Page 118 of Sweet Obsession
His gaze softens, then darkens. “Nothing, if I can help it. That’s what all of this is for. The violence. The fear. The empire I’m clawing to hold onto. It’s not just about Stepan anymore. It’s about keeping you breathing in a world built to crush you.”
Silence hangs between us, heavy and suffocating.
“I don’t want to be a reason you burn the world down,” I murmur.
“You’re not,” he says. “You’re the reason I’m trying to build something from the ashes.”
He lifts a hand, hesitating, then brushes a strand of hair from my cheek, the same cheek where the scar still lingers.
“You don’t have to trust me yet,” he says, almost broken. “But let me protect you. Let me give them a reason to fear ever laying a hand on you again.”
And this time, when I close my eyes, it’s not to shut him out.
It’s because I want to believe him.
His lips brush against my forehead, soft and slow, but there’s nothing gentle about the way he holds me. There’s a darkness there, an inevitability, like he’s claiming me. Not with words, not with force, but with an understanding of what I need, even if I don’t know it myself.
Chapter 17
LUNA
Precisely one week later, I hadn’t meant to start painting.
I only wanted to clean the studio. Clear my head. Maybe sweep away the ghosts that seemed to follow me from room to room. Besides, it reminded me of my mother, she loved to paint when she was alive. We used to do it together.”
But one brushstroke turned into another. Then a smear of black bled into crimson, and suddenly I was on my knees with oil paint smeared up my wrists, my hair tied in a messy knot, breathing in the sharp sting of turpentine like it could scrape out the ache in my chest.
It didn’t.
I was rinsing the last brush when the bottle slipped. A single splash and pain.
It seared into my eyes like acid.
“Shit!”
The sink vanished behind tears. I staggered back, blind, breath hitching as the pain flared hotter.
I fumbled for the towel, but the fabric only smeared the burning across my cheek.
Footsteps. A door opening.
I didn’t need to see to know it was him.
“Luna?” Misha’s voice was low, rough with concern.
“I’m fine,” I lied, blinking furiously. “Just—paint. In my eyes.”
His fingers brushed my wrist. Gently. Carefully. “Come here.”
“I said I’m fine.”
But his arms were already lifting me, steady as steel. I stiffened instinctively. The heat of his body, the scent of leather and cedar and faint smoke, it all wrapped around me like an unwanted memory.
“I can walk.”
“You’re not walking into walls on my watch.”
I wanted to snap something cruel. Something sharp.
