“Things I’m keeping from you?” I shook my head. “I’m not keeping anything from you. It’s just...my past never came up in conversation—”
“Quiet.” Another blast of scalding energy escaped him.
“I really do think we should go to Iceland. You’re burning up—”
“I’m well aware.” Looking at me with utter exhaustion, he chuckled blackly. “I’m barely holding on, so don’t do anything that will make me lose control, alright? Don’t think, don’t move, don’t talk. Just sit there.”
Our eyes locked.
My hand strayed over the enemy lines he’d drawn and landed on his forearm.
His reaction was instantaneous.
Sucking in a sharp, broken breath, his entire body seized. Heat exploded off him in a brutal wave, making the air shimmer. With a violent shudder and a sound that was half snarl, half relief, he reached for me.
His hand shot out, fisting the front of my dress and hauling me into him with enough force to knock the breath right out of my lungs.
His mouth crashed on mine.
His lips burned so, so badly.
His tongue shot between my lips, scorching and frantic.
But it wasn’t a kiss.
It was survival.
My hands flew up on instinct, landing over his stitches.
He groaned into my mouth, and I felt something inside me answer back.
A frosting, a freezing...
I cried out as the vicious darkness of yet another vasovagal syncope tried to knock me out.
But then, he jerked away.
Tearing his mouth from mine with a sharp curse, he shoved me back as if he’d suddenly realised what he was doing and hated himself for it.
“Fuck—” He dragged a hand down his face and spun to face the wall. With a snarl, he lunged for the window, wrenching the shade up as if he needed air.
I hissed like a nightcrawler as blinding dawn exploded into the cabin.
Lucien gasped, shying away from the brightness, only for his gaze to adjust far faster than mine and lock onto the view. Sagging toward the window, he rested his fingers against the thick pane, utterly transfixed.
My heart pounded as I shifted closer, needing to see what hypnotised him.
My mouth fell open as I drank in the most sublime sunrise I’d ever seen.
The entire sky dripped in molten rivers of celestial light. The horizon was painted with exquisite brush strokes, fluffy clouds were illuminated from within with their own miniature sun, and everything was gilded in gold. The heavens glowed with a riot of lavender and peach, coral and crimson.
Lucien exhaled heavily.
Every muscle in his body went still, and for one fragile moment...he looked exactly how he did on the night I’d dragged him into the media room and showed him the wilderness of Borneo.
His lips parted as the sunrise poured over him, caressing his cheekbones with a bronze so bright, it seemed to make him otherworldly.
Untouchable.
On fire.
My heart seized and I stopped looking at the sunrise.
I’d never seen anyone more breathtaking.
I couldn’t look away as emotions drowned me—deep aching waves of violence and agony.
I froze because...those emotions weren’t mine.
They slid into me like fog creeping under the door of my heart—a door I hadn’t even realised I’d flung wide open.
I felt him.
I glimpsed behind the mask of the man I’d fallen ridiculously in love with, and his grief crushed my ribs. Followed by fury so raw, it threatened to kill me if I held it back.
But it was his fear that broke my heart.
Fear of what was happening to him. Of what would happen when he couldn’t withstand the burn anymore.
My vision swam as pain flared sharp and sudden. My body protected itself by slamming the door, breaking the bond and—
Lucien spun to face me as if he’d felt that too.
The instant his scarlet-rimmed eyes met mine, the air between us snapped taut.
For one electrifying second, I thought he was going to kiss me again.
But something inside him broke.
Launching to his feet, he snatched my wrist and jerked me up. “Come with me.”
I squeaked as he almost stepped on Whisper. The panther shot out of the way, narrowly avoiding his tail being stomped.
The world blurred as my pulse roared, pain and heat and that impossible connection made everything hurt and ache and blaze.
“Lucien...what are you—?”
“Don’t talk.” Dragging me down the aisle, he opened the door to the bedroom suite and pushed me inside.
The lock clicked as he shoved me onto the bed, then pounced on me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I WAS GOING OUT OF MY fucking mind.
Everything was changing—intensifying, compounding, spiralling toward something I couldn’t control unless I touched her.
But...if I touched her, I felt her.
They were just flickers of her feelings, the hauntings of her thoughts, but...I didn’t want to feel them. I didn’t want to have yet another thing to deal with, yet I couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t stop it.
So I needed her to stop it.
So I didn’t incinerate this plane.
Crushing her to the pillowy mattress and swiping off the stupid number of fluffy pillows, I exhaled and pressed my lips to her throat.
Her skin was cool. I needed more.
She shuddered beneath me, her hands straying to my lower back.
A groan escaped as I pressed my hot mouth to her neck and rasped against her skin, “Help me.” The words tore free before pride could stop them. I’d never begged anyone...even on those worst days.
My skin threatened to peel from my bones as she dug her nails into the muscles on either side of my spine and...nodded.
Whatever fragile restraint I had left disintegrated.
Pulling back just enough to get to her mouth, I kissed her.
She moaned and kissed me back, our heads tilting, tongues knotting.
And it wasn’t enough.
Wrapping one arm around her back, I reared up on my knees and hauled her higher up the bed, never breaking the kiss, not giving either of us time to think.
Her dress rode up under my hands.
She gasped as I tossed her into the centre of the mattress. Her fingers clutched my shoulders as I punished her with another brutal kiss, seeking that calmness only she could give me.
She held on while I took everything.
Something twisted viciously in my chest, every part of me reacting to her on a cellular level.
Her fingers clawed at my shirt, yanking me closer as if she could drag the very breath from my lungs. I settled my hips between her spread legs, rocking my throbbing hardness against her.
Her hands landed on my waistband, hesitant and a little unsure, offering herself to me as she tried to loosen my trousers.
I caught her wrists and guided them above her head, caging her beneath me.
The kiss ended and I panted hard, resting my forehead on hers.
Her gaze dropped to my chest—to the dagger wound she’d given me.
Her thighs tightened around my hips as she looped her legs over mine and hooked her ankles together. My eyebrows rose in question then a tortured snarl tumbled free as she rocked against me, blatantly trying to make me break.
I fell on her again.
Letting her wrists go, I kissed her as hard as I could, all while my right hand gathered up her dress and buried itself between her legs. She cried out as I cupped her.
The tightness of her underwear stopped me from touching what I really needed to touch.
A blast of blazing frustration tore out of me and...I couldn’t stop it.
For the first time in my life, the fire that’d burned me alive didn’t hit an obstruction—it didn’t smash against the pain of the vitalsync core and had nothing to stop it from exploding free.
Heat licked down my arm in a violent rush.
The scent of burning fabric filled the air as her underwear switched from cotton to soot. Embers flew around us like dying fireflies and my fingers...
