Page 87 of The Villain

“Angel, I’d stay here all my life if you’d let me.” The words were out before I could stop them—temper them. I was getting ahead of myself. Letting myself feel too much for the woman who both knew me better than anyone and yet only knew a lie.

If I wasn’t careful, the truth would end up claiming two broken hearts instead of one.

And then, on the edge of sleep, with the woman of my dreams nestled in my arms as securely as her body held mine, I realized that hiding who I was wasn’t my worst untruth; believing I ever stopped loving her was the greatest lie I’d ever told.

Chapter Seventeen

Athena

Ipeeled my eyes open, and instantly, the world was on fire—no, not fire.Light.

I gasped and sat up, eager to let the light blind me because it waslight.And I could see it.

My eyes blinked rapidly to adjust, my surroundings coalescing into shapes and colors and shadows.

I could see.

A happy sob bubbled from my chest, and I scrambled out of bed and searched for the first piece of clothing I could find: Dare’s tee at the foot of my bed.

My bed.My rug. My house. My—Dare.My nipples pebbled against the loose fabric that draped down to my thighs, the whole of me awash with memories from last night that were just as bright as the sun.

The heat of his mouth. The orbit of his attention. The size of his body.

I was both sore and empty. Sore from the first…and the following three times he’d claimed me last, his body already inside me, hard, when he’d begin to move. Sliding in and out, arousing me from sleep.

My aching muscles clenched, recalling the thickness of him and the magical—possibly miraculous—way his piercings stroked that elusive spot inside me, flinging me so quickly, so forcefully over the edge of release I could hardly catch my breath.

Especially the last time, when he’d filled me from behind. That time, he’d thrust into a spot that was too pleasurable to be anything but a fantasy, the way it made me come not once but twice on his cock. My orgasms stacking in a matter of strokes that seemed to turn my bones and body into a melted mess of release.

But still, he’d stayed inside me. Slept inside me. And now, I needed to see the man who’d claimed me in a way I hadn’t expected or thought possible.

The man who’d saved my life.The man who’d changed my life.

I was going to finally see the scar I’d felt a hundred times with my fingertips. The lips that explored every inch of my skin like it was the finest porcelain. The arms that held me when it felt like I couldn’t hold myself. And him—the whole of the man who’d punished himself for years—locked himself away in darkness until he’d found me in mine. And we became each other’s light.

The clank of silverware echoed from the kitchen as I opened the bedroom door.

More light burned images into my brain, and my eyes glazed with tears.

Dare.

The thud of my heartbeat overpowered my footsteps; my steady steps belied how my heart raced to reach him.Somehow,this approaching moment felt even more intimate than the whole of last night. The last hidden piece of him would be exposed.

His low hum reached my ears first, my other senses were still heightened while my vision remembered how to work.

I rounded the corner and stopped short.

He filled my small kitchen. The sight of him. The scent of him. The sound of him. My skin broke out in a rush of warm ache. He filled my home the way he’d filled me. Completely. Utterly.Irrevocably.

Silently, I watched the muscles of his tanned, bare back move as he sliced a bagel in two. Smaller scars dotted his skin like constellations of courage and sacrifice. My gaze lowered to the waist of his dark jeans and then darted back up to his neck and then the dark waves of his hair, the ends curled like they still held the shape of my fingers in their inky strands.

“Dare.” My voice was half whisper, half rasp, and I found myself reaching for the wall for a different kind of support.

His big body stilled, and my breath caught and held like a fish on the end of a line, waiting as he turned slowly and reeled the oxygen out of me.

Thick, strong arms, the tanned skin printed with tattoos of crests and numbers I’d ask about later.

The sharp profile of his nose and cheek.

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