Page 64 of Tide of Treason
This was himwithouthis meds. Calm. Capable. Gentle, even.
I wanted to ask Lucius to come closer.
But in the end, all I remembered was the outline of his figure keeping watch at the border of sleep and something that felt dangerously close to safety.
18 | Lucius
23 years old
Present day
Morning clawed itsway through gauzy curtains, the light thin as a razor, carving her olive skin into long bars of honey-gold. It tangled in the snarl of dark hair splayed across the pillow, licked the soft slope of one bare shoulder, rose and fell with every unhurried breath she stole. There were bruises on my body from fights I didn’t remember starting, but none of them ached the way my chest did looking at her.
I was sitting on the edge of Kayla’s bed, still trapped in yesterday’s suit, the fabric creased and smelling faintly of engine smoke and her perfume. Dressing up wasn’t my thing—never had been. In fact, I was dramatic enough to say I’d rather slit my own throat than knot a tie, so the fact I’d spent a whole night in one for this woman . . . ironic, considering I actuallyhad an important meeting today that demanded another suit.
Everything about the room was a dangerous kind of feminine: dark silks, candle wax dripping in thick, frozen rivers down blackened wicks, expensive perfume bottles lined up on a mirrored vanity, all cut glass and blood-colored liquids. At least twenty pairs of heels in the walk-in closet. A stack of handbags that reached the ceiling. Dresses and skirts and dresses and skirts and more fucking dresses.
My gaze returned to the bed.
The indulgent drag of her body rolling onto her stomach was the kind of cinematic filth that should’ve been recorded and sold for a fortune. A tiny moan left her parted lips as she settled, cheek smashed into the pillow, back arched on pure instinct. My cock stirred with lazy, traitorous interest.
Focus,cabrón.
“This is usually the part,” she said, voice a slow, sun-warmed slur, “where the man in my bed gives me a nice morning fuck.”
A hot, mean frustration curled inside me.
I wanted to crawl over her, pin her wrists to the headboard, and give her exactly what she was asking for—fuck, I wanted it so bad my handsshookwith it. But we didn’t have that kind of story. If we did, it’d be the kind carved into bone, not whispered into morning light. And last night, Kayla hadn’t been sober, no matter how straight she sat or how steady her hands stayed. Vividly, I could still remember what it felt like to have a gun to my skull and a choice stolen out of my mouth. Knew better than to take what wasn’t given, clean and clear,with nothing left unsaid.
I’d slept on the carpet.
The AC kicked on every forty-three minutes, blowing lemon verbena over the stale smoke that clung to my shirt. I’d counted all of it, because numbers were cleaner than the thoughts dripping down the inside of my skull. When the storm finally choked and dawn started peeling its way across Manhattan, I got up, cracked my back, and moved to the edge of her bed.
I hadn’t meant to stay all night. Either way, the notion of leaving tasted wrong. Beneath my sternum twisted a knot tight enough to garrotte a man twice my size, and I knew if I walked out that door, something vital between us would hemorrhage on the carpet while I pretended not to notice.
I glanced down at my hands. “I’ve killed men for less than what you told me last night,” I admitted. “If he weren’t already rotting in the dirt, I’d dig him up just to kill him slower.”
Kayla’s shoulders heaved with a sigh, head lifting off the pillow so she could meet my gaze with eyes lined with darkness no sunrise could bleach.
“I’m not sorry,” she whispered.
“Good. You shouldn’t be.”
After that, we didn’t speak about it again. She pressed her cheek back into the fabric, eyes still on my face. I wondered if she knew why I needed to stay the night. With everything we’d shared, all the ways we’d crawled into each other’s heads, I had no idea how to put what was between us into words, so Ilet the silence eat at us instead.
And we just . . . looked.
Too long for good sense. Long enough for doom to get comfortable.
Her gaze dipped to my mouth right as I let out a long exhale, and when her tongue flicked across the corner of her lip, the phantom of it seared my own. Christ. Every inch of her demanded worship with blood-stained hands. Cupping my face, she traced a thumb across my dimple. My hands clenched the bedspread hard enough to tear. We were breathing hard now, noses brushing, trying not to take pulls from each other’s mouths.
“Go,” she murmured, the word grazing my lips without landing. “Please, Lucius. Before I say something I can’t take back.”
A thousand questions clawed for daylight, but the look on her face told me asking would shatter it all. So I swallowed the urge. Nodded. Kayla closed her eyes, relief flashing so bright it almost gutted worse than rejection. Thumb still on my dimple, she traced one last line down the edge of my jaw, branding frost over fire. Then her hand fell away, limp on the sheet.
I stood. Left her room with my pulse still thundering where she’d touched me.
Straight into an ambush.
