Page 80 of Infamous

So instead, I whisper the only truth that matters.

“I’ll never hurt you, Nadia.”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, her hand finds mine, resting over her heart. And I realize, for the first time in years, that maybe I don’t have to be a ghost forever.

Maybe she’s the only thing that can bring me back to life.

No-one tellsyou what years of absence does to a thirsty man.

How it etches itself into your bones. How it rewires the way you breathe.

I wake slowly, like a man surfacing from a dream I’m terrified to leave. The room is still dim, washed in that soft, early light that makes everything look fragile. But nothing feels fragile - not the weight of her against me, not the way her body fits along my side like she was carved to fill that space, not the warmth she’s left on my skin.

My hand moves before my mind does, tracing the line of her spine, relearning her shape. I inhale her - sweet, familiar, ruinous in the best way possible - and something inside me loosens with a relief that borders on pain.

Years apart.

Years of pretending I didn’t miss her, didn’t want her, didn’t ache in ways I couldn’t name.

No one warns you how silence can starve you. How distance can become a living thing, chewing through your memories until you’re not sure what was real. But lying here with her, breathing the same air, I remember every damn thing.

The way she used to laugh with her whole body.

The way her eyes softened right before she kissed me.

The way I ruined us.

The way I’ve been trying to stitch himself back together ever since.

I look at her now - hair spilled across my chest, lips a little swollen from my mouth, fingers curled like she’s still holding onto me even in sleep - and the years feel like a cruel joke. Because the second I touched her again, it’s like no time has passed at all. Like the universe hit un-pause the moment she whispered my name last night.

A dark, hungry heat pulses through me. It’s not just lust, butsomething that’s been waiting in the ashes of every bad decision I’ve made since I exiled her out of my life.

I shift, slow enough not to wake her, but too far gone to stop the way my body reacts to hers. My hand slides down, cupping her hip, pulling her closer. I feel her breath catch, her lashes flutter, her body instinctively nuzzle into me like she’s been searching for him even in sleep.

Absence does things to a person. But so does reunion.

I press my mouth to her shoulder, then lower, tasting her warm skin. I feel her stir, a soft sound escaping her throat - one I’m starved for, one I’ve killed a thousand memories to remember clearly.

“Morning,” she whispers, voice thick with sleep.

“Not yet,” I breathe against her skin, my lips brushing her shoulder as my hand drifts down, finding the heat between her thighs. She shifts onto her back, slow, trusting, still half-dreaming. She’s soft like this. Unguarded, tender, completely bare to me, and the sight alone almost undoes me.

My fingers skim the curve of her inner thigh before I reach the place I’ve been aching for. I tap lightly over her slick center, a silent question, a request instead of a demand. She lifts her gaze to mine, eyes hazy and heavy-lidded, her lashes fluttering like she’s waking into a world she doesn’t mind belonging to.

That’s all the permission I need.

My thumb presses against her clit - firm, steady, the kind of pressure that makes her breath hitch. I keep it there, holding her in that delicate balance between sleep and need as my other fingers glide down her folds, slick and warm, sliding into her like she was waiting for me. One finger at first, slow, deliberate, feeling her body welcome the intrusion like it remembers the shape of me.

Her pussy fits perfectly in the cradle of my palm, like she was built to be held this way. I work her with all of my fingers -pressing my thumb, stroking, circling, thrusting deeper until her hips start to move, until her breath turns into a soft, desperate sound.

The room is quiet, the world still asleep, and her moans spill into the dawn like a confession - raw, broken, beautiful, as she explodes all over my fingers.

49

NADIA

The sound of my phone drags me out of sleep. A harsh, shrill ringtone tearing through the fog in my head.