Page 88 of Bound By Fury

In the absence of sight, his touch is amplified. I shiver at every brush against my skin.

Just like earlier. There is no buzzing, no electric current, no sting, no pain, nothing nothing nothing but us and the draft ruffling the hair at my neck.

The back of his hand smooths down my cheek. “You glow, did you know that?”

Words fail me, but I hum against his lips, my hands inching up his biceps, the muscles flexing in response.

He walks me along the wall, peppering kisses across my shoulder the whole way.

My head is full of clouds, and I’m floating as he presses against me, his knee snaking between my legs, his fingertips digging into my thighs in question.

I nod, wrapping my arms around his neck.

“No.” He shakes his head. “I need to hear you say it.”

Whatever this is—this quiet inside me, I can’t get enough.

“Please,” I whisper, and he hoists me up, wrapping me around his waist.

I gasp into his open mouth, and he chuckles. The ease with which he lifted me. The grace… I can barely breathe.

“There was a time,” he says, his finger brushing my bottom lip, “where all I thought about was you.” He pushes his thumb against my mouth, and on instinct my lips part, wrapping around him. Groaning, he presses himself against me even harder as I tighten my legs. “I couldn’t take it this summer. Being away from you. Every moment without you was agonizing.”

My cheeks flush at his confession.

A pit swells in my belly.

I don’t deserve him.

He pulls his finger back slowly, and I bare my teeth, grazing them against his skin. He sucks in a breath like a hiss.

When he lifts his chin, I trail my tongue down the length of his throat.

“You’re perfect,” he rasps, his voice strained. We’re moving again, his legs inching until we’re suddenly tumbling into the abyss.

“I’m far from perfect,” I laugh into his mouth as he lowers me onto the couch. My eyes adjust to the fragmented moonlight streaming in through a round window, slashes of metal crisscrossing its face. They line his body, dividing him into jagged pieces. “Just ask Kai.”

I feel raw. Exposed. Desperate for more of whatever this is between us. For the silence in my head that being with Lucas gives me. But still, something feels wrong. How much guilt can one heart hold before it bursts?

I shouldn’t care that so much has changed between the three of us, but I do, despite everything.

Emotion flickers across his face. It’s new. A vulnerable admission of something darker than I’m used to.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” he says, with an edge.

“Oh—” I sit up on my elbows. “I’m sorry, I just, I don’t know why I said that.”

He braces himself above me, the corded muscle of his arms taut, and the air rushing between our bodies leaves me chilled. “Harper, why are you even thinking about him right now?” His voice has gone flat as he sits back, shoving his hand through his hair. His eyes are trained on the wall behind me.

The mood has shifted so suddenly. Nudging him back with my fingers, I bookend his hips with my thighs.

“I—I’m not!”

“You are,” he says. It’s not angry or cruel. It’s resigned. “I always knew my feelings were one sided. I knew he hung the stars for you, and I was just there. But we aren’t kids anymore, and I’m not second best. I waited for you to come back. I saw the way you looked at me differently. But I guess I got my hopes up…”

“No, Lucas, stop. I—”

“Five minutes ago I had my finger in your mouth, and now you’re talking to me about Kai.”