Page 53 of Fallen Heir

She didn’t speak. Didn’t move. She just melted into me.

And I held her. All of her.

The pain. The scars. The fire. The softness.

Mine.

Within seconds, her breathing slowed. Sleep began to take her under.

And I stayed.

I stayed the whole damn night—wrapped around the woman who had wrecked me from the inside out. The woman who didn’t even realize she’d just set my world on fire.

She didn’t have to ask.

She didn’t even need to know.

But I’d keep her safe.

Because Bruce may have started this war—but I’d be the one to finish it.

Anyone who came for her—anyone who dared touch what was mine—I’d hunt them down, one by one…and burn their world to ash.

Chapter 19

Savannah

Ben had been around so much the past two days, I started to wonder if he even blinked

Or slept.

Or breathed like a normal human being.

And when I say I hadn’t been alone—I meant it in every sense of the word.

Because somehow, I’d never felt more seen than I did that night.

It had only been two days since Jaxson left town for a business merger. Two days since I felt his skin on mine, his lips dragging across every part of me like I was something sacred. Two days since he looked at me like I wasn’t broken—like I was the prize he’d been chasing his whole damn life.

It wasn’t just sex.

It was a surrender. A moment of raw, unfiltered truth between two people who stopped pretending long enough to really feel.

He hadn’t flinched at my scars.

He hadn’t recoiled from my pain.

Instead, he’d looked at me like every wound had made me stronger—like he’d spend the rest of his life learning the shape of them just to prove I was worth loving.

And the next morning?

He was still there. Still holding me. Still breathing beside me like I hadn’t just unraveled in his arms but rebuilt something new between us.

That kind of intimacy—it wasn’t just physical. It was soul-deep. And it terrified me.

Because if anyone could love someone like me… it would be him.

But what if I let him—and it still wasn’t enough? What if the doubts I carried, the walls I’d built, ended up pushing him away?