She didn’t move.
“Tell me to let you go.”
Her fingers fisted in my shirt.
“Neve—”
“Don’t,” she breathed, desperate.“Don’t go.”
That was all it took.I crushed my mouth to hers, hungry, furious, relieved, like I’d been starving for the taste of her and somehow had known she’d be the only thing that could break me open.
She gasped, and I caught it with my lips.She leaned in, and I held her tighter.She trembled, and I steadied her.Because I was done pretending I could stand in a room and act like she wasn’t already under my skin.
I wasn’t gentle or polite.It was a collision—two storms meeting in the center and deciding to burn the world down together.
And for the first time since the day I’d found her bruised and terrified in that club, I felt alive.
37
Neve
Atlas kissed me like he’d been holding his breath for years.
His mouth was rough, hungry, desperate in a way that made my knees give out.I grabbed at his shoulders — anywhere and everywhere — because I needed him to keep me upright, to keep the world from spinning apart under my feet.
He groaned into my mouth.The sound was low, broken, almost painful.I felt it in my bones.
His hands slid over my hips, my waist, up my spine like he was learning me by touch alone.Every brush of his fingers sent sparks crawling under my skin.I didn’t think.I didn’t breathe.I just melted into him, because nothing had ever felt this heavy and this necessary.
He pulled back just enough to look at me.His chest rose hard.His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the storm in his eyes.
“Neve…” His voice was wrecked.“If I don’t stop now, I won’t be able to.”
My answer was instinct, breathless and unguarded.“I don’t want you to stop.”
Something snapped in him.
His grip tightened on my thighs, and before I could gasp, he lifted me — smooth and effortless — and my legs wrapped around his waist like they belonged there.My arms locked around his shoulders, holding on as he carried me through the hall.
His mouth returned to mine, messy and urgent, like he couldn’t decide where to kiss me first.My jaw, my throat, the corner of my lips — every place he touched felt claimed.
The door to his room bumped open against his foot.He didn’t set me down.He pressed me against the wall instead, his forehead against mine, breathing me in like he was starving.
“Do you want me to slow down,” he rasped, his voice hoarse, shaking with restraint he was seconds from losing.
I shook my head.
A tremor ran through him, raw and uncontrolled.
“Neve…” His fingers dug into my waist.“…what are you doing to me?”
I pulled him closer, my lips brushing his ear.“I want you.”
A sound ripped from his chest — something feral and quiet, like a man coming undone.
His mouth crashed into mine again, deeper this time, more desperate, and I felt everything.He kissed me like the world was ending and I was the last thing he was allowed to touch before the dark took him.
He set me to the ground and walked me back until my knees hit the edge of the bed, and he finally lowered me onto it — slowly, reverently, like he was handling something fragile he had no business wanting as badly as he did.