Page 9 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

It feels wrong, sitting at the head of the table. My knuckles are white around the edge of the chair, not from fear—never fear—but from restraint. Lucien is supposed to be here. He’s the spine of our chaos, the one who takes our sharpest instincts and channels them into something surgical. And Orin… hell, Orin is the balance. The mind behind the madness. With both of them gone—taken—the foundation feels cracked beneath us.

But here we are. Me at the head. Ambrose lounging like this isn’t spiraling. Elias upside down in a chair, legs hanging over the back. Silas poking at a candle flame with the tip of his finger like that’s going to offer him some divine answer. Caspian’s avoiding everyone’s eyes, his knuckles scratched up from punching a wall—or himself—and Luna—

Luna’s too calm.

She sits on the arm of a chair instead of in it, her fingers laced over one knee, watching each of us like she’s reading a battlefield and not a room of men unraveling. Her shoulder is bare where her shirt slips. The bond with Caspian pulses like a second heartbeat in the room, wrong and raw and fresh. It makes something sharp crawl under my skin.

“We’re not going to be able to portal in,”

I say finally, dragging their attention from the silence. “Not while Branwen has them. You know that.”

“She can’t lock us out forever,”

Elias says, but it’s half-hearted. He flops a leg to the floor and starts spinning the chair lazily. “She’s not a god.”

“She thinks she is,”

Ambrose says, voice low. “And worse, she’s got just enough power to play at it.”

“She’s got Lucien,”

Luna cuts in. Quiet, but steady. “Which means she has strategy and patience. If she was going to kill them, she would’ve already.”

“Or she wants us to think that,”

I snap. “She knows how we work. Keep two of us captive, the rest spiral. Make one of them Lucien, and we wait. We don’t act, we stall. And that’s exactly what she wants.”

Silas hums under his breath, leans forward like he’s about to offer some philosophical gem, and then says, “We could try sending a message the old way. Light it on fire, toss it into the abyss, whisper sweet nothings while it burns.”

Elias groans. “You absolute swamp creature, that’s not how the ritual works.”

“It’s better than sitting here with our dicks in our hands,” I mutter.

“Speak for yourself,”

Silas says brightly. “Mine’s otherwise occupied.”

Luna snorts. Just once, soft and reluctant. But it slices through the heaviness like a knife. And gods help me, I want to bottle the sound. Steal it for later when all this comes crashing down.

She’s bound to four of us now, Lucien is gone, Orin too, and she should be a wreck—but she’s not. She’s shifting. Settling into something quieter, darker. Her eyes meet mine, and for a second, I forget how to breathe. Because I feel it.

She’s going to burn us all down to get them back.

And I’m going to help her do it.

“Then we build a map,”

I say, dragging my gaze away. “A plan that doesn’t rely on the portal. Branwen took them into the Hollow’s edge, not the heart. She’s not stupid enough to risk being that close to the Leyline. That gives us options.”

“And if we’re wrong?”

Caspian finally speaks, voice hoarse and raw.

“Then we go through hell,”

I answer. “And we drag them out screaming.”

“,”

she says. Just my name. Soft. Curious. Dangerous.

I don’t look up right away—I’m busy dragging red lines across a map of the Hollow with a blade-tip and trying to remember how to think like Lucien. But it’s her voice. And that means it hits differently. It always does.

“Yes, love?”

I answer, because I’m a goddamn idiot.

There’s a beat of silence. And then the room explodes.

Elias makes a noise like he’s just swallowed a demon and is choking on its sarcasm. “Oh, love, is it?”

he coughs into his fist, twisting in his chair to stare at me with mock horror. “Somebody’s gone soft.”

Silas, who’s sitting on the edge of the table eating something he definitely stole from someone’s stash, nearly drops the pastry. “Holy shit. Did we just witness a romantic breakthrough? Should we light candles? Play soft music? Let Luna ruin you with kindness?”

“I will absolutely officiate your wedding,”

Elias adds, solemnly. “In a speedo. With doves. Possibly a smoke machine.”

“Try it,”

I growl without looking up, “and I’ll end you with a spoon.”

She smirks. Which is worse, somehow, because that smirk means she knows what she’s doing. She’s aware of the way the word fell out of my mouth like it belonged there. And the way I didn’t immediately take it back.

“I was just going to ask if you had another marker,”

she says, tilting her head. “But sure. Let’s talk about our love life.”

Silas howls.

“Please let her peg him,”

Elias whispers with reverence. “Let it be me who witnesses it.”

I swipe the knife down hard enough to nick the wood beneath the map. “Do either of you have a death wish or just a deep-seated need to be maimed creatively?”

Ambrose doesn’t even flinch. He just lifts a brow from where he lounges across a too-small chair like royalty bored at court. “Don’t look at me. I think it’s charming. And unwise.”

“You don’t get to talk about wise,”

I snap, stabbing the map again. “You’re out here playing domestic with Luna in flower fields and pretending you aren’t five seconds from collapsing into her like a starving man.”

“Jealous?”

he murmurs, without heat. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

And maybe I am jealous. Not of what he gets. Of what he allows himself.

The bond with Luna pulses in my chest like a bruise I press on, over and over again. I hate the way she makes me soft. I hate that softness means I’d tear the world down if she asked. And I really fucking hate how the room keeps spinning tighter around her, like gravity is choosing sides—and I’m losing the fight I swore I wouldn’t even enter.

“Marker’s in the drawer behind you,”

I tell her instead.

She stands, crosses to get it, and passes behind me on purpose. I know it’s on purpose because her fingers graze the back of my neck—barely a touch, just enough to set my whole body on fire.

I don’t flinch. I also don’t breathe for a full ten seconds.

“Thanks, love,”

she whispers, mocking me with my own word, before walking back to her chair.

Silas lets out a long, theatrical whistle. “If I die tonight, bury me with a tub of popcorn. I want to watch this trainwreck from the afterlife.”

I feel it—the heat crawling up my neck like betrayal made flesh. It licks up the side of my face, warm and bright and humiliating. My jaw locks. I’m already biting down so hard it’s a miracle my teeth haven’t cracked.

“Wait. Wait—holy shit.”

Silas wheezes from across the room, nearly sliding off the table in his absolute delight. “You’re blushing.”

“I’m not.”

My voice is flat. Absolute.

“You are,”

Elias hums, tossing a piece of folded paper into the air and catching it again, like this is a casual fucking Tuesday and not the unraveling of my last remaining nerve. “It’s adorable. ’s got a crush.”

“Say that again and I’ll shove that paper so far up your—”

“Oh my god, are you going to threaten us every time she looks at you and your dick does a little hop?”

Elias stretches, his voice dripping with theatrical boredom. “Because if so, we’re going to need to clear our entire schedule for the rest of eternity.”

Silas is choking on air now, fully convulsing, and Luna—Luna has the audacity to look pleased with herself. She’s not even pretending to hide it. Her eyes sparkle, fucking sparkle, and the corner of her mouth twitches like she’s trying not to smile, but failing spectacularly.

“Don’t,”

I growl, pointing a finger at her like she’s the chaos. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

she asks, all innocence. Like she doesn’t know the world is tilting, and she’s the gravity.

I turn back to the map. The red lines blur. I can’t focus with her voice curling around my spine and setting everything inside me on fire. This isn’t about strategy anymore. This isn’t about Lucien or Orin or Branwen’s latest power play. It’s about the way Luna says my name and makes it sound like a sin. It’s about the fact that no matter how much I push her, she never leaves. And gods, I wish she would.

“Alright, lovebirds,”

Ambrose drawls, cutting through the chaos with that cold, silk-threaded voice. “Let’s put our clothes back on and focus. Branwen still has our brothers. And the portal’s not opening again anytime soon.”

I clench my fists.

He’s right.

That portal’s been dead for days—like something on the other side knows we’re trying to get in. Lucien and Orin aren’t just missing. They’re being kept. And no amount of brute force is going to change that until we find the fulcrum she’s using to seal it.

“I say we blow the whole fucking Hollow up,”

I mutter, tracing a possible breach point with the knife again. “Start with the trees. Watch them burn.”

“You always want to burn things,”

Luna murmurs, and I don’t have to look up to know she’s still watching me.

“Because it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“But not everything that’s beautiful has to be reduced to ash,”

she adds softly, and I hate her for it.

Because now I’m thinking about the way her skin must have looked against the poppies under Ambrose’s hands. I’m thinking about the sound she makes when she laughs, when she breathes, when she feels. I’m thinking about what it would mean to let her touch me and not break apart.

So I throw the knife, and it lands in the center of the map with a thud.

“Next plan,”

I bark. “We need to find her anchor. Branwen can’t seal something that doesn’t want to stay sealed. If we find the thread she’s using to hold the portal shut, we cut it.”

Luna nods, but her gaze lingers.

And I feel it again—that fucking burn in my cheeks.

Silas howls from the corner.

“Okay, yeah. He’s definitely in love.”

Caspian’s voice is too steady for how fucked up the words are.

“Her anchor is Orin.”

The room quiets like it’s holding its breath, and even Silas—perpetual storm in a meat suit—leans forward, expression carved with something rare: focus. Real, heavy, not-a-joke focus.

“They’re holding the portal shut to keep us out,”

Caspian continues, like the words don’t cost him anything. “I’ve seen it. He devours to feed her portal inside the pillar. She’s got her own version now—an imitation of the original. It’s how she stays tethered. And if we break that pillar, that portal, she dies. But…”

He glances at Luna, and I hate how fucking soft his eyes get.

“…we can’t. Not with Orin holding it shut.”

I lean back, crossing my arms tight over my chest because if I don’t, I’ll break something. Or someone.

“Branwen doesn’t know?”

I ask. My voice scrapes like stone on steel.

Caspian shakes his head once. “She doesn’t. She thinks it’s her own strength holding it steady. But it’s him. Orin’s bracing it from the other side.”

“And why the fuck would he do that?”

The answer hits before he gives it.

“To keep Luna out.”

She flinches, just barely, and I see it—feel it like a gut punch inside the bond I keep pretending doesn’t matter.

Caspian looks at her, then all of us, jaw tight. “He’s scared. Scared that if she comes in after them, she won’t come back out. And he’d rather stay buried than risk her getting swallowed by Branwen’s hollow.”

The silence this time isn’t sharp. It’s sinking. Like the whole fucking room is being pulled under.

“And if Orin’s the one holding it shut…” I begin.

“There’s no way in,”

Caspian finishes.

Ambrose speaks finally, his voice low, amused despite the subject. “So we’re caught between a locked door and a sacrifice no one asked for.”

“Exactly,”

Caspian says. “And we can’t break it from here. We’d have to be inside to touch the pillar. But Orin’s standing between us and that world, and he’s not going to budge.”

Silas throws himself backward, flopping over the couch with a groan. “Gods, can we just send in Luna with a sexy note and a peace offering? Or maybe just her boobs? I feel like Orin would fold.”

“Silas.”

I grind out.

“What? It’s a valid strategy.”

Elias flicks a pen at his forehead. “You’re the reason we’re not allowed in diplomatic meetings anymore.”

“Diplomatic?”

Silas laughs. “We just found out one of our strongest is playing lock-and-key for a mad goddess and no one’s gotten punched yet. That’s very diplomatic.”

Luna’s been quiet, but her eyes flick back and forth like she’s calculating. Not panicking. Not emotional. She’s thinking. And that’s worse.

Because I know what she’s going to suggest before she says it.

“I have to talk to Orin,”

she murmurs.

“No,”

I snap, louder than I mean to. “Absolutely not.”

“We don’t have another way—”

“You think you’ll just walk through a portal held shut by Orin’s will, like he’s not doing it specifically to keep you out? You think he’ll listen if you ask him nicely?”

“If he sees me—”

“He’ll shove you back through with a smile and disappear. Again. Is that what you want?”

The room starts fracturing with all the things no one wants to say aloud. That maybe Orin is doing the right thing. That maybe none of us are ready to face what Branwen’s done to the others. That maybe, just maybe, she’s already won if we let doubt sink its teeth in too deep.

She looks like a fucking war priestess ready to bleed for it.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. The bond throbs like a bruise when I look at her too long. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be reckless, sure, but containable. She was never supposed to feel like this unmovable, unstoppable thing. She’s the fucking moon and the madness it causes, and now she wants to walk into the Hollow like she won’t get torn apart.

“I’ll find another way,”

she says, softer now. “I’m not going to just sit here while Orin and Lucien rot.”

“We don’t sit,”

Ambrose says, swirling his drink. “We plan. Strategize. Exploit.”

“I don’t exploit the people I love.”

That stops him. Barely.

But I catch the glance. The flicker.

She said love.

And no one—not even Ambrose—is immune to that kind of magic.

Ambrose

I knock on her door like it’s not a surrender. Like it’s not a last resort dressed up in calm. But my chest’s a loaded gun and every chime of my phone is the trigger twitching.

She opens the door in shorts that shouldn’t be legal, her hair messy like she just rolled out of someone’s bed—and I hate that my first thought is whose. Not because I care. Not because it stings. But because the pull is coiled too tight under my skin and it wants her claimed. Bound. Mine.

And that’s the problem.

I don’t say anything. Just shove the phone at her like it’s infected.

“Make it stop.”

She blinks at me, expression neutral. Not surprised. Not smug. Just watching me unravel.

“What stop?”

she asks, already glancing at the screen.

I shut the door behind me. Lock it.

“Keira,”

I grind out, quieter now. “She keeps messaging. I’ve tried everything.”

Her lips press together like she’s biting back a smile—or something sharper. “You’ve tried everything? Even the ‘block’ button?”

“I can’t block her,”

I snap. “She’s Council. It’d start a war.”

Luna doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t mock. Just nods and starts typing, fast, her thumbs flying over the screen with lethal grace. I watch her jaw tighten. Watch her inhale once through her nose. She’s angry on my behalf, and I don’t understand why that makes my chest ache worse.

Then my phone chimes.

Again.

Her hand flies to her mouth like she’s trying not to laugh. She turns the screen toward me.

And I freeze.

It’s Keira. Naked. Legs spread. One hand between them. The caption is worse than the image.

“Don’t forget what this feels like. We both know you still want it.”

“Fuck,”

I mutter, dragging a hand through my hair. “Fucking—fuck.”

“Wow,”

Luna says, wide-eyed, like she’s studying a rare predator in the wild. “She’s bold.”

“She’s desperate,”

I say. “She thinks I’m weakening. She knows I don’t want the bond, but she thinks if she keeps pushing, I’ll snap. That I’ll give in just to shut her up.”

Luna hums, handing the phone back like it’s a cursed object. “She’s not entirely wrong.”

That earns her a look.

“What?”

“You are here,”

she says, arms folding over her chest, hip cocked against the dresser. “You could’ve gone to Silas. Or Elias. Hell, even . But you came to me.”

I hate how right she is.

I hate that being near her makes my skin burn—but being far from her makes me feel like I’m not even wearing skin at all.

“I didn’t come here to talk about your ego,”

I mutter, pacing once like it’ll help. “I need this stopped. I need her out of my head. Out of my fucking phone. I can’t… I can’t—”

“Breathe?”

she offers gently.

I nod once. Just once. That’s all I can afford.

She steps closer, not cautiously, not like I’m dangerous—but like she is.

And she is.

She’s the only one I can’t touch without wanting to keep. The only one I can’t manipulate because she’s already inside me, curled around my pulse, woven into the dark.

“I’ll end this. You’ll owe me.”

she says, brushing past me, toward her desk.

“I always owe you,”

I say, and her eyes cut back to mine.

She smiles—but it’s not sweet. It’s not innocent. It’s lethal.

“Good,”

she whispers.

Because she knows what I owe her isn’t debt.

It’s surrender.

She doesn’t speak.

Not right away.

Just sets my phone down on the edge of the dresser with the kind of calm that should feel dangerous, and starts unbuttoning her shirt like we’re in the middle of some mundane chore—laundry, maybe, or organizing a bookshelf.

The first few buttons slip undone with a flick of her fingers, revealing soft skin, the faintest shadow of a black bra.

I watch her hands move, precise and unhurried, like she’s done this before.

Like this moment doesn’t belong to either of us—it’s something borrowed, transactional.

Except everything about her is a contradiction. And right now, she’s a beautiful one, and I can’t look away.

“Luna,”

I say, low and clipped, because I haven’t figured out what the hell she’s doing, and it’s easier to sound annoyed than affected. My voice doesn’t come out the way I want it to—it cracks halfway through, like a fault line opening beneath my ribs.

She doesn’t pause.

Doesn’t answer.

Just slips the shirt off her shoulders and lets it fall to the floor like it was never necessary.

Her boots follow, kicked off with that same effortless grace, and she’s standing there in nothing but denim and that barely-there bra I’ve seen maybe three times now but could redraw in my sleep.

She turns her head slightly, catching my stare in the mirror, and that look she gives me—it’s not flirtation.

It’s strategy. Precision. Wicked amusement disguised as casual intent.

“I’m fixing the Keira problem,”

she says simply, as if that clarifies anything at all.

My hand tightens around the phone she tossed me, like maybe I can squeeze some sense into the moment. “By stripping?”

“By winning,”

she counters, and unbuttons her jeans. “You want her to stop, right? She keeps messaging you, sending… things. You said it yourself—you can’t get her to quit.”

The jeans pool around her ankles and she steps out of them, bare legs cutting through the golden spill of light from the window. I want to say something else. I should say something else. But watching Luna in just that thin black bra and panties—watching her arch her back as she stretches—has effectively short-circuited my ability to reason.

“I’ll send her something better,”

Luna says, like she’s telling me tomorrow’s weather forecast. “Remind her what she lost.”

She picks up my phone again and tosses it to me. “You’re on camera duty.”

“You want me to… send her pictures of you?”

I ask, my voice flatter than I intend, because my blood is spiking and my cock is already hard and I’m pretending this is just a joke when it’s so clearly not.

Luna nods like this is obvious. “You and me. We’re a thing. It’s not complicated.”

“It’s not?”

I echo, stepping toward her before I can talk myself out of it.

She climbs onto the bed, moving on her knees with the kind of confidence that shouldn’t belong to someone so unbothered by her own power. She poses—barely—stretching her arms overhead, hair falling over one shoulder, mouth parted just enough to look dangerous. She knows exactly what she’s doing. And I should feel in control here. This is supposed to be my territory. But she’s dismantling me with a fucking glance.

“Well?”

she says, tilting her head. “Are you taking the picture or just planning on drooling?”

I lift the phone because it gives my hands something to do. I take a shot. Then another. My thumb keeps moving but my brain isn’t entirely present—it's spiraling between how much I want her and how little I’m supposed to.

Luna unclasp her bra, lets it slide down her arms. She tosses it somewhere I don’t care to look.

“Should I look smug?”

she asks, crawling toward me now, hips swaying, eyes locked on mine. “Or desperate?”

I grab her wrist before her fingers reach my belt.

“You’re playing with fire,”

I say, voice low, rough.

“Good,”

she breathes, and leans in. Her lips graze mine, soft and slow, and she whispers against them, “I burn hotter.”

Then she kisses me with the kind of certainty that should scare me. That does scare me. Because it’s not just lust between us anymore. Not just the deal. The trade. The shared, selfish agreement.

This kiss says more.

But I don’t pull away.

I don’t stop her.

Because this is the one place I lose my mind and love it.

And Luna? Luna doesn’t just burn.

She consumes.

She pulls back, laughing—quiet but sharp, biting like the edge of a secret. Her breath ghosts over my lips as she shakes her head, amusement bleeding through every movement, every word.

“You were supposed to take pictures,”

she says, tugging the phone from my hand like I’m the one who’s lost the plot. “Ambrose,”

she sighs dramatically, as if I’ve just failed at tying my own shoes, “we had a deal. I help you get rid of your ex. You don’t get sentimental.”

I want to tell her I wasn’t. That I’m not. But the words catch, curdle, calcify in the back of my throat.

She flips through the photos, critiquing them like a director reviewing footage—pausing to zoom in on one where her body is angled just enough to be tempting without being obvious, her mouth parted around a smirk that could sink nations. She clicks send without asking, and that’s what does it.

“You didn’t…”

I start, already knowing she did.

“I did,”

she says brightly. “Attached a little message too. Something about how I belong to you now. Or maybe it was how you belong to me. Either way, it was hot.”

She tosses the phone onto the bed like it weighs nothing. Like none of this matters. But I can feel it. The shift. The way my chest tightens, the way the pull toward her wraps tighter, digging into bone. This isn’t part of the deal, but I can’t tell where the line is anymore. I don't think she can either.

She stretches out on the mattress, propped on one elbow, watching me like she’s waiting for me to say something clever, cut through the strange gravity between us with one of those barbed lines I’m so good at. But I’ve got nothing. My head’s still full of her scent, her mouth, the smooth press of her skin against mine. The heat still lingers under my palms.

“Relax,”

she murmurs, voice velvet-laced with humor. “Just enjoy the win.”

I move toward the bed, slower now, like I’m approaching a dangerous animal I’m already half in love with. Her eyes never leave mine. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t tease.

“You keep making this harder,”

I say, finally.

She grins. “And yet here you are. Still coming back for more.”

I lower myself beside her. Not to touch. Not to claim. Just to be near—because I hate how much I crave her when I’m not. Because the moment I let myself feel it, it’ll own me.

She rolls onto her back, arms stretched overhead, the line of her body carved from something wicked and divine. Her laughter softens into a hum, some nameless song she probably doesn’t realize she’s making. Her eyes slip shut like she trusts me—like I’m not the threat I know I am.

And I watch her.

Not because I’m allowed to.

Not because I should.

But because I can’t stop.

And because in this moment, with her next to me, naked and unbothered, wrapped in power and promise—I finally feel something close to ruin.

And I want to keep falling. Even if it kills me.

“Why are you doing this for me?”

The words slip out before I can weigh them—before I can layer them in irony or lace them in detachment. They’re just… honest. Raw. And I hate how bare they sound.

Luna doesn't miss a beat. Her fingers are still scrolling through my messages like she's reading instructions on how to dismantle a bomb. “Why not?”

she says, glancing up at me with a raised brow, the kind that dares me to keep pretending I don’t need help. “Keira’s a bitch for pulling this. And I don’t like her messing with you.”

Something in her tone flattens at that last part. Not flirtation. Not pity. Just a line drawn in the dirt, like she’s already chosen sides—and it’s mine.

The phone in my pocket buzzes again. Then again. And again. I don’t even look. I just hand it to her like I’ve given up the right to respond. Like she’s the only one I trust not to make it worse.

She takes it with one hand, the other still resting against the bare stretch of my thigh from where we ended up on the bed. She’s not shy about the placement—like everything else with Luna, it’s intentional. Casual in a way that feels like control. She opens the message without blinking, eyes scanning whatever garbage Keira sent this time, and lets out a sharp exhale that sounds almost like a laugh.

“Gods,”

she mutters, fingers already flying over the screen. “She’s not even creative. Just recycled thirst traps and a filter from hell.”

I watch her type, thumbs moving with precision. No hesitation. She’s not asking permission—she’s already composing the takedown. And fuck, there’s something addictive about that. Not just the confidence. The audacity. She doesn’t just push into my space—she inhabits it like it’s always been hers.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re writing?”

I ask, careful to keep the edge in my voice, the control I’m always known for.

“Nope,”

she says, popping the P. “But it ends with a selfie of us. One where I’m very naked and very much yours.”

“I’m not yours,”

I say automatically.

She smirks without looking up. “Tell that to your phone. Or your hand. Or—”

she stops, cocks her head, “—your power. It’s been buzzing under your skin since I walked in. Don’t lie to me, Ambrose. It’s beneath you.”

That earns her a long, hard stare. One she doesn’t bother to meet because she’s too busy capturing another picture. This one she takes from above, her body curled against mine, the sheet barely covering her. I’m shirtless, not even posing, just… there. And it’s fucking dangerous, how right it looks. How easy it is to imagine this being real.

Not a deal.

Not sex as currency.

Just her and me.

“Don’t overthink it,”

she says softly, clicking send. “This is about Keira. Not you. Not us.”

The words hit harder than I expect, and I hate that they do. I reach out, grab her wrist, not hard—just enough to stop her from pulling away. “You really think this will work?”

She looks at me then. And for a second, there’s something there. Something like affection. But deeper. More dangerous. It passes just as quickly, buried beneath a shrug.

“She’ll get the message.”

The phone buzzes again. A beat. Two. Then nothing. Just silence.

Luna leans in, presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth like it’s punctuation. “You’re welcome.”

She pulls the sheet tighter around herself and slides off the bed, already walking away like none of this meant anything.

But I stay seated.

Still.

Burning.

Because I don’t know what pisses me off more—the fact that Keira finally stopped messaging…Or the fact that Luna did exactly what she promised. And somehow, that makes her more dangerous than anyone I’ve ever known.

I swipe through the photos with one hand and try to ignore the way my pulse has become a war drum in my throat. The screen glows with her—bare skin, parted lips, eyes half-lidded like she’s seconds from sin or salvation, and I’m not sure which one I’d rather have from her. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe I just want her undone.

And now she’s pulling on her fucking clothes.

The hem of her shirt slips over her ribs and I sit up straighter, breath sharp. I watch. Watch the muscles in her stomach flex as she drags the fabric over her head. The shadows between her thighs as she shimmies into her shorts. She moves with the same casual cruelty she uses in her voice. Like I’m not here. Like I’m not hard and burning and seconds from acting like I’m not supposed to care.

But I do.

And that’s the problem.

“You’re leaving?”

I ask, voice low, but not soft. Never soft. I’ve honed my tone into a weapon too many times to dull it now.

She looks at me over her shoulder, hair a mess from my hands. Her lips are flushed. She’s still marked from our last round—my grip on her hips, my teeth on her neck. A perfect mess. My mess.

“Wasn’t planning on staying for dinner,”

she says. “Unless you’re about to offer something worth sitting for.”

The smirk she throws me is almost enough to push me over the edge. I rise from the bed slowly, deliberately. Let her watch every movement. I’m not subtle about it. She made the rules. Sex on demand. No strings. No confusion. I’m holding her to it.

My fingers trail the edge of my phone before I toss it to the mattress. “What I want,”

I say as I close the distance between us, “is for you to stop dressing like we’re finished.”

She blinks once. Then again. Slowly. Deliberately. But she doesn’t move.

“So undress me.”

It’s not a challenge. It’s permission.

My hands are on her before the last syllable leaves her mouth. Her shirt is the first casualty—dragged over her head and discarded. My mouth finds her collarbone, the curve of her neck, that pulse that hammers against my lips when I graze her there. She’s always warm. Always responsive. She makes the kind of sounds that would ruin a lesser man, and I want them all tonight.

My hands trail down her back, her hips, gripping tight enough she gasps. Her shorts come next, peeled down slowly, like I’m savoring the meal I didn’t realize I’d been starving for. She steps out of them and into me, and for a second—just a second—she looks up like she’s waiting for something more.

I kiss her then. Hard. Greedy. Not because I need her to feel it. But because I need to feel something. And she’s the only thing that works anymore.

Her fingers dig into my shoulders, nails biting skin, and I smile against her mouth. The deal was clear. She’s mine when I want her.

And right now?

I want her.