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I can’t help myself. I should keep the wall up between us, for both his sake and mine.
But fucking hell, I can’t.
So I lean forward and press my lips to his.
6
Ciro
When Grace’s lips touch mine, my body jerks back, flinching away from the touch on instinct.
Ever since I was captured, all touch has been unwelcome.
My fight-or-flight instinct exists on steroids now, on a hair-trigger and out of my control.
My heart protests, urging me to pull her closer. It pounds an insistent drumbeat in my chest, and I wish I was fucking normal like Hale or Zaid or Lucas.
Grace stiffens too, freezing in place when she feels my response. “I’m sorry,” she mutters, clearing her throat.
My jaw clenches so tightly it aches. My hands ball into fists, blunt fingernails digging into my palms. I hate the men who tortured me more than I ever have in this moment. They can have my fucking past, but I hate them for stealing my present. My future.
I’m fucked up. Broken.
I managed to step into the shower with her when she broke down the night Brian tried to kill her. In that moment, nothing mattered more than soothing Grace—not even my demons.
But now? My body is locked up, my muscles frozen and stiff as they battle the instinct to push her away or run. If she were causing me pain, I might not even notice the proximity. It’s the gentleness that fucking kills me. I don’t know how to handle it.
Grace doesn’t pull away from me, though. She waits, lingering next to me. Her breath brushes against my lips; gentle exhales tease the darkness inside of me, making it panic. My demons don’t want to die, they don’t want to be captured by the light, so they put up a bigger fight, trying to force her away.
Threat. She’s a threat. Threat.
People aren’t easy for me anymore, not that they ever were. I don’t know how to deal with them, and I don’t think they know how to deal with me. But not Grace. She somehow manages to slip between the cracks in my armor, breaking through the barriers around my heart not with violence but with patience.
I don’t know how fucking long we stay like this, frozen in place with our lips almost touching. When I think about it, my heart kicks in my chest, panic swelling inside me like a tidal wave.
So I stop thinking about it. I ignore the discomfort burning through my veins like stinging acid and focus on one of my favorite things in the world—Grace’s scent. It’s an alluring mix of jasmine and sandalwood. As addictive as a drug, sweet and complex. Just like her.
I binge on her scent, drawing in huge lungfuls of it. And with every breath I draw, my body relaxes a little.
Maybe she senses the change in me, because she finally leans forward again, taking my lips with hers, kissing me with a tenderness that threatens to break me. It’s not a passionate kiss so much as it is a comforting one—for both of us.
Threat.
I fight the thoughts creeping up my spine that make me want to push her away, the darkness that tries to force her away from me. With Grace, maybe it can be different. It doesn’t have to be the same as it’s been for the past few years.
With Grace, I want more. I want to be better.
She’s soft, impossibly soft. So soft it makes my chest ache. Her gentle lips and her smooth skin, the palms of her hands and the tips of her fingers are almost too much for me, too good and pure for me.
Threat.
Something simmers beneath her kiss as she deepens it, and my cock twitches. My hands want to explore her body, touch, taste, feel, but they stay fisted on my thighs. I don’t know what to do, and the panic of that realization makes me lock up again.
Threat. Get away. Threat.
I tear my lips away from hers, swallowing. My heart races inside my chest, and I fight to catch my breath, ashamed of my own weakness, my own faults.
Fuck. I was content with being broken until Grace showed up. It was all I could remember, all I knew. The person I was before I was captured was so far away, an entirely different man. I didn’t even know what it meant to go back to being that person, didn’t even want to try. I’ve grown numb to everything around me, my days blending into each other and passing quickly.
