Page 174 of Fractured Devotion
His eyes flicker open, meeting mine, dark and wrecked. “You’d use my body for answers?”
“I’d use anything,” I whisper, my voice dark and low, thick with unspoken accusations. My fingers glide along the curve of his throat, lingering just long enough to feel his pulse quicken beneath my touch.
“Tell me,” I murmur, my gaze locked on his, watching every flicker of hesitation. I tilt my head, letting the weight of my words settle between us, heavy and sharp.
“Were you planted in my life?” My tone is soft, but it cuts deep. “Just like they did with my mother?”
I hold his gaze, unflinching, my expression unreadable.
His breath hitches, his body tensing beneath me as he registers the question. There’s a pause, the smallest shift inhis features, but I see it. His lips part, but no words come immediately, only a shallow, shaky exhale.
“Answer me,” I press, my voice soft but lethal, my nails dragging lightly along his chest, coaxing out every suppressed reaction.
His chest rises unevenly, and when he finally speaks, his voice is rough and touched with reluctant honesty. “Celeste…” he breathes, his voice hoarse, the confession dragging from him like it costs him something. “I was planted, yes. I was meant to watch you, guide you, and report on you. That was my role from the beginning. But from the first moment I saw you, I was already hooked. Obsessed even. You got under my skin in ways no one ever has. And about your mother… I swear, I don’t know what they did to her. I never knew. I was only ever sent for you.”
His eyes flicker, guilt darkening them, and his breath stutters as he watches my face for a reaction he knows might never come.
The confession lingers, thick as smoke.
But it isn’t enough.
Not yet.
I sit there, unmoving, still filled with him, his confession burning in the space between us.
His body is a wreck beneath mine—spent, bound, and trembling from the edge of pain and something deeper.
But I don’t move.
“You’re only ever sent for me,” I repeat, tasting the words like poison on my tongue.
His eyes are clouded but clear enough for me to see his regret. Or maybe that’s another mask. With him, it always is.
“What were you supposed to do, exactly?” I ask, my voice calm and almost gentle but laced with a threat he can feel in the way I squeeze around him.
He shudders, unable to hide the full-body jolt it takes him.
“Monitor you. Influence you. Gain your trust,” he admits breathlessly, his voice edged with a hollow laugh. “But they never expected this. They didn’t expect me to lose control. They didn’t expect me to need you.”
I lean down, my lips grazing his, soft and dangerous. “You think that’s going to save you?” I ask, tilting my hips just enough to make him gasp.
“No,” he croaks, his voice ragged. “But it’s the truth.”
I study him, every flicker of his expression, and every twitch of his restrained body.
He looks raw. Broken open.
And still, there’s something in his eyes. Defiance? Or devotion?
“Did they order you to seduce me?” My question is sharp, slicing between us.
His breath catches, his body tensing beneath me. “No,” he says, his voice low. “That was me. All me.”
The honesty in those words cuts deeper than I expect.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then I shift again, pulling a hiss from him.
