Page 100 of Desperate Crimes
“But if you need to hear it—if that’s what it takes to make you feel safe with me—then I’m asking you to stay. To be all in with me. And to teach me, Leanna Fury.” His voice splinters with something unsteady—something real. “Give me time to learn how to say it right.”
The name punches through me like a brand.
Leanna Fury.
I’m already his.
Married.
Wifed up.
God, I’m so his. My body, my heart, my breath all belong to him.
But I need to know I’m not just some pretty thing he caught and caged. Not just an obsession that’ll burn itself out.
I need to know I’m wanted—not just possessed.
“I want to be your choice, Nico,” I say, voice barely steady. “Not just your compulsion. I want to be enough.”
“You are,” he growls, dragging me into him, his hands cupping my neck with reverent violence. “You’ve always been enough. Since day one.”
His lips crash into mine, and the world tilts again—fire and longing and a thousand unspoken things slamming into me like a storm surge.
When he pulls back, I’m gasping, dizzy with him.
“But Nico, my parents?—”
He lifts a brow, smirking like sin itself. “We tell them together. This weekend.”
“At Daddy’s birthday?” My eyebrows lift toward my hairline.
“Why not?” he shrugs, cocky and unrepentant. “A new son-in-law is one hell of a present, Princess.”
“You’re insane.”
“You’re married to me.”
I laugh, watery and stunned, and then immediately groan. “Nico, he’s going to kill you.”
“Do you love me?” he asks suddenly, gaze burning into mine.
It’s too much. Too soon. Too perfect.
But I’ve already given him my body. My name. My damn soul.
What do I have left to lose?
“Yes,” I whisper.
His eyes darken. “How long?”
I hesitate.
Then, I let the truth spill out, soft and ragged.
“Since I was a kid.”
He exhales as if I’ve just handed him the fucking universe.
