Page 64 of Whispers of Ruin

I turn to him. “I did. I do.” But when he still does not move, I arch a brow. “Are you going to stay there all night? Or are you planning to break the rules on day one?”

He does not smile. Not really. But his eyes gleam.

“I’ve already broken worse ones for you.”

He steps inside without waiting for an invitation, pushing the door shut behind. The room swells with his presence immediately—too large, too solid, too him.

I lean against the desk, watching him like he is some wild thing that wandered into my territory. Except we both know it is the other way around.

Xan walks closer.

“If the Order wanted me away from you, they’d have to try fucking harder than a locked door.”

“I thought you said everyone gets their own space,” I tease.

“I lied.” He stops in front of me, close enough that the heat of him makes my breath catch. “Or maybe I just decided you’d sleep better with someone watching you.”

I tilt my head, amused. “Watchingme, orsleepingwith me?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

I should tell him to leave. That I need time to process. To think. But my fingers are already curling into his shirt, pulling him forward. He meets me halfway, one hand bracing on the desk beside me, the other sliding around my waist. When he leans in, our foreheads touch—barely.

“I know this place looks like stone and shadows,” he says, his breath brushing my lips. “But you’re not alone in it. Not while I’m here.”

His breath lingers on my skin, teasing, testing—waiting for permission he does not really need. The world has narrowed to this one second, stretched taut between restraint and surrender.

“You’re trembling, little fox,” he whispers, brushing his thumb just beneath my ribs. “Is it fear… or envy?”

“Do you want a real answer?” I murmur.

He laughs—barely. “Only if it’s honest.”

I don’t look away. “Then it’s both.”

That’s all it takes.

Just like the night before, he lifts his mask—only enough to free his mouth. God, the way my heart stumbles—his move, his choice. He wants this. He could have held back, but he did not. His mouth crashes into mine as if he has been waiting since the moment I stepped through the Order’s doors to finally kiss me.

His hands are everywhere—my waist, my back, my throat. Xan lifts me onto the desk, scattering papers, knocking over a lamp I don’t care about. The wood is cold under my thighscontrasting to his body’s heat and fury. His coat falls to the floor, followed by mine, a trail of tension torn loose in fabric.

My fingers knot in his shirt. He growls when I tug, pulling away just long enough to rip it off. His tattoos catch the dim light—telling stories I do not know yet, but will. His mouth finds my neck, right where that phantom bruise still sings, and I gasp.

“I remember everything,” I whisper, dizzy. “Even if I wouldn’t want to.”

His grip tightens, his breath sharpens. I know he remembers too. His mouth drags down the line of my neck, slow and reverent, but it is the way his hands grip my thighs that undoes me—tight, grounding, trying to hold back a storm when the storm isalreadyhere.

I tilt my hips forward without thinking. A silent plea. His head lifts—eyes burning, jaw tight.

“You havenofucking idea,” he rasps, breaking against my mouth, “what you do to me, to my cock.”

His hands shove my skirt up, palms rough against my ass as he drags me to the border of the desk. I gasp, clutching at his shoulders while he watches every inch of my.

“You still think this was a dream,huh?” he asks darkly.

I can’t answer. Not when his fingers are already sliding beneath my shirt on my breast, pulling slightly my nipples.

“BecauseIdid not dream it, Mira.” His mouth finds my ear. “I relived it a thousand times since yesterday. Every damn second until my dick ache so badly.”

---