Page 31 of Bound

Afraid.

His fear is colder than anger. It moves through the room without sound, slipping under my skin, tightening every place his hands have ever been.

The door shuts. I feel it in my stomach. One soft sound.

This world opens from the inside. And I have to choose it.

I turn to face him. His eyes move over me. Slow, dark, and possessive in a way that should make me run and instead keeps me here.

“I’m trying not to put you over my shoulder and lock you in this room until Carlos is dead.”

My throat tightens. “That would be kidnapping.”

“Yes.”

“Romance continues to bloom,” I say.

His jaw flexes.

“Lucian.” I don’t want to see it again. I see it anyway.

The elevator. The dress. The key fob. The girl I was, walking into Lucian Bachman’s apartment with cheap courage and a lie tucked in her palm.

His voice drops. “You stepped away from me tonight because you thought I saw you differently.”

He is too good at knowing me, at cutting through every layer of pride and finding the small, shaking thing underneath.

I wrap my arms around myself, hating the defensive movement and unable to stop it. “Maybe you should see me differently.”

“Careful.”

“Why? Because you don’t like the truth?” My voice shakes, but I keep going because if I stop, I may fold. “I came with something meant to destroy you.”

“You were desperate,” he says. “I took advantage of that. I wanted to. That was part of who I was.”

“Part of Isobel, too.”

“Do not compare the two of you.” His voice is hard. “She left me in the fire.”

The words tear out of me. “What if I was the match that started the fire in the Village?”

There it is.

The ugly thought I have not been able to swallow since the file opened.

Lucian goes utterly still.

I press a hand to my chest, fingers digging into my own skin as if I can hold myself together from the outside.

“Carlos opened the door. The Morettis pushed me through. But I walked, Lucian. I walked into your life and⁠—”

Lucian crosses the room before I can breathe. His hand closes around the back of my neck.

Enough to stop me from retreating inside myself.

“Red,” he says.

My pulse jumps. “What?”