“Then I don’t care,” I murmured against her lips. “Salvageable or not, I want you. Every broken and jagged piece of you.”
Her fingers curled in my hair, and she dragged my lips to hers, hungry, starving. She crawled into my lap, her breasts wet against my chest as she pivoted her hips against my cock. Even in the water, she was wet for me, and I needed to be inside her. I didn’t care if it was wrong anymore. I wanted to be inside her every second that I could until all my seconds were gone.
I hoisted her up into my arms, and she wrapped her legs around my waist as I set her on the edge of the pool and rubbed the head of my cock against her.
“Lucian,” she pleaded.
Nothing had ever sounded as sweet as her voice begging for me. Wanting me. I plunged inside her, and she dug her fingers into my back. We were wet and sloppy and disjointed when we came together, but none of it mattered. We raced toward that invisible line, desperate to throw ourselves off the cliff.
I needed to bury myself inside her and fill her with a part of me that I hoped would stay there forever, embedded in her DNA and chaining us together long after I ceased to exist on this earth.
“Fuck me like you’ll never let me go,” she whispered in my ear.
My chest contracted, and I buried my face in her neck, so she couldn’t see the lies in my eyes.
I fucked her like I’d never let her go.
“HAVE YOU ENJOYED YOUR TIMEhere?” Lucian asked sleepily.
We were lazing on the hammock strung between two trees outside our villa in Nice, the final stop on our trip. I couldn’t ever remember feeling so relaxed, and trying to downplay what Lucian had gifted me would be a crime.
“I’ve loved every minute of it.”
Over the past two weeks, we’d been to places I only ever dreamed about seeing. We’d rode the gondolas in Venice, eaten cannoli for breakfast, and gotten lost in the maze of canals as we tried to find Saint Mark’s Basilica.
In Paris, we strolled hand in hand down the Champs-Élysées, eating croissants and watching the sun set over the Eiffel Tower. I saw the Mona Lisa, walked beneath the Arc de Triomphe, and kissed Lucian at the top of the Ferris wheel.
It had been a dream, one day blending into the next as we napped, and ate, and made love like the world was coming to an end. They were the best days of my life, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him so.
When I looked at him now, his eyes heavy and satisfied, his body warm against mine, he looked more at peace than I’d ever seen him. Maybe it was because he knew I could have cut and run the moment he told me he never intended to turn me in, but I didn’t. I was still here with him, and it was the elephant in the room that neither of us wanted to address.
After everything, it felt like we had the makings for a successful marriage. Even though we hated almost everybody else, we liked each other, and that said a lot. We matched, and I didn’t think I’d ever match with anybody.
But Lucian never talked about the future. He never gave me hope that this could be anything more than two years. And as he’d reminded me multiple times, he was a man of his word.
The thought of this disappearing—slipping from my grasp like dust in the wind—was so depressing I couldn’t bear to think about it. Not when we were like this. I needed to hold onto him just a little bit longer. I needed to believe that, for once, something good could really happen in my life.
Lucian threaded his fingers through mine and gave me a soft, leisurely kiss before he rested his head against my chest. His eyes traced over the still fading ink of the bold statement he’d inscribed on my hip with permanent marker, and something dark seemed to shadow his features.
“We should enjoy this,” he said quietly. “When the trial starts, these moments will be few and far between.”
I nodded against him, already mourning the loss of his presence in a way that ached so profoundly, I couldn’t speak.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
IBREEZED OUT THE FRONTdoors of the learning center and skipped down the stairs, my backpack swinging loose from one shoulder.
“Gypsy.”
I paused and looked up to find that Luna was waiting for me at the bottom, carrying two coffees in her hands.
“Peace offering?” She gave me a soft smile as she approached, extending one of the cups.
“What’s in it?” I raised an eyebrow. “A little arsenic? Another spiritual experience for me?”
She looked wounded, and I felt like an asshole, so I took the cup.
“I probably deserved that,” she said.