Page 84 of Take Me Darkly

For a man like Anton, the hard thing was always what came after—the being seen.

I knew that much about him, just as I knew that I needed to weigh my next words and actions carefully.

I lifted my head from his chest. In the low amber glow of the lamp, the sharp lines of his face had softened with an exhaustion that had nothing to do with sleep. His dark, onyx eyes found mine, and I could see the faint amber flecks scattered near his pupils—a hidden warmth few people were ever permitted close enough to discover. They were the eyes of a man standing before a firing squad, braced for a verdict.

“You should sleep, princess,” he murmured, his baritone scraped down to a raw, velvet grain. “It’s late, and I’ve laid enough darkness on you for one night.”

There it is.

I recognized that tone. It was the low, commanding voice he reached for when he wanted to retreat behind his impenetrable walls. He’d spent the last hour tearing those defenses down brick by brick, and now, spooked by his own vulnerability, he wanted to rebuild the fortress.

I wasn’t going to let him.

“No,” I said softly.

His brow lifted a fraction. That was a word he didn’t hear often.

I shifted in his lap, swinging my legs over until I straddled his hips, my knees sinking into the soft velvet cushions on either side of his powerful thighs. Reaching out, I framed his hard jaw between my hands, just as he so often did to me. My thumbs stroked over the shadow of his stubble. It was thrilling and intensely electric to be the one towering over him, to feel the dominant predator go completely still beneath my touch.

“For weeks you have been the anchor holding my shattered pieces together,” I murmured, looking deep into his eyes. “Tonight, you opened a vein and let me watch you bleed. So now, Anton, you’re going to do something that terrifies you.”

His jaw flexed beneath my hands. “And what’s that?”

“You’re going to let me take care of you.”

Something raw moved across his sharp features—a volatile mix of terror and deep, primal desire, braided so tightly together he couldn’t pull them apart. His large hands came up to grasp my hips, his fingers digging in with a possessive intensity that betrayed the war raging inside him. I leaned down until my lips brushed the shell of his ear, feeling a hard shudder run through his frame.

“Princess,” he rasped, the word a dangerous warning and a broken plea all at once. “I’m wound too tight. You don’t know what I’m carrying right now.”

“Then let me carry it,” I whispered against his skin. “Let me take the weight for a while. You’ve been the strong one for long enough.”

His jaw locked. “That’s not how this works. I’m the one who protects⁠—”

“I know what you are. And now I know who you are,” I cut in gently, kissing the sharp line of his jaw. “You think you have to master the entire world with a snap of your fingers. You’re addicted to control. But not tonight. You gave me your truth, Anton. Now I want the rest of you.”

I felt the exact second his resistance shattered. It rippled through his entire body in a long, ragged exhale as his forehead dropped forward, resting heavily in the curve of my neck. His hands tightened on my hips, pulling my pelvis flush against his heat.

When he spoke, his breath was a scalding rasp against my skin. “I don’t know how to do this, Serena. I don’t know how to yield.”

It was the most terrifyingly honest admission he had ever made.

“Just let go, Anton,” I whispered, my fingers tangling in his dark hair. “Trustfall.”

I captured his lips then, and it was entirely different from the way he usually kissed me. His kisses were a possessive taking—a fierce, demanding claim of ownership. Mine was a sanctuary and a surrender all at once, slow, deep, and unhurried. I set the pace, my mouth sliding over his with a worshipful intensity, and he allowed it. That was the miracle of it. This ruthless man who commanded an empire was sitting entirely pliant beneath my hands, letting me lead. His absolute trust undid me far more thoroughly than any physical touch ever could.

I drew back just far enough to work open the buttons of his shirt, baring his broad chest to my touch. My knuckles dragged down the hard, sculpted planes of his abdominal muscles, feeling the dense flesh jump beneath my skin.

As I peeled the shirt from his shoulders, I exposed the heavy black ink stretching over his left arm—a breathtaking, primal sleeve of sharp geometric angles and intricate, dark line work. I’d stared at it before, but now, knowing his history, the ink looked less like art and more like war paint—a physical armor forged to protect the boy underneath.

His bare chest, now bare, revealed old, faded scars I had seen in passing but never truly examined. They suddenly took on new meaning, reading like a horrific, undeniable map of the hell he had survived. I leaned down, pressing my lips to a faint white line near his collarbone, then to another over his ribs.

“Serena...” The sound of my name was a strangled groan as I pulled him up from the sofa.

My hands mapped the hard, familiar planes of his chest, but as I stepped behind him and my palms drifted toward the long curve of his spine, I felt his entire body go rigid. An old boundary slammed down between us. I had never once touched his back without warning. In Italy, he’d explained it with brutal simplicity—a touch from behind was a trigger. I had honored that rule ever since, blind to the shape of the darkness living beneath it.

Now, I knew why. Now, I understood the ghosts that haunted him—the johns who had come at him in the dark, and Jerry’s brutal hands pinning a terrified boy to the floor. The sheer horror of that realization made my hands hover an inch above his skin, refusing to take his autonomy away.

I leaned in, my breath hot against his ear. “Let me touch your back, Anton. Tell me I can hold you.”