Page 105 of Break Her Heart
“You. Just you.”
He laid me back on the rug before the fire. His hands undressed me with unhurried reverence, his mouth following. When he finally pushed into me, our gasps tangled. He moved slowly, brushing hair from my face, watching me like he was memorizing each moment.
“You are my reason,” he said, voice breaking.
“Don’t stop,” I begged.
“Never.”
And he didn’t.
We moved together like we’d always been meant to, a rhythm that felt older than us both. My name on his lips, his on mine. When it was over, we stayed tangled on the rug, skin damp, hearts pounding as one. We didn’t say the words. We didn’t have to.
It was in the way his hand kept tracing the line of my spine.
In the way I gripped his wrist, unwilling to let him go.
In the way we held each other long after the embers cooled, as if letting go might break the fragile world we’d built in that moment.
34
August
She was still asleep.
The low embers in the hearth cast a faint orange glow across her bare skin, illuminating the curve of her back, the hollow of her throat, the soft rise and fall of her chest. Her dark hair was spread out, wild and tangled from my fingers. I didn’t dare move.
I just stared.
Memorizing her. Every freckle. Every lash.
The way her lips parted like she was breathing out a final word. My hand hovered above her shoulder, aching to touch, to trace the heat of her skin, but I stayed still—like if I moved too fast, she might disappear.
She was here. She had chosen to stay.
Gods, what was I doing?
I should’ve let her go a long time ago. I told myself over and over again that keeping her close was about protection. That itwas about stopping Carrow. But now, watching her like this, I couldn’t pretend anymore. She wasn’t just the key to ending this.
She was everything.
I let my fingers trail down her spine. She shifted slightly, sighing in her sleep. Her voice echoed in my mind—You. Just you.She hadn’t said it like a demand. She’d said it like a truth, as if it had always been me.
And I knew then I couldn’t keep being selfish.
Carefully, I lifted the edge of the blanket, exposing her left arm. The veins were still there—dark, raised, like something poisonous burned into her flesh. She’d tried to act like it didn’t bother her, but I’d seen the way her fingers twitched when she thought no one was watching. The way her gaze lingered on it like she was trying to convince herself she was the same.
But she wasn’t. And she was trying to bear it alone.
* * *
The great hall shimmered with candlelight, flames kept high in the chandeliers and far from reach, casting golden halos over the marble floor. Music echoed faintly against the vaulted ceiling, delicate and slow.
She was in my arms, her gloved hand resting lightly against my chest, her other tucked into mine as I guided her across the floor. The dress she wore was deep crimson, fitted perfectly to her figure, every curve and line made to ruin me. But it was the gloves that held my attention—elegant silk, elbow-length, and hiding the dark veins beneath.
She’d insisted on them, brushing off my concern with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
But she was still the most beautiful thing in the room. In any room.
