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“And I’ll renounce it for you,” he shouts. “In a motherfucking heartbeat. What’s the use if I lose you? Just say the word and I’ll tell Cristo to find someone else, but don’t you dare deny what’s between us anymore.”
He swipes my legs open, moves between them, and traps me underneath him. With one hand on my throat, he has me pinned like a butterfly on a mount.
“Listen carefully ’cause I’m done playing games. If you’d died back there, I would’ve died along with you. I didn’t realize how empty my life was until I let you in, and I’m not going back there—to that obsessive black hole where the only thing that mattered was success. You were right when you accused me of having an empty life.”
What he’s offering is almost too scary to believe. In his arms, I feel the security I’d felt my entire life before Tatum left. And when he left, he stripped me of everything. Could I risk it with another man? Lucian, of all people?
Lucian is a lot of bad things—bully and killer at the top of the list—but a liar isn’t one of them. If he says he’ll give up his position and leave his clan and family for me, then he will. This is no simple sacrifice.
No, this is the ultimate sacrifice.
“I can’t make you leave the people you care for.”
His grip tightened around me for a moment, his face stormy with frustration. “You’re not making me do anything. If you want to leave, I’ll renounce it all, but the one thing I won’t fucking do is give you up.”
“You can’t mean it,” I say, staring down at the drops of dried blood marring his white shirt. I pick at it, trying to scrape it off without success.
He releases me and gently flips me so that I’m on top of him. My hands slam down and clutch his shoulders as I straddle him.
“I’m dead serious, Star. I’ve tried to show you in a hundred different ways how I’ve changed since my fuckup in the cafeteria, but you refuse to see it.” He stares me dead in the eyes and says it again, “I fucking love you, and one day, you’ll admit to yourself that you love me, too.”
I crush his shirt in my fists, screw my eyes shut, and cry out in frustration, “I do love you.”
I hear a deep exhale and then a relieved, “Thank fuck. Finally.”
I snap my eyes open.
“Come here,” he cajoles.
I’m straddling his thick thighs. He bends his knees, pushing me up until I slide onto his jean-clad cock. I feel him harden beneath my rapidly heating core. I swivel my hips a little because really, how can I help myself?
He lifts his hand and gently nudges a strand of hair off my cheek and then thinks better of it and rubs it between his fingers. “So fucking fair. For someone with such dark eyes, I never understood how you ended up with fine light hair.”
It’s a bit of a shock to hear him wax poetic about my hair. He’s never shown himself to be a romantic. Far from it. Yet, he’s seriously wondered about the color of my hair?
“Idolove you,” I admit. “But Cristo isn’t going to let you go.”
“You’re right that we probably can’t slip away tonight with a war on the horizon. Their first assumption would be that we’d been killed by the Bratva. We’re safer here until the worst of it is over, anyway.”
I recognize the expression on his face. Focused and determined. His brain ticking away making new plans to replace the lifelong plans he’s just abandoned.
“Meanwhile, we can at least get you into a college in the city. Move near campus. Get you protection to take you to and from classes. I have years of practice waiting for my projects to come to fruition. If after the danger is over you still want to leave, then we’ll make it happen.”
“You assume I’ll get into one of the schools here. It’s not that easy.”
His eyes light up and his lips morph into his signature smirk. It’s a cocky expression I’m quite familiar with.
“You’ll get in,” he replies confidently. He shrugs a shoulder. “Who knows, I might audit a class with you.”
I rolled my hips in a figure-eight and moan, “That has to be one of the sexiest things you’ve ever said to me.”
His lids get heavy with desire. “So you agree to this? We stay until we can leave.”
“It’s a good compromise. I can still be close enough to watch over my mother. She was the main holdup in my plans.”
“We’ll find her help,” he adds.
My breath catches. “You really think so?”
