Page 206 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 1-4
I thought, for a moment, that it was something I wanted more of. I don’t. I want more of this. This weighty, difficult glory.
This is the most real thing in my life. The most important thing that I could ever have. I could study out of different textbooks, I could build different connections, make different friends. I could go to any number of universities, and there would be something wonderful to be gleaned from each of them. It doesn’t mean that this university, that my friends aren’t important, but I can see a life where I move through different phases. Where those things wax and wane like the moon and the tide. Where they become more and less essential parts of who I am.
Lucian isn’t like that.
He’s essential. My foundation. The thing that I need. Lucian is like breathing.
The difference between Lucian and everything else is that I’m in love with him.
That deep, sweeping love that my mother, my sister, have spent all their lives looking for. They fling themselves into the passion, and hope that it becomes this. And I’ve got it.
The glory and the terror of it.
There will never be another man. Not like him.
There will never be another passion; there will never be another love. Not like this one.
He is not a phase; he’s not a rising tide. He is the mountain upon which all other things are built.
The rock upon which everything I am stands.
And no wonder I didn’t want to admit it. Because it’s so big, so frightening, but it’s also deeply satisfying, soothing in a way.
To know that I found this.
This thing that I wanted to avoid. Because of course it cracks you open and makes you vulnerable. Because it makes you hurt, because it makes you bleed. Because it makes what he wants just as important as what I want. Because it means that if I’m away from him, I will always be a little bit sad.
He lifts me up, and lays me down on the bed, and I give thanks that I’m on the pill, so we can be together without a barrier, which I had missed. Because I love the feel of him. I love the hot spill of him inside of me, because I love to claim as much of him as possible.
And when he thrusts deep, it feels like I’m complete. Like I don’t know where he begins and I end, and I don’t want to. I have been fiercely independent, and desperately avoidant of anything like this for all of my life.
And now I have embraced it. Quite literally. I wrap my arms around him, and I kiss his face, kiss his mouth, as he thrusts into me, as his movements become rough and unmeasured. As we melt into each other. As we both lose control.
He comes apart, and so do I, and I hold him, as tight as I can.
“It’s so difficult to say goodbye,” I say.
“But…you love school,” he says.
“Yes,” I say, my heart soaring with the revelation of a few moments ago. “But, Lucian, I love you.”
His face turns to stone, and I see fire in his eyes. I know he doesn’t know what to do with this. I know it’s been so long since anyone has said it to him that he doesn’t know what to make of it. I know him. His inability to say it back isn’t a surprise. And it doesn’t hurt my feelings. I understand him. I do.
“Then what does that mean?” he asks.
“That as long as I’m at school, as long as I’m away from you, even though it’s my dream, I’m going to be a bit sad.” I kiss his cheek. And lay my head on his chest.
I think there’s something beautiful about this. Loving him so much that I hurt with it. That I carry it with me as a painful badge of honor.
It’s not what I planned for my life.
But as complicated as it is, I have never been happier. Even as I carry the sadness.
Because this is what it means to really live. To be whole. And I take a certain measure of joy in that, even as I begin to weep.
Chapter Fifteen
The Dragon
