Page 94 of Lucian

“I am.”

“Why, isn’t this a good thing? I mean, it should be.”

“Sure it is. Except I didn’t get to do a thing to him that I wanted to. I didn’t get to make him bleed for marking your face, or break his bones for him breaking your skin. He didn’t have to hurt or cry or beg … nothing. I feel like it was left hanging. That was too easy for him, Jordyn. It was nothing like what I would have done to him for what he did to you.”

Jordyn felt the shiver crawling up her spine from Lucian’s anger and darkness. Occasionally, the treacherous nature of his soul flashed harsh and bright, reminding her that beneath his sweet and gentle hands was a dangerous man. She loved it as much as she worried about it.

“Sometimes revenge leaves us nowhere but cold, Lucian.”

He bared his teeth, sneering. “No, I think it would have left me sky-high.”

“It’s just hard to believe,” Jordyn said softly, melting into Lucian’s warm palm as he moved to stroke her cheek. “After everything, that’s how it ends for me and him. I’m never going to know what I did to make that man hate me, or why I deserved his bitterness and abuse.”

“Maybe it wasn’t what you did,” Lucian offered, shrugging, “… but what someone else wouldn’t give him.”

“My mom, you mean.”

“That’s the first place I’d start looking.”

“I think he loved her once,” Jordyn murmured. “She didn’t love him.”

“Bad men made monsters, sweetheart.”

Jordyn sniffed away emotions. They felt useless now. “I guess I just don’t understand the mindset.”

“I think it’s likely he went after the next best thing to hurt her. The closest thing he could stand tossing out his cruelty to, and unfortunately, that happened to be you.”

“Is that what you would do, too, if you couldn’t have what you loved?” she asked.

Lucian blew out a harsh breath. “No. I’d eat my gun before I would ever hurt someone I loved, especially you.”

“It seems too easy, and I don’t know where to go from here. What do I do now?”

“With me?”

“Who else would I do it with?” Jordyn asked, giving him a look. “Yes, with you.”

“We live.”

Jordyn’s lips cracked with a smile that matched Lucian’s, but it faded all too quickly. “Except someone shot up your Lexus this morning hoping you’d be inside.”

Without saying a thing, Lucian urged her up to a sitting position on the couch. Kneeling between her knees, he traced the contours of her cheeks and lips with his thumbs softly. As his digit rolled over her plump bottom lip again, Jordyn kissed it.

“I was hoping you hadn’t put that together, yet,” Lucian said.

“Of course I did.”

“You’re anything but stupid, I know. I suppose asking you to trust us and let us handle it without you worrying is pointless, right?”

Jordyn shrugged weakly. “I love you, Lucian. I can’t just ignore it.”

“Being who I am, I’m always on some kind of a block, Jordyn. We all are.”

“But it is always so blatant?” she shot right back.

“No,” he admitted low. “Nothing is going to happen.”

Jordyn wanted to believe him more than anything. “If you’d been in the car—”