Page 185 of Buried in Blood

Of beinghere.

“You’re staring,” I whisper.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away.

“I almost lost you,” he says. “Several times.”

I lean into him, chest to chest, breath to breath. “But you didn’t.”

His jaw flexes. There’s something feral in his stillness—something caged too long. He runs his thumb along the inside of my wrist and kisses the spot where my pulse flutters.

“You don’t know what it did to me,” he murmurs against my skin. “That fucking look in your eyes like you were already gone.”

“I came back.”

He pulls me closer. “No. Youfoughtback.”

His mouth brushes mine. Not a kiss. A question.

And I answer it by taking his face in my hands and dragging him down to me.

This kiss isn’t soft. It isn’t slow.

It’s a benediction.

A claiming.

Our bodies collide with heat that’s been simmering under ash and trauma and too many nights spent wondering if we’d ever feel clean again.

His hands are on my waist, lifting me into his lap. My thighs straddle his hips as he sinks back onto the bed, dragging me down with him.

Our mouths don’t separate.

They devour.

Hegroans when I roll my hips against him. “Astra…”

I smile against his lips. “I want to hear you break.”

And I mean it.

I want to watch him unravel. I want to feel his control slip, not because he’s weak—but because he trusts me with the chaos.

His hands slide under my shirt. He palms my ribs like they’re breakable and holy all at once.

“Tell me to stop,” he says, voice rough.

I pull his shirt off instead.

My mouth finds the curve of his neck, the line of his collarbone, the hollow at the base of his throat.

He shudders.

“I’m not fragile,” I whisper. “Not with you.”

Lucien flips me onto my back with a growl, bracing himself over me, his eyes wild and tender all at once.

“I know,” he says. “But I’ve never wanted anything like this. Likeyou.”