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Except one memory. Just a piece of one, really. Her, lying flat on her back in her bed at Hell’s Gate on Kalendae—her birthday. And Darien, hovering above her, a masterpiece given life, her bare thighs tightening around his waist as he thrust into her—

She blinked the memory away with a fluttering of her lids, her face warming.

She’d lost her virginity to Darien Cassel. And the man who everyone was afraid of had handled her with such care.

Now, Darien Cassel was staring at her. “Yes?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” she said again, the word barely a breath. She started pacing again, idly rubbing her hands against the thighs of her jeans, needing the physical contact to ground her—to pull her out of this anxious bubble she was trapped in.

“I’m sorry.” Darien’s apology was loaded with emotion. “I guess I made a mistake, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” she fumed, her voice cracking. “Yeah, you did.”

“No matter what you think of me, I did it for you.”

“Lied?” she croaked, her hurt overpowering her anger. “You’re saying you lied for me?” She poked herself in the chest.

“If you want to call it lying, then yes, I lied for you. Because I thought it was best to give you some time—a few days, even, to get comfortable before I threw a truth that heavy on you. Everything that I do, Loren,” he paused to breathe, chest shuddering with the inhale, “is for you.” His words were sincere, but she still felt so blindsided, so betrayed by his decision not to tell her something this important, that she was hardly hearing him.

“Gods, I feel like such an idiot! Everyone knew about us—everyone except me. Do you have any idea what that feels like?” She glared at him, his face blurred by tears. “To be blindsided by the truth because everyone who claims to care about you was just…lying?”

Darien’s breathing was now as ragged and audible as hers, his eyes brimming with as much pain as she could feel in her own. When he spoke again, his tone turned desperate. “You want truth, Loren? You want truth—I’ll give you the truth.” The hurt on his handsome face only intensified as Darien practically shouted, the three words clapping through the cavernous room, “I love you.”

Loren’s heart stopped.

Restarted.

I love you more than anything in this world, Darien had said to her in his house on Kalendae, when he’d pinned her to a wall and kissed her tears away—

“I slept with you every night in that hospital,” Darien went on, every word raw with emotion. “For ten days, I slept in that bed with you. And then Roark came to see me—told me about the Caliginous chambers, how they might be able to save you. I left that night. And guess what? Your heart stopped along the way. And I woke you back up—that’s what I was doing, when you said you were drowning? When you said I helped you breathe again? That was me resuscitating you. I did all of that for you, Loren.” His throat shifted with a swallow. “Because I love you, sweetheart. I have no better excuse. I guess I plead insanity because I am insanely in love with you, and I have no better excuse for this.”

Loren couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even blink.

And those three vulnerable words shot another memory into her mind.

The Control Tower. The ring Darien had slid onto her finger—forfeiting his life so he could save hers.

And it was that memory that finally made her see clearly. See him clearly.

Suddenly, she was no longer angry with him for the same reasons as before. Now, she was angry because they could have been together sooner—could have skipped all this hurt he’d unleashed upon himself. The pining, the stolen touches. He’d done all of that—tortured himself—for her.

He was right—everything he ever did, he did for her.

“We aren’t just dating, we’re in love with each other,” Darien continued. “I fucking love you, sweetheart. You can hate me all you want, but it doesn’t change anything. I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you when you’re angry. I love you when you’re sad. I love you when you’re happy. I love you, Loren, and I will love you for the rest of your life—”

She was moving before he got out the last word.

They collided, her mouth meeting Darien’s so quickly that for a second she forgot who had moved first.

His hands wrapped around the backs of her thighs, and he lifted her up, hooking her legs around his waist. Loren didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly her back was pressed against the wall, Darien pinning her there with his hips. He kissed her like he was drowning and only her lips were his salvation, his hand disappearing up her shirt to grip her waist, her breasts, the other fisting her ass. He touched her the same way she touched him—as if it was the first time and the last.

“Show me,” she gasped between kisses. When Darien pressed his groin into her, she felt him against her core—how hard he was for her. She wanted him inside her—wanted every inch of him filling her up right now, fucking her raw. “Show me something.”

The memory Darien chose swept into her mind like the swift fall of night.

Him on top of her, her heels on his shoulders, one of his hands on her waist while the other gripped her thigh.

Even more impactful than the visual were the feelings that went along with it—Darien’s feelings, emotions.