Chapter Thirty-Five - Evie
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Evie
LUC BENT AND kissed me, and I think he meant for it to be quick. A little reassurance. A little claim. A little stolen moment from a man who had just woken Topher and should have been halfway to the Reliquary already, but had come back to me instead.
But he made the mistake of kissing the corner of my mouth. And I made the mistake of turning my face.
His mouth landed fully on mine, and everything changed. His lips were warm and careful. His hand was still resting near my hip, where he’d tucked the blanket around me like I was something precious and annoying. The faint scrape of his breath when I didn’t let the kiss stay soft.
I caught the front of his shirt, and he went still. Lucifer Morningstar, King of Hell, ancient terror, was currently undone by a pregnant woman with a bad attitude.
“Evie,” he murmured against my mouth.
I hated that voice. That low, warning, almost-broken voice. It made me want to misbehave on purpose.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
His forehead touched mine. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t kiss me like goodbye.”
Something moved through his face. First it was pain and then… want. And then restraint, because apparently, this man kept that stocked in bulk somewhere behind his cheekbones.
“I’m not saying goodbye.”
“No. You’re just tucking me in like a Victorian invalid and disappearing into some haunted downstairs library.”
“The Reliquary isn’t haunted.”
I gave him a look.
The corners of his mouth twitched. “It’s… haunted-adjacent.”
“Luc.”
His smile vanished. I still had my fingers twisted in his shirt, and I didn’t let go. I couldn’t. The space between us felt like one more thing trying to tear us apart.
“I’m tired of being handled like I’m about to break,” I said.
His eyes darkened. “I’m not handling you like you’re going to break.”
I nodded slowly, “You are.”
“I’m handling you like I would rather rip out my own spine than hurt you.”
My throat tightened. That shouldn’t have been romantic. Unfortunately, my standards had been through a lot lately.
“I know,” I said softly. “But I don’t want to feel like a patient right now.”
His gaze dropped to the gauze on my hand. Then to my stomach. Then back to my face.
“I want you,” I whispered.
The words came out simple and bare. I didn’t have a joke to hide behind. No sarcasm to soften the edges. Just truth, sitting there between us like a match waiting to be struck.
My voice cracked, “I need you.”
Luc closed his eyes. For a second, I thought he might refuse me gently and nobly. Infuriatingly. And I was already preparing to hate him for it.
But he opened his eyes again, and whatever I saw there made every thought in my head go quiet.
“You need to tell me if anything hurts,” he said.
“I will.”
“No just going along with things.”
“I hate that you know me.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Not currently, no.”
He leaned closer, his hand coming up to cradle my jaw. “If you say stop, I stop.”
“I know.”
“If you say slow—”
“Luc.”
His thumb brushed my cheek.
“I need to hear you say it.”
The tenderness of that almost ruined me. I swallowed.
“If I say stop, you stop. If I say slow, you slow down. If I say I’m tired, you let me rest.” I paused. “If I say I’m fine, you’re allowed to be suspicious because historically, I am a liar.”
His mouth curved a little. “There she is.”
I pulled him down by his shirt, and this kiss was not careful. It was hungry and shaking and full of everything neither of us had known how to say since I came back.
His hand slid into my hair, and mine tightened at his collar. I kissed him like I was tired of fear getting a vote, like my body belonged to me again because I said it did. Like Heaven could go fuck itself, because this was mine.
Luc made a sound low in his throat. The sound went through me like heat.
Then he pulled back, breathing hard. “Careful,” he said, like he was warning himself more than me.
I touched his face. His jaw was tight beneath my palm. His eyes were too bright. He looked like every violent thing in him had been brought to its knees and told to wait outside the door.
I loved him so much it scared me.
“I don’t want to be careful,” I said. His expression cracked, just a little. But it was enough.
He kissed me again, slower this time, but no less intense. His mouth moved over mine like he was memorizing proof. His hand trailed down my side, over my waist, stopping before my stomach like even desire bowed there now.
I covered his hand with mine and guided it lower. “I need you here.”
His breath caught. “Love.”
“I know.”
His forehead pressed to mine. “No,” he said roughly. “You don’t.”
Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I couldn’t. But I knew the way he touched me, like reverence had become desperate. Like he wanted to worship and destroy in the same breath and had chosen worship because I was the one beneath his hands.
He moved the blanket aside slowly, giving me time to stop him. I didn’t.
The morning light was faint at the edges of the curtains, soft and gray-blue, brushing over the room like it didn’t dare look too closely.
Luc’s hands stayed gentle as he pulled my t-shirt over my head and slid my panties down my legs, but his control was a living thing in the space between us, shaking, straining, trying not to become a monster.
And right now, I didn’t want the monster. I wanted the man.
The one who kissed my wrist beside the fresh gauze. The one who whispered my name like a vow and a wound. The one who looked at my body, still weak and recovering and changed in ways I hadn’t even begun to understand, like it was the only altar he would ever kneel before.
My eyes burned. “Don’t you dare make me cry during this,” I whispered.
His mouth brushed my throat. “I would never.”
“You absolutely would.”
“I would be devastated by the inconvenience.”
A laugh broke out of me, soft and breathless. He froze for half a second, like the sound had hit him somewhere tender. Then his mouth found mine again.
After that, there was no clean way to separate want from comfort. No line where fear ended and hunger began. There was only Luc touching me like I was alive, and me clinging to him because I needed him to feel it too.
He slid down my body, taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking gently, and I gasped, not because it hurt, but because my breasts were so sensitive now that even the softest pull sent heat scattering through me.
My fingers sank into his hair, holding him against me, and his hand tightened at my waist as if he felt the sound before he heard it.
“Too much?” he murmured against my skin as he switched to the other nipple, licking and sucking.
I shook my head, breath already uneven. “No. Just… different.”
His eyes lifted to mine. The look in them nearly undid me.
“Then I’ll learn you again,” he said.
The words went straight through me as he kissed the curve of my breast, slower this time, reverent enough to make my throat close, and the coil low in my belly pulled tighter.
Heat gathering, soft and insistent, reminding me that my body was still mine. Still alive. Still capable of wanting something that had nothing to do with fear.
He went lower, kissing down my chest and belly with unbearable patience. Every press of his mouth felt deliberate and careful. He was reverent in a way that made my chest ache and my thighs tremble.
When he reached the place where my body had already softened for him, he looked up at me. His eyes were dark enough to ruin me.
“You want me,” he murmured.
It wasn’t a question. I hated how much I loved that.
“Please.”
His mouth curved. “I know.”
I slid my fingers into his hair and pulled him down into me, because I was done being careful with wanting him. I was done pretending my body was only something to protect, heal, and survive.
He lowered his mouth to me, and the first slow touch of his tongue to my clit stole every thought from my head. My back arched against the pillows.
“Oh God.”
He paused just long enough to lift his eyes. “Careful,” he said, his voice rough. “I’m right here.”
I would’ve laughed if I’d had the air.
“I know,” I whispered, fingers tightening in his hair. “I’d forsake any god for you.”
Then, I let myself fall apart under his mouth as he licked and sucked and teased me until I was trembling but still alive in a way that felt almost defiant.
He slid two fingers into me, pumping slowly as he continued to tease me with his mouth. And I could barely hold on. The euphoria took over, and I fell apart worshiping his name at least three times.
I lost myself to time with his hands and his mouth, and the whole time, he carefully kept his weight off me. His breath broke when I said his name over and over again. The way he watched my face for every flicker, every hesitation, every yes, especially every yes.
When he came back up over my body, his hand slid over mine pressed to my stomach, and he kissed me there, the future beneath our palms, before his mouth came back to mine, and I could smell and taste myself all over his lips.
And when he finally sank into me, slow and careful and trembling with everything he refused to take without permission, I wrapped my arms around him and held on, feeling the delicious stretch of him inside me.
“Yes— fuck, yes,” I groaned.
He buried his face in my neck, and for a moment, neither of us moved. It seemed as if the room, the whole world, had gone still around us. But this time, nothing was watching. Nothing was trying to get in. Nothing was trying to tear us apart. It was only us, finally together again.
And I let myself have it and feel it and want it, the heat and the quiet breaking open of pleasure as Luc made love to me. It was mine and his because I chose that with him, together.
I gripped his biceps and cried out when he hit the perfect spot. He took my mouth like he owned it, and I moaned into him as wave after wave of ecstasy crashed over me. Before I knew it, his movement stuttered and he wrapped me in his arms as he groaned out my name.
Afterward, I lay against him, breathless and warm and still shaking a little. He had one arm around me and one hand spread protectively over my stomach. His lips brushed my temple.
“Did I hurt you?”
I smiled into his chest. “No.”
“Evie.”
I lifted my head enough to look at him. “You didn’t hurt me.”
His eyes searched mine for another second before he believed me. Mostly.
“You are exhausting,” I whispered.
“I’ve been told.”
“By who?”
“You, frequently.”
I rested my cheek against him again. For a little while, there was only Luc’s heartbeat under my ear, steady and real, and his hand over our babies like he could guard us from everything.
But reality found us again. I felt the change before I saw it. His body began to remember what waited outside this room. The thousand knives he kept trying to stand between and me. His shoulders tightened. His breath caught for half a second. And I knew before he moved.
“You’re still going.”
He was quiet, but that was answer enough. My chest pinched, but I didn’t pull away. I told myself he was here. He would come back.
Luc kissed my forehead. “I have to.”
“I know.”
He kissed my temple. “I’m not leaving the hotel.”
“I know that too.”
He kissed my lips. “And I’m coming back as soon as I can.”
I lifted my head. “That one I needed.”
His eyes softened, and he kissed the corner of my mouth, and I hated how much I loved him.
He rose carefully, pulling the blanket back over me before I could complain, but I complained anyway. “Stop tucking me in like I’m something too fragile.”
He leaned over me again, kissing my shoulder and then my neck. “You are fragile.”
“I’ll bite you.”
“I’m counting on it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re very smug for a man who has not yet been forgiven.”
His mouth curved. “Am I not?”
“No.”
“Interesting. Because I was sure when you were moaning my name, I was forgiven.”
Heat rushed up my neck, and I glared at him, which would have been more effective if I weren’t still looking thoroughly, inconveniently ruined.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “That was probably when it happened.”
His smile deepened. “Probably?”
“Don’t ruin it.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
He dressed in silence while I watched him from our bed, my lips still swollen and my body warm and heavy in the best possible way.
When he reached the door, he stopped, and I knew what he saw when he looked back at me.
“Luc?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t open it alone.”
His face gave away nothing, but his mouth softened. And he walked back over to me and pressed his forehead to mine.
“If loving you was my Fall, then I would fall again. Every time. In every life. In every universe where you exist.”
My heart did that stupid thing where it tried to beat itself out of my chest.
“I love you too,” I whispered. “Now go do something stupid carefully.”
His smile was small and real and only for me. And then he stepped into the hall and let the door seal softly behind him.