Her breath broke.
He kissed higher.
She whispered his name—not frantic, not pleading, but in awe.
He kissed again.
And again.
Her legs trembled; her hands tightened in his hair; her body pressed toward him with a helpless urgency that made his chest ache with something dangerously close to adoration.
He did not rush.
He savoured.
Her fingers tightened, her breath quickened, her body swayed as though every nerve was alight.
“Elias—”
Her voice faltered, caught between disbelief and need.
He lifted her gently, guiding her carefully back onto the bed, his mouth never quite leaving her skin.
She lay against the pillows, flushed, dazed, luminous.
He rose just enough to look at her—to truly see her.
“Celine,” he whispered, voice shaking with reverence and hunger, “I want to give you everything. But only what you want.”
She reached for him—no hesitation—pulling him down to her with a tenderness that left him breathless.
“I want this,” she said. “I want you. All of you. Just—this. Tonight. Please.”
He kissed her—soft, slow, full of things neither of them had been ready to say aloud.
And the rest of the night unfolded in shadows and whispers, in touches that were tender and hungry at once, in breaths shared and boundaries dissolved—not yet consummation, but something intimate enough to change them forever.
A beginning.
Not quite everything.
But no longer waiting.
And in the stillness before dawn, with Celine asleep in his arms and the locked doors forgotten entirely, Elias understood something simple and devastating:
There would be no going back.
Not now.
Not ever.
Chapter Nineteen
Celine woke gradually—to warmth, to quiet, to the unmistakable sensation of being held.
Elias lay beside her, one arm beneath her pillow, the other curved firmly around her waist as though he had no intention of letting her drift even an inch away.
Morning light slipped through the curtains, softening the angles of his face, catching in his tousled hair.
