Page 59 of Fallen Heir

The fake relationship.

The secrets.

The danger still circling in the dark.

Because right here, in this moment—She was mine.

Her breath fanned across my jaw, warm and shallow, her body molded to mine like it belonged there. And as I dipped lower, tracing my lips along her neck, slow and deliberate, one thought burned through everything else.

I was going to taste her again.Tonight.

I could feel it—the heat rising off her skin, the way her fingers curled tighter into my lapel, how her breath caught every time I moved closer. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t hesitation.

It was need.

Sharp, steady, unmistakable.

She was trembling, and I knew it wasn’t from nerves. It was the kind of tension that came from remembering what my mouth felt like on her skin. The kind that whispered promises into the silence between us. The kind that had her body aching to be touched again, like last time hadn’t been enough.

And God, it hadn’t been. Not even close.

I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her—the way she gasped when I kissed the scars on her thigh, the way her body moved with mine like she was made to fit me, the way she looked at me after... like I hadn’t just had her, but reached something no one else ever had.

I’d lived in that moment ever since.

We didn’t speak.

We didn’t need to.

Our eyes locked for just one breath—one final moment of restraint—and then I broke it.

I took her hand, laced our fingers together, and led her through the crowd. Away from the music. Away from the cameras and chatter and anything that wasn’t her.

I found a door. I didn’t care where it led.

I opened it, pulled her in, and let it slam shut behind us.

And then—I had her.

I pressed her against the wall, velvet crumpling between us as I buried my hands in her hair and kissed her like I couldn’t breathe without her. Like I was making up for every second I’d been away.

Because this wasn’t about pretending.

For me, it never had been.

She grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me into her, and her kiss… Jesus Christ.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t slow. It was savage.

The kind of kiss that shatters something inside you. That tastes like surrender and hunger and something deeper—something like home. The kind of kiss that unravels you. The kind that tastes like surrender and promise and desperation all at once. And damn if it wasn’t the best thing I’d ever had.

Her leg slid through the slit in that damn dress and hooked around my hip, pulling me into her, grinding against the throbbing ache in my pants—and it nearly ended me.

I groaned into her mouth, hands roaming over the curve of her hips, the dip of her waist, until I found the hem of her dress and slid my palm beneath.

Her skin was silk under my fingers—until it wasn’t.

Until I felt them again.