Page 202 of The Contract

Not pushing.

Not demanding.

Instead, he moves carefully, like I’m something fragile. Breakable.

And fuck him—because I am.

Slowly, deliberately, he closes the distance between us, step by agonizing step, giving me every opportunity to run.

I don’t.

I should.

But my feet don’t move. My body betrays me, rooted in place, my lungs barely pulling in air as he stops just close enough that I can feel his heat.

Not touching. Not yet.

Just waiting.

“You don’t have to say anything.” His voice is quiet, raw, aching with emotion. “You don’t have to forgive me right now. You don’t even have to decide anything tonight.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, my fingers curling into fists, my nails digging into my palms as my entire world tilts beneath me.

“But I need you to know something,” he murmurs, his voice so soft, so reverent, like a confession he’s never said aloud before.

I can’t look at him.

I can’t.

Because if I do, I will break.

I will fucking shatter.

“The first time I saw you,” he breathes, “you weren’t even looking at me.”

A ragged inhale rips through me, my chest burning.

“You were standing at the hostess stand in Ember & Ash,” he continues, his voice dipping into something low, something devastatingly intimate.

My lips part, my breath hitching, my stomach twisting itself into knots.

“And I swear to God, Elena,” his voice breaks, and when I finally force myself to lift my eyes to his, what I see in them—the wrecked, unguarded emotion written all over his face—destroys me.

“I knew right then—right fucking then—that if you weren’t in my world, nothing I built in it would ever mean a goddamn thing.”

The last piece of my resistance shatters into dust.

A choked sob breaks free, my hands shaking, my chest splitting open, and before I can fall?—

Damien catches me.

His arms wrap around me, pulling me flush against him, and I don’t fight it.

I let go. I let go of it all.

And he’s right there to hold me together.

Elena breaks apart in my arms, and I hold her like my fucking life depends on it.

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