Chapter 32 Lance
Lance
She’s been in the guest room for an hour, and I haven’t moved from this chair.
The moon is high, casting silver sprinkles across the yard. No movement in the trees. No pale eyes watching from the shadows.
But the coil in my chest won’t loosen.
The threat’s over. No reason for anyone to watch her anymore. That’s what Art said, and it was clearly bullshit. So either he lied to my face, or he’s being played by people who have him in over his head, which has always been my biggest fear.
The friend in me wants to hope, but the realist needs no answer.
The floorboards creak behind me.
I don’t have to turn to know it’s her. The air changes when she’s around—a low static hum that reaches out and wraps around my ribs.
I glance over my shoulder. She’s standing in the hallway, barefoot, still in my hoodie.
Hair loose and messy like she’s been tossing and turning. Eyes wide in the dim light.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she says.
“Want some water? Tea?” I’m grasping for something normal. Something that doesn’t involve her standing in my living room in the middle of the night, wearing my clothes, and looking like mine.
She shakes her head and moves closer. “Why won’t you tell Juliette?”
“What?”
“She’s your sister, Lance. She loves you. She’s watching you drown, and you won’t throw her a reason why.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Then explain it to me.”
She sits on the arm of the couch.
“My father brokered the deal,” I blurt.
“What deal?”
“With Myrddin. About the fights. It was Art’s debt. His mistake. But my father’s the one who offered me up as payment.”
The silence that follows is so heavy I can hear Cavall breathing from across the room.
“He went to Myrddin and said, ‘Take my son. Let him fight it off.’ And everyone just knew I’d do it.
That for Art, I’d pick up the sword. And I—” My throat closes.
“I was glad to do it. I was eighteen and I was glad, because at least it meant I was useful. At least it meant I mattered to them, even if it was only as currency.”
“Lance.”
“He told me to never let anyone in the family find out. And the fucked-up thing?” I laugh, but there’s nothing in it. “It’s the only time I’ve ever agreed with my dad. Nobody should know what he allowed me to become. The things I’ve done.”
“They’d understand. Your sister? She’d understand.”
“I’ve killed people, Genevieve.”
She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t change her features. Doesn’t flinch. Like it doesn’t change what she sees when she looks at me.
“Jules is young in all the right ways. Her view of the world—of our family—she still has hope, you know? And when she got kidnapped, our nanny drugged her. Our family lawyer dragged her up a cliffside and used her as bait. Almost everyone she’s loved has disappointed her.”
The memory makes me sick.
“If she finds out about me, and she knows it was my dad…”
“So that’s why you won’t tell her. Because you’re protecting her from knowing what your father did.”
“I’m protecting everyone!” I press my palms to my eyes. “The fewer people that know, the better. Can you imagine what would happen if it got out that I killed people? You’ve seen what the Rag does over a walk with us. Think of the fallout my family would endure.”
“Lance, it’s not your job to carry your father’s shame.”
“It is if the alternative is my sister knowing her dad sold her brother to a cage.” My voice comes out raw.
“She still loves him, Genevieve. She still calls him on Sundays and talks about her memories, and even though he’s hurt her, she still believes he’s a good man.
I won’t be the one to take that from her. ”
She’s quiet for a long time. Then she slides off the arm of the couch and moves toward me.
“You told me,” she says.
“What?”
“You told me. Not Juliette, not your brothers. Me.” She stops in front of me. “Why?”
Because you’re the only person who makes me feel like the truth won’t destroy me.
“Because you see me,” I say. “The real me. And you don’t run.”
Her eyes fill, and she takes another step.
“Did you know I killed Freddy?”
She sucks in a breath, but her chin stiffens. “And?”
“It’s late. You should go back to bed.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Pushing me away. I’m so tired of being handled. Of people deciding what I can and can’t know, of questioning everything and everyone. I thought you were different. I thought we had a deal.”
“You’re right.” The words scrape out like gravel. “We do.”
“Then talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in your head. Tell me why you look at me like…”
“Like what?” I whisper.
“You know what.”
Her words stretch across the space and wrap around my heart.
And I want to tell her that I didn’t fall for her all at once.
It was slow, and ordinary, and it crept in through the kitchen, and the mornings, and the way she slips food to my dog thinking I don’t notice.
That somewhere between the waterfall and the bench and the sandwiches at ten p.m., she became more to me.
She became everything.
“Because you’re my seven seconds,” I say. “You’re the one thing in this world I want to remember when shit gets dark, and it’s killing me, because I can’t have you. I can’t do this to him. He’s my best friend. My brother. Even when he’s acting like a stranger, even if he’s lost, and you’re…”
“His girlfriend,” she finishes.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
She moves until she’s right in front of me, and her fingertips brush my jaw.
“I know who you are,” she says. “I see you, Lance Calloway. The real you. Not the mask you wear for everyone else.”
“You say that, but you don’t know everything I’ve done.”
“I know enough. And I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“Well, I don’t.” Her hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, and every rational thought I’ve ever had evaporates. “You can’t tell me I’m your seven seconds and then expect me to just turn away.”
My heart stutters. I want to bridge the gap so badly I can’t think straight.
“We don’t have a choice.” I press my forehead against hers. “I’m not this guy. You’re not this girl.”
“Don’t tell me who I am, when all I want to be is yours.”
I don’t know when I decide to move.
One second her hands are around my neck, and the next I’m kissing her like I’ve been holding my breath for months and she’s the only air left in the world.
She whimpers against my mouth, and I swallow the sound because I’m greedy for it—her taste, her warmth, her everything—and then she’s kissing me back harder, fingers twisting in my hair, body pressing flush against mine.
She tastes like wine and something sweeter underneath, and I want to drown in her.
It’s not gentle. It’s weeks of wanting and nights of almost and a lifetime of believing I didn’t deserve anything good, all crashing together.
She climbs into my lap, straddling me in the armchair. Her hips grind down and I bite back a groan that slips through my teeth anyway.
Her tongue wraps around mine, and when she moans, I feel it everywhere. My hips jerk up into her, chasing that hot, perfect pressure between her thighs, and she gasps.
My hands clamp onto her waist. My fingers slide beneath the hem of her hoodie—my hoodie—skimming the bare skin of her hips, and she arches into me, mouth opening wider, giving me every part of her without hesitation.
I drag my palms up her sides, committing her to memory, and when my thumbs brush the curve of her ribs, she leans into the touch like she’s chasing it.
“You look so good in my clothes,” I say against her mouth. “But I want to see what’s underneath.”
She lifts the hem and pulls it over her head.
The breath leaves my lungs.
Her freckles are scattered across her collarbone, and the top of her cleavage, disappearing into a black lace bralette. Constellations I want to trace with my tongue and memorize for every dark night I’ll ever spend underground.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she whispers.
“Like what? Like you’re beautiful?” I press a kiss to her shoulder. “You are.”
My thumbs sweep beneath the curve of her breasts and she shudders.
“You’re killing me,” I say.
“Then do something about it.”
I grab her and kiss her like I’ve bled for it. She melts into me, mouth open, hungry, my hands tight on her waist, and then she grinds—presses down right against where I’m aching for her, and I groan into her mouth.
She’s finally where I need her. My hips jerk up, and the friction is making me lose my mind. She’s so wet I can feel it through her leggings, slick and hot against the front of my sweats, and I palm her through the fabric. Her body jolts, her head dropping to my shoulder.
I want to rip everything off. Pull her down onto me. Bury myself inside her until we both forget everything except this.
So I do. I grab the waistband of her leggings and yank them down her thighs, and she helps, kicking them away, and then I shove my sweats down just enough because I can’t wait long enough to take them all the way off.
She reaches between us and wraps her hand around me, and the sound I make isn’t human. My hips jerk into her fist, my forehead dropping to her chest, and she strokes me, her thumb dragging through the wet leaking from the tip, spreading it in slow circles that make my vision blur.
“Fuck, Genevieve.”
“I know,” she breathes. She positions me at her entrance, and we lock eyes for one suspended second—one last chance to stop, to be the people we’re supposed to be, to remember Art and loyalty and every promise I’ve made…
She sinks down onto me and every noble thought I’ve ever had dies.
My brain short-circuits from how warm and tight she is. My fingers dig into her hips hard enough to bruise, and I don’t care, can’t care, because she’s already rolling against me like she’s been starving for this as long as I have.
“Oh my God.” Her head drops back, her mouth falling open, and the sight of her half-naked, riding me in my armchair, with the moonlight catching the copper of her hair, is something I’ll take to my grave.