Icy dread skated down my spine. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...” His vibrant sapphire gaze met mine. “I’m in pain, and I want that pain to go away.”

Flickering images of the monster he’d been in Euphoria came and went. His pupils had been snake slits then. His handsome face fanged and scaled.

He’d been invincible.

And I had absolutely no doubt he’d won against Drake. He’d faced his brother in a realm of his own making and he’d come out an only child.

I didn’t need him to confirm that he was the victor. I felt it. I felt it in the peace he held and also the emptiness. I saw it in his eyes—the acceptance of finally ending a lifelong feud and the hollow aftermath.

He might’ve been a hellion within that nightmare, but now...now he was just a man.

A man I was desperately in love with, and one I couldn’t help because I didn’t have the skills necessary to heal him.

I stroked his cheek, forcing myself to touch him and feel his realness.

He’s alive.

And he’ll stay that way.

You’ll see.

His eyes snapped closed, his entire body quaking at my touch. “I’m sorry.” His cock hung heavy and thick between his legs, swelling rapidly with need. “I’m sorry that he took you. That he hurt you. That I was almost too late—”

“Stop.” I kissed him softly. “No apologies. It’s over. It’s just us now.”

He trembled, a husky groan falling from his lips. “I must’ve done something right amongst all the shit I did wrong...to have deserved you...just for a little while.”

My heart forgot how to beat. “You have me forever, not just for a little while.”

He didn’t reply.

His large, strong hand cupped my breast. His gaze locked on my nipple as if awed he had permission to touch me. The sinew of his fingers. The pronounced veins roping his impressive forearm. Such masculine attributes did their best to convince me that Sully was undefeatable, all while he spoke as if he’d lost.

His touch dropped from my breast over the curve of my waist to the swell of my hip. His eyes devoured my nakedness, the blue of his pupils flashing as if he took photograph after photograph of my nudity, creating a collage of memories...as if he might never see me this way again.

His intensity made me shiver, but I made no move to cover up. His cock kept hardening, a proud mast with desire glistening at the tip.

No clothes were required.

No lies.

No embellishments.

It was everything he didn’t say that made me cry and every way he touched me that made me moan.

His cashmere suits and silken ties had deceived me into thinking he was more than just human. Yet his stripped back viciousness and vulnerability made him otherworldly. The severity of his stare. The graveness of his voice and the grimness of his touch made everything between us lethal to my heart.

“I love you, Sully.” I snuggled into him, smashing the tension and hugging him close. “I love you with everything that I am.”

His arms snapped around me. Shackles and sonnets. Chains and confessions. He squeezed me as if I could become a part of him. He shuddered as I hugged him back, inhaling his scent, imprinting him, not just on my heart, but on my forever.

The hum that never failed to spark between us struck a smouldering match. Our linked souls sank deeper into their connection. We were joined, knotted and tangled.

For always.

“Sully...” I kissed the shell of his ear, struggling to breathe because he held me so tight. “Whatever you’re afraid of...tell me.”

He quivered in my embrace, a tumbling growl echoing in his chest. “I’m not afraid.”

“Then why—”

“I’m grateful. So fucking grateful that I found you.”

“I’m grateful too. I’m so thankful that you survived, and that you came, and that we can go home now, and—”

He kissed me, deeply, thoroughly.

The flat of his tongue massaged mine. His teeth scraped my bottom lip. His lust swept down my throat with a different taste of before. It wasn’t just lust he kissed with...it was sharper than that, scarier than that.

It’s goodbye.

Ripping away from him, I struggled in his arms. “What’s going on?” Narrowing my gaze at the painkillers still clenched in his fist, I added, “If you’re in such pain, let me get help. Let me—”

“I hope you can forgive me...one day.”

“Forgive you? Why would I have to forgive you?”

He cupped my breast again, pinching my nipple and activating the faded thirst of elixir. My thoughts scattered; my worry evaporated.

“I need you, Eleanor.” His grunt set fire to the liquid between my legs, ensuring I needed him just as much. No, I need him more. I needed him because he was scaring me, because he was hiding something.

He wasn’t allowed to do that.

There was no space for fibs or fakery.

Not after everything we’d fought to overcome.

“Sully...please, tell me what you’re hiding. How do I fix this?”

“By letting me have you.” His mouth once again claimed mine. Swift kisses and violent hunger. Snatching me from the bed, he dragged me from the blanket and onto his lap.

He groaned, and I moaned as our skin slid against each other, his chilly from sitting with no protection and mine toasty from the blanket. His erection nudged my belly as he gathered me close and spread my legs, wedging them on either side of him.

He kissed me harder, all while the pings and bouncing chaos of pills as they fell to the floor became background noise. Both his hands swept through my hair, cradling the back of my head as he deepened our kiss.

He kissed me until my mind swam and my heart curtsied, and I was a melted, molten puddle in his lap.

He grunted as I rocked my hips, the natural need to mate overshadowing the skill of conversation. The heat of his stitched thigh pressed against my ass, and I froze. “I’m sorry.”

He gritted his teeth as I tried to slip off his lap. “Don’t.”

“But I’m hurting you.”

“You’ll hurt me more if you deny me.” Grabbing my thighs, he spread them wider. Running his powerful hands down my legs, he locked them into position behind him, linking my ankles together as if binding us together. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“But you’re hurt—”

His mouth plundered mine.

His hands grabbed fistfuls of my hair, and he kissed me as if he’d been kissing me his whole life. Savage and smooth, sinful and sensual. His tongue licked me and made love to me and fucked me with every debased, divine way possible.

I met his invasion with my own tongue, lapping at him, dancing, knotting everything that we were.

The chill coating his skin vanished, leaving his body unbearably hot. I held onto his shoulders and let him kiss me. Sweat broke through his pores as another grunt of sheer agony rumbled in his chest.

I tried to pull away, to get off him and go for help, but he wrapped his arms around me, keeping me prisoner, ignoring my denial.

Our mouths slipped free as he buried his face into my cleavage, panting hard, steam almost rising from him in a mix of pain and need. “Let me have you, Eleanor. I’m begging you.”

His hands spasms around me. Another low growl of discomfort made me mad. “But I’m hurting you—”