Page 147 of Watch Me Burn
“You broke my heart, Damien.” The words shred my throat on the way up.
“I know, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.” His free hand comes up to cup my cheek. His thumb moves across my skin in slow strokes. “But if you give me another chance, I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you that your heart is the most sacred thing in my life. Even more than your body.”
His mouth quirks. That damn smirk trying to break through. Heat blooms in my core.
Unbidden. Unwanted. Undeniable.
“Your priorities are showing, Mr. Wolfe.”
“Can you blame me? Have you seen yourself?”
The ease between us returns, as natural as breathing. My heart still aches, but the edges of the pain soften.
I study his face for a long moment, then step back. Distance. I need distance to think. My chest feels too tight, my thoughts too loud. I need room to breathe.
“I can’t walk away from you.” My throat tightens. “I love you, Damien, despite everything. I think I have from the first moment you touched me.”
Relief floods his features, so powerful I can see it in the way his entire body seems to exhale.
“But I don’t know if I can be what you want. If I can accept all of this.”
He takes my face in both hands. “You don’t have to decide everything right now. But I need you to understand one thing, Luna.” His eyes sweep across my face before finally locking with mine. “I love you. And I won’t let you go. Not now, not ever. I’ve claimed you, and you’ve claimed me in return. Whether you realize it or not.”
I hate that my body responds to the possessiveness in his voice, even as my mind rebels. “That’s not your decision to make, Damien. Love isn’t possession.”
“Isn’t it?” His thumb traces over my lower lip, and I can’t stop the tremor that runs through me. “Tell me you don’t feel this connection between us. Tell me you don’t wake in the night, reaching for me, wishing I was there with you. Tell me you haven’t thought about me every minute since that first moment I touched you.”
Damn him!
His arms encircle me, pulling me against him, and my breath hitches at the feel of his body against me. I bury my face in his chest and let out an exhale.
“I want to trust you, Damien. I want to believe that you love me.” I pull back just far enough to see his face, searching for truth in his eyes. “But I need to understand something.”
“Anything.”
“If you love me the way you claim, how could you lie to me for so long?”
He goes quiet. His gaze drops, lifts, and drops again. “Because I’m selfish. I wanted more time with you before you had to make this choice. I was terrified that knowing the truth meant losing you, and that was unbearable.”
“So you took my choice away.”
“Yes. And I was wrong.”
I search his face for any hint of deception. All I find is honesty bleeding through his features, regret carved into the lines around his eyes.
“Then no more lies. No more masks. If we do this, if we try to make whatever this is between us work, I need the truth, Damien. Always. Whether you think I can handle it or not.”
His eyes go dark, intensity radiating from them in a way that steals my breath. “I will never lie to you again.”
The ferocity in his voice, the way his gaze locks onto mine like an oath—I believe him.
Maybe I’m a fool. Maybe I’m signing up for more heartbreak. But as he lifts me into his arms and carries me from his room of rescued souls, I know I’m crossing another line I can’t uncross.
The darkness I’ve kept contained for so long has found its mirror in him. And God help me, I’m done fighting it. I’m choosing him, choosing us, with everything I am.
Chapter thirty-eight
Luna
