Page 47 of While He Breathes

“I hope it was okay that I was in your office. The rest of the penthouse echoes a bit, and I didn’t want to wake you after you came to bed late.” My voice sounds uncertain, and I hate it.

What happened to the woman who was set on her revenge plot? Where the hell did she go?

She remembered how it felt to be safe.

The thought hits me in the chest, stealing the breath from my lungs. The truth in the admission makes it hard to remember why I ever left.

Obviously, I know he killed my brother, and I don’t think I’ll ever truly be able to forget that.

But he also showed me what it was like to not feel afraid for once in my life.

Orion gave me a sanctuary I never knew I needed, and being back with him is like breathing for the first time in months.

He chuckles, pressing a kiss to my temple as he carries me into the kitchen and perches me on the edge of the bench. “You can go wherever you want, Ember. I could have found you snooping through my computer or rummaging through the paperwork in there, and I wouldn’t have blinked. This is your home.”

Home.

God, that word.

I’ve been thinking about it so much recently.

I thought Las Vegas would become my home. But it never felt quite right.

The apartment I shared with my brother came close, but it was probably more so the familiarity than the space itself.

The one I moved into when he died felt cold and lifeless, just like my heart.

Even this penthouse doesn’t feel like home in a way that you read about in books or see on TV.

No, the place that feels like home isn’t a house at all.

It’s a person.

It’s Orion.

And I hate myself for admitting that. For feeling it all.

His dark eyes move over my face, and his features turn down into a frown. “Ember? Are you okay?”

I press my eyes closed, but I can’t shake off the self-hatred that rains down on me like acid. How can I even consider the idea of forgiving him when he tookeverythingfrom me?

“Little Flame?” he prompts.

My eyes open of their own volition, and I find his entire body looming over mine in a comforting gesture, like he’s guarding me from the rest of the world, and it’s just the two of us.

This is why my body aches for him.

Because Orion might be the devil outside these walls, but with me, he’s gentle. He takes my feelings into account, and he constantly puts me first.

Everything he does is to keep me safe and happy, and even though he killed Travis, everything else he’s done has been with me at the forefront of his mind.

How can I discount that?

“I’m okay,” I whisper.

He looks like he’s about to push, but instead, presses a sweet kiss to my forehead before stepping back to look at the contents of the fridge. “What do you want for breakfast? I can make you pancakes. Or bacon and eggs. Or there’s probably some oatmeal around here somewhere.”

“Do you have Cap’n Crunch?”