Page 139 of Possess Me! (I Want You To)

L.U.C.A.

Written across each of his hands, like a promise.

“My body is an illusion,” he said softly, lowering his hands. I knew that already—I’d always known that. Especially after that night in the hotel when he’d taken on the form of another man to get us a room. So much about him was otherworldly, it was hard to keep track of it all.

It hadn’t occurred to me that this—that his tattoos—may not have been there when he was alive.

That he could change them.

“I didn’t want to be changed,” Prudence said softly, and I knew he wasn’t talking about the damn tattoos. “I didn’t think I could.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, reaching for his cheek, his stiff jaw fitting perfectly in my palm. “But you changed me anyway.”

A wet laugh bubbled up my throat as I pressed our foreheads together and squeezed my eyes shut tight.

His skin was as cold as ever, a testament to the fact that he wasn’t human, and yet—he’d never felt more alive than he did in that moment.

“You don’t have to go, you know?” I murmured softly, my lashes damp and shockingly cold as I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. My heart thumped erratically. “You could stay with me. Here. Or home—wherever you wanted to go.” His skin was so soft, so solid, so real. “This doesn’t have to be the end.”

The end of us.

“Is that what you want?” His voice was ragged.

“What?”

“To trap me here?”

It was an honest question. As far as we knew, I still could. The curse was supposed to give me power over him, after all. For a moment I considered it. He was right. I could trap him here. I could command him to remain by my side. I could even command him to forget that I’d forced him to stay in the first place. I could hurt him. I could keep him. He’d be mine.

But he didn’t need to be mine.

Prudence needed…

He needed to be Prudence.

And I loved him too much to take that away from him.

“You could tell me to stay,” Prudence reminded me, like I hadn’t just been thinking that exact same thing. “I would have no choice.”

“That’s the thing though,” I interrupted him, unable to help myself, because the thought of taking this decision away from him was enough to make me sick—even though what I wanted most in the world was to keep him right by my side. Cherished. Happy. Safe.

Damn it.

The exact same thing he was trying to do, by forcing me to stay in the car with Chastity.

“I refuse to be another person who takes that choice away from you,” I murmured, my lips brushing his as my heart thundered in my chest. “Love…” I swallowed, opening my eyes to look at him. “Isn’t selfish, Prudence.” Blue. Blue, blue, blue. I fell inside the depths of his gaze as the truth trembled in the open space between us.

“Even if it makes you miserable?” He didn’t acknowledge the weight of my words, though I could feel the way he was trembling.

My tough, no-nonsense, dommy, pint-sized sadist. Trembling. Because of me.

“I’d rather be miserable without you, than hurt you.” My voice wobbled.

“Why?” He asked, mirroring my earlier question. It was almost funny how similar we were. A cruel joke, from a God I didn’t even know I believed in.

“You make me feel alive, Prudence,” I said softly. “You make me happy. You make me brave. You make me accept the parts of myself I’ve always buried.” My heart was heavy. I wanted to tell him I loved him. To confess what this growing, beautiful thing between us was. To give it a name. “You make me better. I make you better too.”

But that would trap him here as surely as a command would.

So I gave him one last gift.

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