Page 180 of The Sin Binder's Vow

Except I would. I already do.

And that’s the real problem. Because Luna doesn’t need me to fuck her. That’s not what this is. That’s not what it’s ever been. She could have any of them—shedoeshave them—and yet she came to me. Again. After the last time. After the shower and the tears and the silence that stretched like a noose between us.

She looked at me and saw someone worth offering herself to.

And I don’t know how to carry that.

I pace, slow, measured. The floor is cool against my bare feet, the magic running beneath Daemon House humming faintly, responding to movement like it remembers who we were before we became prisoners of this place. I don’t need to ask what she wants—because she didn’t offer the bargain to get something from me.

She offered it so I’d stop tearing myself apart trying to pretend I’m not broken.

She offered it togive.Without condition. Without boundaries.

And I don’t know how to take without calculating what it costs.

That’s what terrifies me most.

Because when I’m with her, I forget Keira. I forget the betrayal, the fault lines, the rot beneath the memories I once thought golden. Luna replaces them. Quietly. Steadily. She doesn't demand attention—shepullsit. Like a tide. Like a gravity I didn't account for. And when I touch her, it's not lust that pulses through me. It’s relief.

And that’s dangerous.

Because I don’t want to make her cry again.

I don’t want to be the reason she curls in on herself in the shower, trembling like she’s unraveling.

But I also don’t know if I can be the man who touches her without using her as a way to forget.

She said the bargain stood for as long as I needed it to. She said it like sheknewI’d come back. Like she was offering me the one thing I’ve never been given—time.

And now I’m standing in this room, sleepless and hollowed, wondering if I’ll take it.

Wondering if I should go to her door, demand clarification, draw new terms like that will make this feel less intimate. Less like a line I can’t uncross.

Because I’m not sure what scares me more.

That I’ll use her.

Or that I’ll start needing her too much to stop.

I scrub a hand through my hair, slower this time, fingers dragging against my scalp like friction might force the clarity I haven’t been able to summon since she said those damn words.The bargain still stands.It shouldn’t have mattered. Shouldn’t have followed me into the silence of my own room and taken up residence in the space behind my eyes like it owns the lease.

But it has.

And now I’m standing here, staring at my own door like it’s some barrier between logic and impulse. Logic says stay put. She offered, yes, but she’s not waiting. She’s probably asleep. Probably wrapped up in sheets I shouldn’t be imagining. Probably not still thinking about what she said—what she meant—like I am.

But logic doesn’t always win.

Especially when I can feel the pulse of her power in the bones of the house. Especially when I remember the way her voice dipped when she said it, low and calm and dangerous, like shemeant every syllable. Not a trap. Not bait. A gift. One I don’t understand.

And gods—Ihatenot understanding.

What if she is awake?

What if she’s lying in her bed, eyes open in the dark, waiting for me to come ask the question we both know I’m not brave enough to say out loud?

Why me?

Not Elias, with his chaos and charm. Not Silas, who makes her laugh like it breaks things inside her. Not even Riven, who would destroy the world before he let it touch her. But me. The one who walked away. The one who treated her like a commodity—offered her a contract of pleasure and pain and then left her bleeding in the aftermath.

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