“Bad habit.” His hand comes up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing across my lower lip. “One we’re going to break.”
I should push him away. Should remind him of the task ahead of us, of Jade waiting in a cage, of all the reasons this is a terrible idea. Instead, I lie still beneath him, pulse racing as his thumb traces circles on my skin.
“I took your family’s money to leave,” I remind him, trying to drive a wedge into what’s happening between us. Again. “I left without saying goodbye.”
“I’m aware.” Ezra’s expression doesn’t change. “I’ve had a year to think about what you did.” His fingers tighten on my jaw, not painful but possessive. “A year to decide what I’d do when I found you.”
Heat spirals through me, a mixture of fear and anticipation that heads south, to where our hips align. “And what did you decide?”
He leans closer, his breath warm on my lips. “That I’d never let you go again.”
The declaration should send me scrambling for the safety of distance and disguise. Instead, a tension eases inside me that I didn’t realize was there until it let go.
When his mouth claims mine, he meets no resistance. I open to him, hands rising to trace the new contours of his shoulders, the solid strength he built in my year of absence. His tongue curls around mine, relearning the geography of my mouth as he rocks our hips together.
“Ezra,” I moan between kisses, his name both warning and invitation.
He pulls back far enough to look at me, a slight curve to his lips. “Ren.”
My name in his mouth still sounds like a spell, a binding. His hand slides between us, finding me hard and wanting.
“Are you going to tell me to stop?” he asks, fingers wrapping around my length with devastating effect.
I should, for all the reasons I left a year ago. For all the complications waiting for us beyond this bedroom. For the sake of self-preservation and sanity.
But I find I don’t want to. Not yet. Not when his touch is the only solid thing in a world built on shifting sand.
Instead, I pull him closer, surrender disguised as decision, defeat masquerading as choice.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper, and victory darkens his features as he leans down to kiss me.
Sweat cools on our skin as we lie tangled together, my head resting on Ezra’s chest, fingers tracing the new lines of ink.
This time when we came together, it was slower, deliberate, our bodies remembering rather than discovering. No mirror to force me to bear witness to my undoing, just his eyes on mine, his hands steady and sure, retracing a map he’d memorized long ago.
Though my heartbeat slows, the heat between us refuses to die. His arm curves around my shoulders, keeping me anchored to his side, as if I might evaporate if he doesn’t maintain some physical contact.
He might be right.
“When did you get these?” My fingertip follows the curve of a baroque frame that encircles his left pectoral. The tattoo is a masterpiece of shading to create the illusion of depth, with gold accents that catch the light when he moves.
“Three months after you left.” His touch moves up to the unmarred skin of my nape. “I needed a distraction from the search.”
My finger pauses, guilt flaring hot and immediate. I restart its path along the ornate edges, moving to where the frame appears to crack and splinter near his collarbone. “They’re beautiful.”
“They should be. I paid a fortune for them.”
Guilt prickles beneath my skin. While I was running, hiding, reinventing myself, he was turning his body into a canvas for his pain.
My touch moves to his shoulder, where Latin words curl in elegant script. “Pulchritudo in fractis.”
“Beauty in the broken.” His fingers find my hair, playing with the strands. “Appropriate, don’t you think?”
I don’t answer, focusing instead on a fragment of statuary that extends from his ribs toward his hip, a classical female form, face obscured, the marble cracked and aging. The detail is extraordinary, each chisel mark of the original sculpture captured in ink.
“Who did these?” I ask with professional admiration.
“A woman in Vienna. She only works on five clients a year.” His chest rises and falls beneath my cheek. “She said my skin told a story she wanted to help write.”
