Page 24 of Burned

“Your turn,” I say.

His mouth curves. “You wanna spank me?”

“Your shirt.” A smile stretches across my face.

His eyes lighten. He stands and unbuttons his shirt slowly. Unfairly slowly. Each button reveals more of him. The warm,tanned skin. The hard plane of his chest. The brutal history of scars etched into his skin.

I remember the first time I saw the damage; I didn’t flinch. I remember that. I remember the way he watched me, waiting for disgust, and how something changed between us when I gave him none. I stroked them like the cheek of a newborn baby.

Tender. Loving. How I felt for him.

Still do.

I could never be afraid of his scars. It is the wounds I can’t see, the ones he won’t share with me, that frighten me. He lets the shirt fall open but doesn’t remove it.

“Now,” he says after staring at me a beat. “You can ask a question.”

My fingers twist together. I hate that my next question sounds small. “If she hadn’t died, would you still be with her?”

He won’t look at me. Silence. My heart begins to pound.

Lucian closes the distance between us, removing my bra and tossing it to the side. His warm, bare chest presses against my naked breasts. He lifts one hand and wraps it gently around the back of my neck, his thumb resting under my chin, cradling me in his cage.

He forces me to lock eyes with him. “I was a different man.”

“That’s not an answer.” I shake my head.

“It is the only honest one.” His voice is low. His hand drops. “The man who loved Isobel burned. I don’t know what he would have done because he no longer exists.”

I swallow. “And this man?”

“This man bought you for one night.” His eyes drop to my mouth. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me toward him. The heat of our skin presses together. “And I’ll be damned if I haven’t been paying for it ever since.”

A laugh breaks from me before I can stop it. “That’s very romantic.”

“This man does not do romance well.”

“No,” I whisper. “He doesn’t.”

Lucian’s face is inches from mine. “But he knows what he needs. And he needs you. Like air.”

The words strike me.

Severe. Beautiful. Damaged.

Is he mine? Still? Even with her sniffing around?

“I need you, Erin. I need you when you run, when you defy me in front of dangerous men with loaded weapons. When you cross boundaries to eavesdrop on conversations that would have been explained to you if you had trusted me. If you’d had the patience to wait ten minutes.”

I stare, breathless.

“He chooses you when ghosts come back,” Lucian continues, his voice roughening. “And every instinct tells him to lock you somewhere safe and stand guard at the door until the world ends.”

“Not the last part, though,” my voice catches.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, that last part, too.”

My heart does something painful. It hopes. Hopes that we will make it through like we have so far—on a wing and a prayer.