I feel like I already have because I can’t go back and stand between her and that hallway. I can’t even kill the man properly because I already killed him poorly.
I lean forward but don’t reach for her. “Look at me.”
She shakes her head.
“Erin,” I say.
“I didn’t tell Cass because she had already lost so much. I didn’t tell you because you already look at me like I’m something breakable when you’re scared.” Her laugh is bitter. “And I didn’t want him in your head when you touched me.”
The fear that his shadow could enter my thoughts about her. The way I feel about her. It only makes me want to tie her to me tighter.
“Can I touch you?” I ask.
Her face crumples. Then she nods.
I lower myself to the floor in front of her. I take her hand first. Her fingers close around mine with desperate force.
“I need you to hear me,” I say.
She nods once.
“There is nothing he touched that I do not still want.”
Her breath breaks.
“No version of you is ruined to me. No piece of you I don’t want to touch. Every moment I’m with you.”
Her tears fall faster now.
I cup her face carefully. So carefully. “I want every part of you to be mine. If you want that, too.”
A sob tears from her. I pull her into my arms then, and she comes apart against me.
I hold her through her sobs with my jaw pressed to her hair, one hand spread over her back, the other cradling her head.
And I don’t make it about me. It’s not easy. The rage boils below, but I know it doesn’t serve her, so I leave it to simmer there.
“I’ve got you.” She clings harder. I close my eyes. “I’ve got you.”
For now, that’s enough.
For the first time since I entered the room, a little of the tension leaves her body.
She is exhausted. Hollowed out. Still trembling.
She looks at my mouth. “I want you.”
The entire room changes.
Not because of lust. Because of need.
Raw, terrified, reaching need.
“I don’t want to feel like he’s still with me,” she whispers.
My body goes deadly still.
Flush rises in her cheeks. “Forget I said that.”
“I know what you mean.”
Her throat moves. She says, “I need you to touch me like I’m still me.” I close my eyes for one second.
This woman.
I slide my hand to the back of her neck. “I want you, too. Always.”
“Same,” she whispers back.
I kiss her softly. “Can I touch you?”
She answers by climbing into my lap.