Page 61 of Creeping Lily

TITAN

I ’ve never believed in missing pieces.

Never believed in destiny, or fate, or any of that pretty bullshit people tell themselves to make the world hurt less. I believe in violence. In scars. In retribution that burns like an out of control fire.

Then there’s Lily.

Lily, who slipped past every wall I welded shut. Who looks at me like I’m not a monster built from rage, but a man she’s known her whole damn life. Maybe she has. Maybe she’s the only one who truly ever did.

She’s right for me in ways that scare me more than bullets ever could.

Because she’s softness where I’m steel, but it’s not weakness—it’s power. It’s the kind of strength I can’t touch without cutting myself. She listens when I grunt out half a sentence, when silence is the only language I know, and somehow she still hears what I don’t say.

Because she doesn’t flinch. Not from the mask, not from the scars, not from the blood that clings to me no matter how hard I scrub. I know I could come to her drenched in violence and she’d still open her arms, still let me crawl inside her warmth, still whisper my name like I deserve to have one.

Because she doesn’t want the weapon. Lily wants the man buried underneath, and she looks at me like I’m worth saving, like I’m worth loving, even when I can’t stand to look in a mirror.

She fits the jagged edges. Where I splinter, she smooths. Where I’m sharp, she bleeds willingly, like she was always meant to. I hate myself for it—hate how much I crave her light—but I’d gut the whole world to keep it burning.

And maybe that’s what makes her mine.

Not because I chained her. Not because I stole her. But because when she presses her cheek to my chest, when her breath warms the hollow place where my heart should be, I finally feel like I’ve been found.

She’s that aching part of me-my missing piece, and I’d walk through hell again if it meant she’d be there waiting for me on the other side.

The second her body goes slack beneath mine, the second I slide out of her, I brace for it—for her to go rigid, to sit up, to put distance between us. To remember there’s no protection, no safety, nothing binding us but heat and ruin.

But she doesn’t.

She melts into me like I’m the only place she’s ever belonged.

Her face presses into my chest, her hair sticking to my skin, her body curling closer like she wants to crawl inside me. Her arms slide around me as if I’m not the monster who just fucked her raw, but the anchor she’s been searching for her whole life.

And when I hesitate—when my arms hover, uncertain, dangerous—she shifts closer still, a quiet little sound slipping out of her throat. A whimper, maybe. Or a plea.

It undoes me.

My hands move before my brain catches up, one cradling her spine, the other fisting gently in her hair. I pull her in, hold her so tight I can feel her heartbeat through both our chests. My breath saws out rough, because every part of this is wrong.

She should be panicking.

She should be regretting.

She should be afraid.

Instead, she’s calm. Sated. Safe.

In my arms.

The thought claws through me, violent and sharp, because she doesn’t understand. This—me—isn’t safety. It’s a cage. It’s a death sentence wrapped in leather and scars.

I tilt my head just enough to watch her. Her lashes brush her cheeks, her lips parted as her breath fans warm across my skin. She looks peaceful. Radiant, even. As if what we just did wasn’t reckless, wasn’t dangerous, wasn’t a mistake.

And that’s what terrifies me.

She’s not running. She’s not recoiling. She’s not giving me the one thing I’m built to expect—fear.

She’s choosing me.

My chest tightens until it hurts. I lower my face into her hair, inhaling her, letting her scent flood me like poison. My arms crush her tighter, selfish, possessive, desperate, because I know the truth:

I’ll never let her go.

Not because I should.

Not because I deserve her.

But because she doesn’t fear me the way she should—and that makes me more dangerous than I’ve ever been.

The sheets are tangled around our legs, sticky with sweat, heavy with heat that hasn’t burned off yet. Lily lies draped across me, her hair spilling down my chest, her fingers splayed across my chest.

She doesn’t see what it does to me—that every time she touches me, the world slows, then speeds up again, like my body doesn’t know how to handle her.

Her hand drifts lower, grazing near the jagged terrain of my back.

Instinct kicks in before thought does—I catch her wrist, gently but firm, and steer her hand away.

Not there. I’m not ready to share every ugly piece of me with her yet.

She doesn’t get to feel the map of my ruin, not when I’m not ready to explain how every inch of burned skin was earned.

“When we go back,” she says softly, almost dreamily, “I think I want to see my family for a while.”

The words slice through me sharper than any blade. Go back. Family. Away. She doesn’t notice how the air changes, how every muscle in me tenses.

Her fingers keep moving across my chest, careless and sweet, while my mind roars with images of her gone. Out of my sight. Out of my reach. Vulnerable. A hundred ways the world could rip her from me before I could even draw breath.

“Wasn’t that where you were supposed to be for spring break?” I ask, watching her face too closely. Looking for cracks.

She shrugs, eyes unfocused, lost somewhere far from me. “It was. But I didn’t end up there. I still want to go… I think I need the time away.”

The ache that rips through me is ugly, selfish. Away. She wants to put distance between us. Distance I can’t tolerate. Distance that feels like death.

“Sounds like you’re asking my permission,” I say, and the frown carves deep into my face because I hear it—she was. She was asking.

Her gaze flicks back to mine, wide and clear. “But you’ll follow me, right? ”

Her words punch the air out of me. She doesn’t know what she’s admitting—that she expects me to shadow her, haunt her, bleed into her life no matter where she runs. And the worst part? She’s right.

“If that’s what it takes to keep you safe,” I say, voice gravel, “yeah. I’ll follow you.”

Her breath shudders, shaky as it leaves her chest. “How did my life get so fucked up?”

“It didn’t.” The answer is out before I can stop it. My hand slides up her arm, anchoring her to me. “It might look that way right now, but it’s not ruined. Not beyond fixing.”

Her eyes soften, searching mine like she’s trying to find the part of me that still believes in redemption. She hesitates, then whispers, “And when this… whatever this is… is over, you’re going to?—”

The rest dies.

Because outside, a sound cuts through the quiet. A sharp clatter, wrong, invasive.

My body reacts before my mind catches up. I’m up in a breath, rolling from the bed, muscles coiled tight. My hand closes around the gun on the side table, the cold steel alive against my palm. One motion, one click, and it’s cocked, ready.

I glance at Lily once. Just once. My finger presses to my lips—an order, not a request.

No sound.

“Go to the bathroom,” I murmur, voice low and lethal. Already pulling on my sweatpants, dragging a hoodie over my head. “Get dressed. Lock the door. Don’t come out until I come for you.”

Her brows furrow, fear flashing across her face. “What is it?”

“No questions, Lily. Just do as I say.”

She nods, sharp and quick, and moves. Bare feet whisper against the wood as she heads for the bathroom. My ears are tuned to every creak of the cabin, every shift of air.

She’s halfway there when the front door explodes open.

The wood slams against the wall with a crack, the fading daylight spilling in like blood, and the world shrinks to the silhouette filling the frame.

Bentley Walker.

With a gun in his hand.