Page 72 of Can't Stop Watching

I trace the curve of her hip, watching goosebumps rise on her skin. "Things that would make you forget your own name. Things that would keep you on the edge for hours until you're begging."

She swallows hard, pupils dilating. "You seem pretty confident."

"I am." No point in false modesty. "But only if you want it too. Only if you trust me."

And that's the crux of it. Trust. Something I've never given or received easily, but that she seems willing to grant me.

I cup her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone. "I've never met a woman like you, Lila."

"Is that your line?" she asks, but there's no bite to it.

"No," I say simply. "That's the truth."

And it is. She's soft where I'm hard, light where I'm shadow. Yet she carries her own darkness, wears her scars without apology. Most people spend their lives running from their demons. Lila and I… we've learned to dance with ours.

I should be more careful. Control has always been my religion, yet here I am, offering pieces of myself to this woman I barely know. The soldier in me recognizes the tactical error. The man in me doesn't give a damn.

I watch Lila's face as she studies me, those eyes seeing too much. The silence between us should feel awkward, but it doesn't. It feels... dangerous. Like standing on a cliff's edge, knowing the fall could kill me but wanting to jump anyway.

"Last night," she says, her voice soft as she traces patterns on my chest, "you said there were things you wanted to share with me."

Something cold slides down my spine. My instinct to deflect kicks in automatically.

"Pretty sure I was talking about sexual positions, sweetheart."

She doesn't smile. Just looks at me with that damn awareness that cuts right through my bullshit.

"No," she says. "It was when we were talking about my past." Her fingers continue their path across my skin, but her gaze holds steady. "You looked like you wanted to say something too."

The moment stretches between us. She's opened her wounds to me. Shown me the darkness someone else carved into her. And now she's asking me to do the same.

Trust. A different kind than the sexual, physical one, a more terrifying kind. The concept feels foreign, like a language I learned once but haven't spoken in years.

What if I tell her about my father? About the bodies buried beneath the foundations of my childhood? What if I admit that I've stood at the precipice of becoming him more times than I can count?

She'd run. Anyone with sense would.

But Lila isn't just anyone. She's seen the monster lurking beneath my skin—the one I let slip during sex—and she didn't flinch. She pulled it closer.

"My father," I finally say, the words feeling like gravel in my mouth, "wasn't a good man."

Understatement of the fucking century.

"He worked for people who hurt other people. And he... facilitated it."

I watch her reaction carefully. This is the shallow end of my darkness. The safe version.

"You think that makes you like him?" she asks, cutting straight to the heart of it.

A bitter laugh escapes me. "Sometimes I think it's inevitable."

She shakes her head. "I don't believe that."

"You barely know me, Lila."

"I know enough," she says with a certainty I envy. "I know what matters."

Her words hang in the air.I know enough. I know what matters.She doesn't know shit, but the conviction in her voice almost makes me wish it were true.