Chapter Sixty-Nine
Feralyn
His broad back, his sculpted muscles, his extraordinary, remarkable, tall body that had withstood countless trials and deployments, that had survived war—his beautiful, strong, scarred body—this was what I was fixating on as he walked out of his room?
“Fear,” I blurted as shock instantly gave way to brutal reality. “I was afraid.”
He paused in the entryway, but he didn’t turn around.
“You were right. Ares said things, then Raine said things, and I let it get in my head. Then you put your hand on me like you did last night, with an intimacy only we had shared, but you did it in front of Ghost and Raine, and I…. When they saw, I just… I got scared.” Terrified.
And hurt. And I didn’t want anyone to see that part of us.
It was ours. I thought it had been ours alone.
But then he’d turned it into something so…
casual. As if it’d been theirs to share.
And that had felt wrong. Or not good. And what if that casual was a part of who he was?
“What if we cross a line we can’t come back from, and it doesn’t work out? ” A line I couldn’t come back from.
My warrior, he turned. “You mean, what if you get hurt. Because woman, we already crossed that fucking line.”
I didn’t deny it or how he saw me so completely that I had no reason or name for it. “Then, yes.” I inhaled. “What if I get hurt?”
“What if I get fucking hurt, Feralyn?”
Shock resonated with the sudden breath I drew into my lungs. “I would never intentionally—”
“I didn’t fucking say intentional. You’re not calculating or cruel. I goddamn get that more than anyone. Every way I’ve pushed you, all the shit I’ve demanded, every inch I take, not once have you thrown it in my face. Intentionality’s not my point. Reality is. And I just fucking witnessed it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I know exactly what you fucking meant. It was crystal-fucking-clear. You think that motherfucker and Raine looking twice at us is bad? That was nothing. What the fuck do you think your piece-of-shit sperm donor of a father is gonna do? Or my shitty mother? Everyone we know is gonna judge. I don’t goddamn care.
As long as I have you, the rest of the world can fuck the hell off.
I’ll stand between you and every hit that comes at us, Feralyn.
I don’t know how many more fucking ways I can say that.
And trust me, I fucking know you’re an action woman.
You’ll believe it when you see it. But that fucking bullshit? Stepping away from me?”
The organ in my chest that only seemed alive when he was near pumped with a painful beat as if it’d been suspended since the second he’d turned to walk away. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
I stared as that cut jaw shifted—from resolute determination, from unwavering dominance, from Helios the Delta Force operator, from rigid muscles, to settled calm. I thought it was worse than him turning his back on me, but then his voice became all cool composure. “You don’t want this.”
The organ in my chest stopped, and true fear spread. “Helios—”
“I’m not angry, Feralyn. Go live your life.” He turned toward that door again, but this time, his steps weren’t measured. They were swift, intent, and every stride showed his years of military training.
I didn’t think.
I ran.
At him, at the finality of what he’d just put between us, at my own emotions.
I ran because I was wrong.
Throwing myself in front of six and a half feet of warrior right as he reached for the front door was insanity. But wrapping my arms around his neck, gripping his hair, pulling him down as I stretched up, it was emotional suicide.
I told myself I didn’t care…
Until my lips met his, and every molecule in my body simultaneously exploded with shock and splintered with need.
His roar was earth-shattering, his tongue driving into my mouth was brutality, and his arms locking around my waist was pure possession.
But his kiss?
It was claiming.
And dear God, it was downright feral.
Gripping my hair harder than I was his, yanking my head to angle it to his plundering, lifting me bodily off the floor, eating my offering like he had been starved his entire life, Helios—my love, my god of sun—kissed me.
Like an obsessed, desperate warfighter kisses a woman after a battle he didn’t think he would come home from, Helios took my mouth, my breath, and my agency.
Then he growled as he aggressively, expertly mapped my every response and fed them with his brand of crushing dominance that was an imprinting as sure as his body surging into mine last night.
Losing myself in every dominant stroke of his tongue, I didn’t want it any other way. I only wanted—
He abruptly pulled me away with a yank of my hair.
With his mouth still wet from his kiss that was nothing short of a full assault, and a gray-eyed gaze that was all fire, he dragged his thumb across my bruised lips with deliberate pressure that was too hard and not enough.
Then he gently lowered me back to the floor and dropped his arm from around my waist.
I swayed.
His expression locked, he didn’t reach to steady me. “Heading to my place.”
Before I could blink, the door was shut, and he was gone. But the finality of the act wasn’t what did me in.
It was the purposeful, calculated, decisively calm silence with which he’d shut the door.
I sank to the floor.