Chapter 21
For a single heartbeat, Sylum did not move.
His entire body went rigid—like a man struck through the chest. Pain flickered first across his features, then fury, then something far worse. A hollow, shattering devastation that seemed to carve through him in real time. His breath escaped in a ragged, broken exhale.
Then he snapped.
Not in anger.
Not in frustration.
But in the quiet, catastrophic way a man breaks when confronted with the one question that undoes every defense he has ever built.
His hand slid to the back of my neck, fingers threading into the roots of my hair as though he feared I might fall away from him and vanish completely if he didn’t anchor us together. His breath trembled against my cheek.
“Any part of me?” he rasped, voice scraped raw. He drew me closer, his forehead nearly brushing mine. “Lucy… there has never been a moment, not one single breath, when every part of me did not love you with a madness that terrifies me.”
The tears came faster. “You’re lying,” I said, shaking. “You’ve been lying from the start. You’re keeping secrets… you were meeting Lydia… you…”
“Stop.” His voice cracked like a whip, soft but unyielding.
“You doubt me,” he said, more quietly now, “you doubt the servants, this house, your own mind… but do not—” His grip tightened imperceptibly, “—do not ever doubt my love for you.”
His thumb swept across my cheekbone, brushing away a tear even as one of his own slid dark and uninvited down his.
“I love you,” he swore, naked and undone. “Even when you look at me like I’m a stranger. Even when you shake in fear because you think I’m the one hurting you. Even when your words split my heart clean through.”
His fingers curled deeper into my hair, tugging just enough to send a soft gasp spilling from my lips.
“Then why do I feel like I’m losing my mind?” I cried. “Why, Sylum? Tell me why you’re doing this to me?”
His hand slammed against the wall beside my head, the sound echoing like thunder.
I flinched, but he didn’t touch me again.
“Because,” he admitted, voice low, trembling, “if I told you everything, you would run from me.”
“Maybe I should!”
Something dark flashed in his eyes.
“Maybe you should,” he agreed through clenched teeth. “Because watching you unravel is killing me. And yet—” He leaned in, his breath trembling against my mouth, “—God help me, I cannot let you go.”
My lips parted, a sob breaking free.
He devoured the sound.
His mouth met mine, not gentle, not careful, but with a hunger sharpened by terror and longing, and days of watching me slip further from him. It was a kiss that tasted of desperation… and devotion… and the frantic need to prove something.
My hands found the lapels of his shirt, clutching tightly as I felt him breathe me in, like he needed my very air to live.
When he finally tore his lips from mine, it wasn’t to pull away. It was to murmur against my skin.
“If I lose you, Lucy… I lose everything that is precious to me.”
His mouth trailed along my jaw, then over my pulse. Heat shivered down my spine, pooling low.
“I don’t know what’s real anymore,” I whispered, leaning helplessly into him, my head tipping toward his shoulder.
He cupped my face between both hands, forcing me to look at him.
“This,” he said firmly, his lips brushing mine again, “is real. My love for you is real. Even if you come to despise me for everything else, I will not let you believe I never loved you. I would carve my own heart out and lay it at your feet before I ever allowed such a thing to consume your mind.”
My breath hitched.
“Sylum…”
When he kissed me again, it was a desperate, consuming kiss that stole the strength from my legs and set fire to every nerve in my body. His mouth claimed mine with such ferocity that I whimpered into him.
I clutched at him—his hair, his collar, anything I could anchor myself to—as the world pitched beneath my feet.
Every inch of me ached, and only he could soothe the hurt blooming through my ribs.
He lifted me as though I weighed nothing, pressing me back against the door with a fervor that stole my breath.
His body leaned into mine, trembling and desperate, as he bunched the skirts of my gown to my waist.
God help me,” he breathed against my mouth, “I want you even when you’re unraveling.”
Heat rippled through me, sharp and consuming. My legs tightened around him, drawing him closer, needing his weight, his steadiness, the wild, burning certainty of him. His hands roamed, hungry and almost frantic, as though mapping every place he feared he might lose.
“This is madness,” he said, his forehead pressing to mine, breathing unsteady. “This is the only madness I will ever allow to consume you.”
“Then I shall let you fill me with it,” I breathed. I clung to him, my pulse a frantic drum beneath my skin, my thoughts spilling apart in his hands.
His answering groan vibrated through me, low and agonized, the sound of a man stretched between terror and want. His touch grew firmer, surer, slipping beneath the thin barrier of fabric of my underthings and finding the slick heat, the trembling places that responded to him with helpless urgency.
A soft cry escaped me, unbidden and uncontrollable.
“Lucy…” he murmured, reverent, undone. “My Lucy.”
The room tilted, swayed. My pulse thrummed like a fever. Every breath tangled between us. Every suspicion, every fear, every unanswered question coiled beneath the surface, but none of it mattered in that moment.
We were need and fire and ruin.
Heat pooled between my thighs, sharp and dizzying as he continued to tease and stroke my core until my body trembled.
“Sylum…” I gasped, clutching him.
His hand moved between us then as he undid his pants, the thick, hard length of him pressing against me. He teased my entrance until I could no longer take the exquisite pain. “Please, Sylum,” I begged, “love me.”
That was all it took.
He slid into me, deep and hard, filling me inch by inch, then so completely that I cried out as my body adjusted to accommodate him.
He pressed his hips against mine, the slow, deliberate grind of his body sending sparks skittering through my limbs.
His fingers tightened at my waist, guiding me, grounding me, urging me silently toward the rhythm of him.
My head fell back, lips parted on a broken sound I no longer recognized as my own.
My breaths came harsh as he rocked against me, driving harder and deeper with each thrust until our bodies felt as if they were one.
With one hand firmly on my buttocks, Sylum slipped the other in between us, his thumb circling my core as he continued to move inside me.
His body moved with mine in a slow, devastating cadence. Each motion was a vow, an apology, a confession which he could not yet speak aloud.
The pleasure built like a storm rising under my skin, dizzying and unbearable. My legs tightened, my fingers digging in his shoulders, clinging to him as the world narrowed to breath, heat, and the exquisite agony of release coiling within me.
“Sylum,” I gasped, half sob, half prayer.
He murmured something helpless against my throat, the sound trembling with his own unraveling. His forehead dropped to my shoulder as our bodies shuddered together, breath tangled, hearts pounding in the same wild rhythm.
Pleasure crashed over me in a blinding wave that tore a sound from my chest, leaving my limbs trembling and my thoughts scattered to ash. Sylum followed with a rough, desperate exhale, clutching me so desperately it felt as though he feared I might dissolve in his hands.
For a long, fragile moment, there was only silence, our breathing ragged, our bodies trembling, and our tangled hearts beating too loudly in the darkness.