Page 32 of Problematic

Lux

Sleep didn’t come.

I got in the shower out of habit more than anything else. The water hit my shoulders like fists. I braced my palms on the tile and let it beat down, head bowed, steam thick enough to be a second skin.

The bond didn’t care about any of it.

The second I let myself stop thinking about counts and routes, she was there. Not in front of me, not really, but close enough that my body bought the lie for half a second.

Olivia.

My fingers curled against the wet tile. Water ran over my back, down my spine, over muscles that still hummed from the fight. My mark burned under the spray, the skin at my neck so sensitive it made my teeth clench.

The bond pulsed, and heat punched low in my gut, sharp and unexpected.

I looked down at myself and wanted to put my head through the wall.

“Absolutely not,” I told my dick.

It had opinions anyway. The bond poured images into the back of my skull without asking. Throat exposed. My mark burning with hers, completed.

Her saying my name.

Not a panicked “Mr. Draven.” Not fearful. Just Lux. Mouth around it. Voice dipping lower on the end.

I jerked my mind away from the memory so hard I saw spots.

I was not a teenager or underfed demon pup losing my mind because the universe had finally slid a matching puzzle piece across the table. I had blood on my hands continually.

I ruled a city, and I had wars to prevent. Clans to threaten. Instead, I was standing in my shower arguing with my own dick about a barista.

I could ruin her life so easily. The plan started forming in my head before I even gave it permission. I could buy her apartment building, buy her job . . . I should buy her job. I could have her moved somewhere safer against her will.

Or I could stop breaking into her apartment like a psychopath.

Nah. That would ruin all the fun.

My cock pressed hard against my stomach, aching with every pulse of the bond. I closed my eyes and found Olivia waiting behind them. Brown hair escaping its braid. Little delivery jacket stretched across her shoulders. No glamour, heavy makeup, or old-clan polish. She had arrived tired and honest, had made no effort to impress anyone inside the tower.

Simple, Vale’s file had called her.

Vale was wrong.

Nothing felt simple about the curve of her mouth or the soft weight of her body beneath her uniform. Nothing felt simple about the way she’d faced an armed killer covered in blood and asked if he needed help. Fear had tightened her voice, yet concern came first.

She had cared before knowing whether or not I deserved it.

My hand closed around my cock.

“Fuck.”

The first stroke dragged a groan from me. I gripped harder, moving from base to tip while the water beat against my back. My thumb smoothed across the head, spreading the precum gathering there.

This wasn’t a solution.

I continued anyway.

Liv.