Chapter 46
LUCIAN
Icarry her through the dark hall, her breath shallow against my collarbone, the faint tremor in her limbs ghosting through my skin. She’s weightless but heavy with everything she’s survived.
I lay her down on the edge of the bed and her head tips slightly, eyes half-open, searching my face like she’s trying to place me in a dream that keeps slipping away.
Maybe she already knows.
Somewhere deep down, past the fog and the pain, maybe her mind remembers what her heart’s trying to forget - who I am, what I’ve done.
Her lips part like she wants to ask, but nothing comes out. Just a broken exhale that sounds too much like surrender.
I tell myself I should leave. I should walk out before she opens her eyes and sees the truth reflected in mine.
But I don’t move. I just stand there, breathing her air like it’s a sin, watching the rise and fall of her chest - proof she’s still here, still alive, and I don’t know if that makes me her savior or her curse.
She’s still on the edge of the bed, one hand gripping the sheet, her pulse fluttering against her throat. Her fear isn’t loud; it’s quiet, electric. It hums through the room like static.
I crouch down in front of her. The floorboards creak, a sound too soft to carry the weight in the air.
“Nadia.” Her name slips out of me low, rough, as if saying it is too painful. She lifts her head, eyes searching mine.
My fingers brush her jaw, and she flinches as though the touch burns.
“You’re safe with me,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s true. Not with me here.
Her breath catches, shallow and fast. I can feel it ghosting over my skin.
Something shifts then - the kind of silence that changes shape, that thickens until it’s no longer silence at all but something alive between us. Her eyes flicker to my mouth. My control slips a little, enough to let the hunger show.
She exhales like she’s been holding her breath for hours. My thumb drags slowly over her lower lip, and she trembles. I can feel the battle in her - the part of her that knows I’m wrong, dangerous, everything she should fear. And the part that simply doesn’t care.
Her eyes lock on mine, steady and unblinking, like she’s daring me to move first. Then, slowly, she lifts her hands and flicks open the buttons of her shirt one by one.
The fabric parts, soft against her skin, revealing the curve of a black bra cupping pale flesh.
The air between us shifts, and I can see the faint prickle of goosebumps spreading across her chest. My control fractures.
My cock throbs hard, straining against the edge of patience.
I’ve always been the king of restraint, the man who could wait out a war without faltering, but not with Nadia Reed.
My palms drag her shirt down her arms and I take her wrists, guiding her upright until she’s standing before me in nothing but denim and black lace. My hands trail down the smooth slope of her arms, mapping the tiny shivers that ripple under her skin.
Her breath hitches when I flick open the button of her jeans, sliding the fabric down her hips.
She steps out of them, and my pulse spikes.
There she is - Nadia Reed. Almost the same, yet not at all.
Time hasn’t softened her; it’s sharpened her.
She’s curvier now, her body shaped by survival, her scars like proof that the world tried to ruin her and failed.
When she reaches for me - fingers curling around the button of my jeans - I catch her wrists midair. Her pulse thrums beneath my thumbs. “Not yet,” I rasp, voice low enough to scrape against her skin. I pull her hands down to her sides, keeping them there, the air between us thick enough to taste.
“Wait your turn,” I growl, leaning close enough for her breath to catch against my mouth.
My hand slides up the curve of her spine, fingers tracing the fine tremor of her breath before finding the clasp at her back.
The bra gives way with a soft click, the straps falling uselessly down her arms as the fabric slips free.
I take my time, dragging my palms down her sides, over the delicate dip of her waist, before hooking my thumbs into the edge of her panties.
She watches me the whole time. There’s no hesitation and no shame; just that dark, quiet hunger burning in her eyes.
I roll the thin fabric down her thighs, slow enough to make her squirm, until it pools around her ankles.
When I push her back onto the bed, she yields, sinking into the sheets with a breath that shudders between us.
She lies there - bare, waiting, her body an unspoken dare.
She bites her lip, and that tiny act wrecks me.
Something in me snaps loose. My restraint, my sanity, my carefully built control - gone.
The sight of her like this is gasoline on every dark impulse I’ve ever buried.
I’m seconds away from losing it, from coming apart like a kid who’s never learned patience.
This woman - Nadia Reed - is the only one who’s ever gotten beneath my skin, the only one who’s ever made me believe in the idea of forever. My knees hit the bed hard, and I crawl between her legs, caging her in.
For a moment, I just look at her. Really look. Every curve, every freckle, every scar I once kissed and have missed. The soft rise of her chest, the flutter of her pulse, the way her breath catches like she knows I’m about to ruin her all over again.
“Christ,” I murmur, the word half prayer, half curse, my voice rough as my hands drag up her thighs. “You have no idea how much I want you.”