Page 202 of Untamed

Because if she does, if she starts looking over her shoulder the wayIdo, I’ve already failed her.

I rub a hand down my face, the muscles in my temple twitching as the adrenaline starts to give way to something colder. Something older.

This isn’t about intimidation.

It was areminder, that no matter how careful I think I am, no matter how many walls I build around her… they’re still watching. And the next time they try to get close,ifthey try again, I won’t just send a warning back.

I’ll send them home in fucking pieces.

There’s a warmth pressed against my side. It’s soft and bare and very familiar. The kind of warmth I never expected to deserve. The kind that doesn’t come from a bottle or a bullet, but from skin and breath and something dangerously close to peace.

For a moment, I think I’m still dreaming. The air is still, the bed sheets tangled low around our bodies, and she’s pressed close enough that I can feel the steady rise and fall of her chest against my ribs. A soft sigh escapes her lips, brushing against my skin like silk.

Then I feel it. The whisper of a kiss against my shoulder. Light, barely there.

Then another...slightly lower, a little slower. Her lips linger this time, a breath longer, like she’s testing the edges of sleep. Testingme.

I keep still. Eyes closed. Letting her believe I’m still sleeping. Letting myselffeelit without breaking the spell.

She keeps going, one kiss after another, tracing the curve of my shoulder blade, the base of my neck. Her lips follow the long, pale scar that cuts through my skin. The one no one touches.

Except her.

Her fingers lightly ghost over it, like she’s not afraid of what it means. Like it tells her something about me that no one else has ever bothered to learn.

Not what I’ve done.

Butwhat I’ve survived.

Her mouth finds my skin again, this time with a little more pressure. Like she’s learning me, but in pieces.

I should open my eyes. Should say something.

But I don’t. I just let her have this. Let her map my body like it’s something worth knowing.

Then I hear her voice, quiet, amused.

“You’re not actually sleeping, are you?”

A corner of my mouth twitches. I open my eyes slowly, the light filtering through the curtains casting a golden glow across herface. She’s lying beside me on her side, one arm tucked under her head, the other lazily tracing circles across my chest.

Her hair’s a wild mess over her shoulder. Her lips are still slightly parted from kissing me. And her eyes… they’re watching me like I’m something rare. Like I’m not a man built from ruin.

“You always watch people like that?” I murmur, my voice low, roughened by sleep and her touch.

“Only the dangerous ones,” she says, smirking.

God, she’s trouble.

I reach for her without thinking, hand sliding behind her neck as I pull her closer, until she’s half draped over me. Her thigh slips over mine, her skin melts into mine. And it hits me how fucking easy it is to forget the rest of the world exists with her like this.

Skin to skin. Breath to breath.

“You keep kissing me like that, bambina,” I murmur into her hair, “and I’ll cancel my whole fucking day.”

She laughs softly and unbothered.

“Mm, tempting,” she says, voice muffled against my neck.

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