Chapter 35
Izzy
The house had a rhythm when Raze was home — subtle, steady. A tranquil hum that settled under my skin without me realizing it. Even when he wasn’t in the same room, I felt him. Solid. Contained. Disciplined.
Tonight, that rhythm was wrong.
I sat upright in bed before the front door even closed.
The air felt heavier. Thicker. Like something had followed him in.
My stomach tightened.
I slipped from the bed, bare feet brushing cool marble, and stepped into the hallway. The house was dim, only the low kitchen light burning downstairs.
I moved stealthily without meaning to.
When I reached the bottom step, I saw him.
Raze stood at the kitchen sink, back to me, shoulders rigid beneath his shirt. His elbows were braced on the counter. Water ran steadily over his fingers.
The water in the basin was pink.
Pink.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
He turned slightly, just enough that I saw the side of his face. There was something different about him tonight that looked a lot like resignation.
His sleeves were rolled to his forearms. There was dried blood at the edge of his cuff. A smear across his wrist.
My pulse thudded in my ears.
He hadn’t heard me yet.
I watched him scrub his hands slowly, methodically. Very… thorough. Like a man washing away the evidence of his misdeeds.
My throat tightened.
This was the world he belonged to.
Not the version of him that lay beside me at night with his hand warm on my hip. Not the man who brushed his thumb across my cheek when he thought I was asleep. This was the other side. The one that burned buildings down. The one that left bodies cooling in the dark.
He shut off the water.
Silence filled the room.
“Are you going to stand there all night,” he asked, almost to himself, “or are you going to come in?”
My breath caught. He hadn’t even turned around, yet somehow he knew I was there.
I stepped into the room. Each footfall felt deliberate.
He turned slowly then. His eyes found mine. There was no apology in them. No softness. Just something steady and unflinching.
“You’re bleeding,” I gasped.
“It’s not mine.”
That shouldn’t have comforted me. But somehow, it did.
I walked closer. Close enough to see the faint tremor in his fingers now that the task was done. Close enough to smell smoke on his clothes.
“Is it over, Raze?”
He held my gaze.
“Yes.”
I didn’t ask who. I already knew. Nathan.
A strange, hollow feeling moved through my chest. Not grief. Closure.
Raze stepped toward me, stopping just short of touching. He was careful like that after nights like this. As if he thought the violence might transfer through skin.
“You shouldn’t see me like this.”
“Like what?”
“After.”
After.
The word hung between us.
I looked down at his hands. The water had washed most of it away, but there were still traces at his cuticles. A thin red line beneath one nail. Proof.
He followed my gaze.
For a second — just a second — something vulnerable flickered in his expression.
“I did what I had to do to protect those I care about.”
Something inside me stirred then. Because that was the truth of him.
He didn’t kill for chaos. He killed with purpose. Selective. Restrained.
He was a monster. But not indiscriminate. And that was the frightful part.
“You did it for me,” I breathed.
“For us.”
My chest tightened. There it was. The line I’d been circling for weeks. I wasn’t afraid of him. I was afraid of how little I wanted to be.
I stepped forward.
He tensed.
“Izzy—”
I reached for his hand.
He froze when my fingers wrapped around his.
His skin was still warm from the water. Rough. Slightly damp.
I lifted his hand between us and looked at it.
At the hand that had done unspeakable things tonight.
“You think this makes you unlovable.”
His jaw flexed.
“You deserve a better life, Izzy. You don’t deserve the chaos that comes with being with someone like me.”
I almost laughed.
“Raze,” I whispered. “There is chaos in everyone and everything. You’re no different.”
His hand tightened around mine.
“You know what I am.”
My heart hammered.
“I know what you are.”
His eyes darkened.
“And?”
I stepped closer until my body brushed his.
“And I’m not going anywhere.”
His free hand came to my waist, hesitant at first, then firm.
“I burned it down,” he murmured against my hair. “Everything he tried to build. Everything he thought he could take.”
I swallowed.
“I didn’t need you to burn the world for me.”
“I know.”
“But you did anyway.”
“Yes.”
There was no apology and no justification. Just truth.
My fingers slid up his chest, curling into the fabric of his shirt. I could feel his heartbeat beneath it — steady now, even as it thundered along.
“I think,” I said softly, “I’m falling in love with a monster.”
His breath stilled.
“You shouldn’t.”
“Probably not.”
His forehead rested against mine.
“I don’t know how to be what you need me to be,” he warned.
“We’ll figure it out… together.”
His grip tightened at my waist. He lifted me easily, setting me on the kitchen counter. My legs wrapped around his hips without hesitation.
There was still blood on him. Smoke in his hair.
And yet when he kissed me, all I could do was feel him.
My hands slid into his hair, pulling him closer.
His hands moved under my thighs, thumbs pressing into skin like he needed to confirm I was real. Alive. Untouched.
The world he came from was brutal. I saw that clearly now. He would always be capable of terrible things. But he would never turn them toward me. That was the line.
When he carried me to our room, he didn’t speak.
The air between us had shifted. Thicker. Charged. I could feel it in the way his jaw flexed, in the way his grip on my thighs tightened just slightly before he set me down at the edge of the bed.
He stood between my knees, looking down at me like he was fighting something inside himself.
“You should shower,” I whispered, my fingers sliding up his chest.
“I will.”
But he didn’t move.
I reached for his wrist and lifted his hand between us again. His muscles tensed immediately as I pressed my lips to the inside of his palm.
He inhaled sharply.
“Izzy…”
“You came home to me,” I murmured against his skin.
His restraint cracked. He stepped forward, forcing me back onto the mattress. His body followed, weight braced on his forearms so he didn’t crush me, but close enough that I felt the heat of him everywhere.
“You don’t understand what I did tonight, Izzy.”
“I don’t need to.”
His mouth found mine. It wasn’t soft this time. It wasn’t careful. It was hungry.
His kiss claimed, devoured, swallowed. My fingers dug into his shoulders as he kissed me like he’d been holding himself back for hours.
His hands moved over me with urgency — down my waist, under my nightshirt, palms spanning skin like he was grounding himself.
I gasped into his mouth when his fingers closed around my hip, pulling me flush against him.
“You shouldn’t want me after this,” he growled against my lips.
“I do.”
His control frayed at the edges.
He kissed down my throat, slow and deliberate, teeth grazing skin just enough to make me shiver. One hand slid to my thigh, pushing it higher around his waist.
I reached between us, unbuttoning his shirt slowly. Each exposed inch of skin felt like reclaiming him from whatever darkness he’d walked through tonight.
He watched me as I did it.
Eyes dark. Focused. When my fingers brushed his chest, he closed his eyes for half a second — long enough for me to see the crack in him.
“Is this really what you want?” he demanded in a low voice.
“Yes.”
My hand slid lower.
“I think that makes you mine now.”
His mouth claimed mine again, deeper, slower this time, yet possessive.
His hands were everywhere. At my waist. My ribs. My thighs. Holding. Anchoring.
He kissed me until my head spun. Until the world narrowed to breath and heat and the steady weight of him pressing me into the mattress.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against mine.
“I think you might be my new obsession.”
“You think so?”
“You don’t get half of me.”
“I wouldn’t take just half.”
His hand slid into my hair, gripping gently but firmly, tilting my head back so he could look at me.
“I will protect you with everything I have, Izzy.”
“I know.”
Always.
The word burned in his eyes.
When he moved inside me, it wasn’t rushed. It was claiming and powerful and electric. He held my gaze the entire time — and I met him, matched him, wrapped around him willingly.
His hands tightened at my hips, breath rough, control slipping in measured increments.
“Izzy.” The way he spoke my name was both warning and surrender.
I clung to him, pulling him closer, closer, until there was no space left between us at all.
When he finally stilled, his forehead dropped to my shoulder, breath hot and uneven against my skin.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
His hand slid up my spine slowly, possessively.
“Are you here because you’re afraid of me,” he wanted to know.
“No.”
“You should be.”
“I’m not.”
He lifted his head. There was still darkness in his eyes. But there was something else there too. Something almost fragile.
I traced my thumb over his jaw.
“I know exactly what you are,” I whispered. “And I’m still here.”
His grip tightened. And when his hands moved over my skin again, reverent and careful and almost painfully restrained, I understood something terrifying.
I wasn’t falling for a man despite the monster.
I was falling for him because he knew exactly when to unleash it.
And when to come home.