Page 43 of Immortal Burden

I’d never imagined anything would supersede my concerns and thoughts toward Mia.

Yet, he had.

Lucian Black.

The other reason I hadn’t been able to center myself.

He’d upturned so much for me, spun my world on its axis, without a doubt.

Over the years, our interactions had always been charged.

But I’d never let it go any further, never explored it.

I’d been set in my ways, stuck in a rut, I guess, my whole being tuned only to Mia. Hell, she’d really been all that I’d seen back then. It was why it had been such a harsh blow when she’d left me.

Lucian had flipped all of that on its head, though.

It had somehow become a positive thing.

An opportunity to get to know a part of myself that I’d been repressing down deep as my obsession with Mia had consumed it and everything else around me and within me.

On the one hand, when it came to him, it felt as though I was gliding along in some sort of overwhelming thrall, unable to break free of it.

But, on the other, I’d never felt more awake, more alive.

It was beyond intoxicating.

He was intoxicating.

“You are aware that, in me, you have finally met your match and it excites you immeasurably.”

Those words of his had resonated deeply with me. And they hadn’t stopped.

Lucian Black had opened up a whole new world to me, a whole new way of thinking, of being. A whole new realm of pleasure and liberation.

“Mine.”

I grimaced at the memory of that possessive word rolling off his tongue.

I’d wanted to run with it, to revel in it, to accept it as being as true for him as it was for me.

But I’d failed. Hell, I’d failed to do anything at all.

It had been a week since I’d ventured out to Polaris, since I’d laid eyes on him, since I’d even spoken a word to him, or had any communication with him whatsoever.

I’d retreated to my modest cottage in the middle of the desolate countryside because I’d wanted to avoid the reality of what it had truly meant.

More complications coming at me.

Another road to pain.

Mia had left me stranded down that fucking road for long enough. I certainly didn’t relish the prospect of another go-around of it, of getting attached to someone again.

But it was churning me up inside, eating me alive.

Lucian had a hold on me.

I couldn’t walk away.

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