Page 47 of Sins of the Father
He’d washed the blood from his hands. Carlos had rinsed the graze on his arm with rum and stitched it. Mia had hovered, pale and trembling, searching her phone for first-aid instructions, scolding him for his recklessness while pressing a towel to his wound. Her care was clumsy and earnest; it warmed him more than anything else could.
He remembered her terror-filled eyes in the parking lot—how she had watched him kill without hesitation. She had seen the monster and still came home to press a wet cloth to his skin. He wanted her to know every part of him: the lover who could make her tremble, the leader who commanded fear, the monster who could end a life without blinking. That was their world. The illusion of safety existed because men like him would do what others could not.
He’d heard her sobbing in the shower later; the sound had twisted something deep inside him. Luc’s gaze drifted to her sleeping form. Slowly—inevitably—she would change. She wouldlearn to see violence without flinching. That was survival. And yet he did not want her to harden. He did not want her light to dim or her laughter to vanish.
He liked her like this—soft, unguarded, funny, and even a bit naïve.
Her lashes fluttered. She blinked awake, a small smile curving her mouth. “You’re watching me,” she murmured, voice thick with sleep.
He leaned closer, voice low and rough. “A favourite pastime.”
“Stalker,” she muttered, then chuckled.
Her laugh was quiet, and it punched through him. Without thinking, he reached for her; his palm skimmed the curve of her throat, his thumb finding the steady beat of her pulse. So fragile. So alive. He knew, with cold clarity, that had he been a second slower, she could have died. The thought seared him; something recoiled, then hardened.
Rage rose at the idea that anyone might take her from him—fury that she had made him care so much that such a weakness could exist. If she ever died, the world would burn.
He shifted, pulling the sheet from her hip and tracing the line of her thigh. His pulse matched hers with each slow breath she took. If losing her made his chest clench like a fist, what would he become if, at the end of the year, she insisted on leaving? The image forming in his mind was ugly and precise—not an accident, not a stray bullet, but a choice he might make himself rather than let others take her. The chilling clarity of that thought showed how thoroughly she had moved inside him; how dangerous his tenderness could turn.
He told himself he would find another way. He told himself he would bind her to him—give her a life so full she would never want to go. That way, she would live.
“Luc…” she said, wide eyes staring at his face. “What are you thinking about? You look…”
He kissed her before she could speak—hard, possessive, his tongue claiming her sigh. She arched beneath him, soft heat meeting his strength, and something inside him came unbound. His hand slid into her hair, tugging her head back to expose her neck. He tasted her skin—salt, warmth, sweetness. It was intoxicating.
She gasped his name again. Mia’s fingers fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them. He rolled her beneath him, bracing his weight on one arm while the other roamed her body, memorizing every curve, every tremor. Her breath hitched. She met his gaze, eyes dark and trusting. That trust hit him like a sledgehammer.
He wanted to own it. To destroy it. To protect it. All at once.
He took her mouth again, punishing and desperate, until her hands slid over his skin, trembling beneath him. When she moaned his name, the sound tore through him like heat and hunger. He moved over her slowly, deliberately, widening her legs with his knee. He reached between them and ripped the panties at the crotch, baring her pussy to him.
“You make something inside me weak,” he admitted, the words ripped from a place he didn’t know existed. “And I don’t know if I hate you for it… or need you because of it.”
He pressed the head of his cock against her entrance. For a heartbeat, he stayed there, savoring the frantic pulse of her body begging for him. Then he drove into her, a single, brutal thrust that buried him to the hilt. A raw, guttural groan tore from his chest. Fuck. She was a scorching, silken vise, so tight he saw stars.
“Luc.” His name was a shattered gasp on her lips, her fingers clawing into his shoulders like he was her only anchor in a storm.
Luc captured her mouth again, but this wasn’t the frantic clash from before. A deep, languid kiss—a deliberatecounterpoint to the savage rhythm of his hips. He fucked her with a relentless, driving pace, each slam a promise of pleasure. Luc groaned when he felt the first fluttering tremors deep inside her core.
“That’s it,” he muttered against her lips, voice thick. “Show me that you like it rough and can take a good fucking.”
Mia gasped. Her body seized, a sharp, beautiful cry escaping her as she convulsed, her tightness milking his cock with exquisite pressure. The sight of her coming undone shattered the last of Luc’s control. With a groan, he hitched her legs over his shoulders, driving into her one last time, deeper than he ever had, spilling inside her as he swallowed her whimpers with a soft kiss.
Luc shifted, untangling their limbs before scooping her into his arms and carrying her into the shower. Heated water cascaded over them, hot and relentless, and he held her close, kissing her deeply, his cock still deep inside her. Pressing her against the glass, he moved with slow, deliberate hunger, drowning in her scent, her sighs, the fragile warmth that softened the brutal edges of his world. Every touch, every breath, blurred into something raw and consuming until the only sounds left were her whispering his name and the ocean wind rattling against the windows.
Luc had been trained to be merciless—to cut ties before they could ever be used against him. He had spent his life learning not to need, not to feel. Yet here he was, bound to her by something he couldn’t name. Luc loved her for a long time beneath the fading warmth of the shower, their bodies still slick and entwined. Then, with surprising gentleness, he reached for a towel and dried her hair, then her skin, before tending to his own. Without a word, he carried her back to bed, drew the sheets over them, and pulled her into his arms. Her breathing softened against his chest, and before long, he followed her into sleep.
She was supposed to be the one who fell in love. If this fierce protectiveness, this gnawing need to claim and shelter her, was love, then he was already lost. Somehow, she had slipped through every defense, turning his control into something raw and volatile.
Mia landedhard on the mat, the breath punching out of her lungs. She groaned, rolling onto her side—and this time, she didn’t stay down. She moved with instinct, pivoting under his flank, hooking her foot around his calf, and using his momentum to bring him down. Before he could recover, she twisted his elbow, pinning him with surprising strength.
“Good,” he said, voice low, eyes gleaming with approval.
For a fleeting second, Mia realized she could break his wrist if she pressed just a little harder. The knowledge thrilled her. She released him and sprang to her feet, grinning, brushing sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
It had been seven weeks since the night at the cinema. Seven weeks of training that had changed her body and sharpened her mind. The morning after he killed those men, Luc had taken her to a room she hadn’t even known existed, hidden behind multiple coded doors that required his handprint and voice to access. Inside had been an arsenal—guns, knives, weapons gleaming beneath cold lights. For several moments, she had only stared, speechless, as he told her that in his world, weakness, hesitation, and being unprepared could get her killed.
“Learn, or prepare to die,” he had said.
