Page 135 of Untamed

The broken man who killed for me and would do it again without hesitation.

And the man I’m still not sure I can walk away from.

My feet move before my mind can catch up.

Until I’m standing so close I can feel the heat rolling off his skin, can see the dried blood at the edge of his bandage, can taste the war between us hanging in the air like black smoke.

He doesn’t move.

Not toward me.

Not away.

And maybe that’s what undoes me most, his stillness. Like he’s already mentally prepared to lose me.

I lift my hand. It trembles as it touches his jaw. Rough stubble scrapes my fingertips. He closes his eyes like the contact hurts more than the bullet that carved his shoulder open.

And then I kiss him.

God, I hate myself for it, but I kiss him.

It’s not soft. It’s not clean. It’s messy and tear-streaked and trembling. My lips crash into his with the burden of everything I can’t say, and he kisses me back like I’m the only tether keeping him from falling apart.

Our mouths collide, desperate, aching. His hands stay fisted at his sides, like he’s afraid to touch me. Like if he does, he’ll ruin this too.

I pull away first, breath ragged against his lips.

“I hate that I still want you.” The confession shreds something inside me.

Because it’s the truth, because no matter what he’s done, no matter who he is, I still feel the pieces of me gravitating toward him like he’s the centre of something I never stood a chance against.

And Ares just stands there, unmoving, unreadable, but I see it. That flicker. The fracture beneath the surface that he’s trying so hard to keep hidden.

His gaze searches mine, dark and ruined.

Then he speaks quietly. “You shouldn’t,” he says. “You should turn, walk out of that door and never look back. Get as far away from here as you possibly can.”

The back of my eyes sting with a fresh batch of tears when he reaches up and brushes his thumb along my jaw. “You think I don’t lie awake at night hating that the only thing I want, the only goddamn thing that makes me feel human, is the one thing I was never meant to have?”

His eyes burn into mine. “I’m in the middle of a war, and every second that you spend with me puts you in danger. You already have a target on your back, and if anything happens to you because of me...” he trails off, his eyes narrowing, and he shakes his head as if the thought alone haunts him.

“I always told you I was dangerous, Jordyn.” A quivering breath escapes me. “But I never told you how much or what I am capable of doing if someone so much as looks at you the wrong way.”

I close my eyes, lean into the stroke of his thumb like it’s the only thing keeping me standing, even as every word out of his mouth slices deeper into the fragile organ beating behind my ribs.

I know what he’s doing, he’s trying to scare me.

To protect me. To push me so far away that I won’t look back.

But he doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t see that I already burned that bridge the moment I chose to stay this morning. The moment I kissed him with salt still on my tongue and grief still strangling my chest.

My lip trembles, but I don’t speak. I just breathe him in, danger, sweat, blood and something soft that only exists when I’m close enough to see the fracture in his mask.

“I know what you are,” I whisper, eyes still shut. “Deep down, I’ve always known.” I feel his hand stiffen against my jaw. “But it’s not the monster I’m afraid of, Ares.”

I open my eyes, look straight into his, and feel the crack form in my voice as I finish, “It’s what you make me feel, even after everything you’ve done.”

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