“Why are you suddenly treating me like I mean nothing to you?”

Liam had spent days convincing himself that keeping his distance was the only way to protect her. But standing before her now, faced with the hurt his silence had caused, he could no longer pretend he hadn't heard the question beneath her words.

He held her gaze for a moment before opening his bedroom door and stepping aside to let her enter. Elena searched his face as she passed him, but whatever she was looking for, he couldn't bring himself to say it yet. He followed her inside and closed the door behind them.

But she had asked him a direct question. And he had agreed to answer her honestly.

There were things he couldn't tell her. The dangers closing in around them, the questions he still couldn't answer, the reasons he'd begun to doubt everything he thought he understood. Some truths were too dangerous to share, and others weren't his to reveal. He couldn't give her those answers, no matter how much he wanted to.

But that wasn't what she'd asked him. She wanted to know why he'd pushed her away, why he'd begun treating her as though she meant nothing to him. And he owed her the truth about that, even if it was the one truth he'd spent days trying to hide.

Because you mean too much to me.

The truth sat heavily in his chest, tangled with everything he couldn't tell her. He couldn't explain the dangers closing in around them or the reasons he had begun to question everything he thought he understood. Those weren't secrets he had the right to share.

But his feelings were his own. And he had promised her the truth.

Because the closer you get to me, the more there is to lose. Because I can't bear the thought of you paying the price for being the person I love.

He looked at her, at the hurt beneath her anger, and knew he couldn't keep hiding behind silence without making her believe the very thing he wanted to deny.

“You mean more to me than I'd ever let anyone see, Elena. I haven't stopped wanting you since that day after the alley, and I haven't stopped caring about you since. I've been trying to convince myself that if I keep you at a distance, I can keep you safe.”

His voice dropped, the last words rougher than the rest.

“But I know what it looks like to you. I know I've made you feel like everything between us meant nothing.” He held her gaze, unable to soften the truth or take back the hurt he'd caused. “And that's the last thing I want you to believe.”

Liam's jaw tightened. Even now, with the truth finally spoken, part of him wished he could take it back—not because it wasn't true, but because Elena deserved better than what he could offer her. She deserved a life where loving someone didn't make her vulnerable, where she didn't have to wonder what dangers waited around the next corner or what secrets the man beside her was keeping.

He had spent his life becoming someone others feared, making difficult decisions without hesitation and accepting their consequences without regret. But Elena had become the one person he couldn't bear to see caught in the path of those decisions.

“You deserve better than this, Elena,” he said, his voice tight with frustration. “Better than being pulled into my world, better than having to wonder what I'm hiding or whether loving me is going to cost you something.” He held her gaze, the words growing harder to say. “You deserve better than me.”

“Liar,” Elena said, catching him off guard, forcing his gaze back to hers. The fury and frustration inside her were suddenly gone. Her eyes were clear and soft.

For a moment, Liam couldn't find an answer. He still believed everything he'd told her. His world was dangerous; the people moving against him wouldn't hesitate to use her if they discovered what she meant to him, and he couldn't promise that keeping her close wouldn't put her in harm's way.

But he was beginning to understand that pushing her away wasn't the same as protecting her. It only meant deciding for her, leaving her to believe she'd imagined everything between them. He couldn't make the danger disappear by denying what he felt, and he couldn't keep asking her to trust him while refusing to trust her in return.

He still wanted to protect her. That hadn't changed. What had changed was his understanding that protecting her didn't give him the right to decide what she could risk or whom she could love.

She moved first. One step, then another, closing the space he'd spent days trying to widen, and her hand came up between them — and for half a second his body read it wrong, the way it read every sudden movement wrong, and something in his shoulders braced for the strike.

Her palm landed soft against his jaw instead. Warm. She held it there, her thumb at the corner of his mouth, and the heat of her hand went through him like water finding a crack in a wall. The corridor noise drained out. Raphael's face went quiet. The voltage hum, the ledger, the too-clean evidence, the whole grinding machinery in his skull — it all loosened under her hand and left him standing there with nothing to hold up.

He didn't move. He didn't dare. Her eyes were on his, no anger left in them, and he understood with a dull, awful clarity that he had been braced for her to hate him and had no defense at all against this.

Then she rose onto her toes, stretching up until her mouth found his, and kissed him.

It was not a question, and it was not a truce. It was her deciding, in the middle of everything he'd said to push her away, to come closer anyway. He stood frozen through the first beat of it — and then his hand came up to the back of her neck, fingers sliding into her hair, and he kissed her back like a man who had been holding his breath for three days and had finally been told he could stop.

He broke the kiss only to breathe, his forehead against hers, her breath warm and fast on his mouth. Then his hands found her waist, and he lifted her — one arm under her thighs, the other flat against her back — and she made a small sound against his neck as her feet left the floor. Three strides to the bed. He set her down on the edge of the mattress and stood over her, chest heaving, and for one second the whole room held still around the shape of her on his sheets.

Then she reached for his belt, and he let her. Let her pull the leather through the loops, let her work the button, and when her fingers brushed the hard line of him through his shorts, she stopped, eyes lifting to his face — not asking permission. Confirming. He answered by shoving the trousers down his hips and stepping out of them, and her hands came up to his shirt, unbuttoning it and pushing it off his shoulders, palms flat on his chest like she wanted to feel the whole of him at once. He caught her wrists, gently, and pressed her back into the mattress.

He dragged her sweater over her head and let it fall somewhere behind him. Her bra took longer. His thumbs worked at the clasp while his mouth found the hollow of her throat, his teeth grazing the tendon there until she arched against him, her nails digging into his shoulders. Once the cups came loose, he pulled them down and took her breast into his mouth, his tongue moving slowly over one nipple, then the other. She breathed his name—Liam—in a voice he'd heard only a handful of times before.

His hand slid down her stomach and beneath the waistband of her jeans. He found her already soaked through the cotton. Pressing two fingers against her, he felt her hips jerk into his palm and groaned against her breast.

He eased her jeans open and dragged the zipper down, pulling them off her legs with one hand while the other kept her hip pinned to the mattress. Her panties came with them, a scrap of dark cotton he dropped to the floor without a second glance. Then he straightened beside the bed and looked at her.

All of her.

She lay sprawled across his sheets, bare skin illuminated by the lamp behind him, brown hair fanned wildly across the pillow. Her chest rose and fell with each breath, one knee bent as though she'd started to draw herself closed before changing her mind. In the dim room, the light traced a long, golden line down her body—from her throat and collarbone over the curve of her breast and the flat of her stomach, to the dark triangle between her thighs.

He'd seen her before. He'd had her before. But never like this.

"Look at you," he murmured, his voice dropping lower than he'd intended.

She shifted beneath his gaze, her hips moving almost imperceptibly as a flush spread across her chest. Liam caught the reaction. He'd been catching them all night.

It wasn't only the way her body responded when his voice sharpened or settled into a command. It was what happened afterward—the brief pause, the way her attention fixed on him, as if some part of her were waiting to hear what he wanted from her next. She could challenge him when she wanted to; he knew that well enough. But when he gave her an instruction, something in her seemed to quiet, even as the tension in her body betrayed just how deeply his words affected her.

"Eyes on me, Elena," he said softly.

Her gaze returned to his almost before he'd finished speaking. No challenge, no sharp retort. Just that brief stillness, as though she'd been waiting for him to tell her what to do.

There it was again.

Liam felt the realization settle into place. She liked being commanded—not because she couldn't make her own choices, but because, with him, she wanted the freedom to stop making them for a while. To let him take the lead and trust him to know what came next.

He wanted to know how far that trust went.

"Arms up," he said, holding her gaze. "Above your head."

She did it. Both wrists crossed loosely above her, no hesitation, and the flush went deeper. He stood there a second longer than he needed to, letting her hold the position, letting her feel the air move over her bare arms and the weight of being looked at. Then he turned to a hidden drawer under the bed.

The cuffs lay beside his other toys, a black leather coil next to lubricant and an unopened box of condoms. He lifted them, letting the padded bands and short steel chain unroll in his hand, along with the strap that fastened to the headboard. Good leather, softened with use.

Elena's breath changed when she saw them. Not a gasp. A catch and a quickening, her whole body going taut and then deliberately loose, like she was trying to hide how much she wanted it and failing at every joint. Her thighs pressed together and slid apart again. He saw it. He saw all of it.

"Do you trust me?" he asked, the cuffs resting in his palm.

"Yes."

His gaze held hers.

He sat on the edge of the bed at her hip, unhurried, and took her right wrist. He turned it over, thumb pressing the pulse point, and felt it hammering under the skin — fast, hard, honest. He laid the band across the inside of her wrist, padded side down, and buckled it snug. Not tight enough to bite. Tight enough that she'd feel it every time she pulled. He tested it with two fingers, found the give he wanted, and moved to the left.

She squirmed the whole time. Not to get away. Her hips rolled slowly against the mattress, her toes curled and spread, and when he cinched the second buckle, she made a low sound in her throat that she clearly hadn't authorized.

"Good," he said, and watched the word land on her like a hand.

He brought her wrists together above her head and clipped the short chain to the rail under the headboard. Then he leaned back and checked it — pulled once, firm, watching the leather hold and her shoulders lift and settle. She had maybe eight inches of slack. Enough to arch. Not enough to reach him.

"Too much?" he asked. The question mattered. He asked it flat, no softness in it, because he needed the real answer.

"No." Her voice had gone rough at the edges. "Don't stop."

"Then here's the rule." He rose from the bed and stood at the foot of it, looking down the length of her, arms bound overhead, body open to his gaze. "You don't speak. Not a word until I tell you that you can. If something's wrong, you snap your fingers." His gaze lingered on hers. "Otherwise, keep that mouth quiet and let your body answer me."

Her lips pressed together. Her eyes went wide and bright. And her hips rolled again — a slow, unmistakable grind against nothing, chasing friction that wasn't there.

He almost laughed. He didn't. He just took his time.

He started at her ankles. That was the point of it — to make her wait, to make her feel the whole distance of her own body before he got anywhere near the place she wanted him. He put one knee on the mattress and ran both palms up the outside of her calves, slow, thumbs pressing into the muscle, feeling the small tremble that lived under her skin. Her legs were smooth from the knee down. He dragged his hands higher, and the texture changed — a fine, soft rasp under his palms, hair grown back a few days past smooth, catching the light. He stopped and rubbed his thumb across it, once, twice, watching her face.

She was watching him watch her. Her jaw was tight with the effort of not speaking.

“You’re letting it grow back,” he said casually, as though commenting on the weather. “I prefer you smooth. It feels so much better.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “I’ll have to see about getting you waxed sometime.”

Her throat worked. She couldn't answer, and the not-answering was doing something to her — he could see it in the way her bound hands flexed and pulled against the leather, testing the slack, finding it short.

He moved up. Inside her thighs, where the skin was thin and hot, she parted her legs for him without being asked. He took his time there too. Palms flat, thumbs tracing the crease where thigh met hip, circling closer and closer to where she was wet and then veering away at the last second, up over her stomach, around the swell of her breast, everywhere except the one place. She arched. She twisted. She made a thin, frustrated sound through her closed teeth and cut it off, remembering the rule, and the effort of it made her eyes water at the corners.

He put his mouth on her breast, and she stopped breathing. Tongue flat, then teeth — a slow drag over the nipple, then the other, his hand cupping and lifting, thumb rolling. Her back came off the mattress. The chain rattled against the rail. He sucked hard, and she bit down on whatever she'd been about to say, and he felt the vibration of it travel through her ribs into his mouth.

He kept her like that until she was shaking. Then he went down.

He hooked his arms under her thighs and pulled her to the edge of the bed, and she came up onto the chain, shoulders straining, and made a sound that wasn't a word so it didn't break the rule. He spread her with his thumbs and looked at her first — flushed dark, slick, swollen with wanting, the whole of her open and glistening under the lamplight — and then he put his mouth on her.

The taste of her hit him harder than he expected, salt and warmth with a sweetness that was unmistakably her. He groaned against her, and she jolted beneath him. He dragged his tongue slowly upward, and her hips lifted off the bed, pulling the chain taut as a shaky breath escaped her. He did it again, taking his time, until she was trembling beneath him. Then he closed his lips around her clit and sucked gently. Her back arched off the mattress.

She made no attempt to be quiet. Every moan, every gasp, every broken sound escaped her without a single word. Liam watched her the whole time. That was half the pleasure, watching her bound hands clench and unclench above her head, the muscles in her stomach twitch, her lips part on words she seemed to catch just before they escaped. He worked two fingers inside her while his tongue stayed on her clit, curling upward. She tightened around his fingers and pressed herself against his mouth, so lost in the sensation that she seemed to forget everything beyond it.

"That's it," he said against her, and she shuddered at the sound of his voice more than at the touch. "Don't hold it. Give it to me and cum."

She came apart. Her thighs locked around his head and her back arched clear off the mattress, and the leather creaked against the rail, and she made a long, ragged, wordless cry that filled the whole room. He stayed with her through it, tongue soft now, riding it out, feeling the flutter and clench of her around his fingers, until she went limp and her legs slid off his shoulders and her breath came back in pieces.

He rose over her and looked down. Sweat at her temples. Hair stuck to her cheek. Eyes half closed and utterly wrecked. She pulled at the cuffs, slow and dreamy, as she'd forgotten they were there and was pleased to be reminded.

He reached for the nightstand and came back with a foil square.

"No," she said.

He stopped. Everything stopped. "You just broke the rule."

“I know.” Her voice was hoarse, but she didn't care. “I started taking the pill the day we got back.” She hesitated, suddenly nervous. “I… I want to try without it.”

He studied her for a long moment, the foil packet held between his fingers. Something tightened deep in his chest, a rush of heat tangled with something more dangerous. She'd thought about this beforehand, made the decision quietly, without telling him. She'd come into his room tonight already knowing she wanted him without a barrier between them. The thought sent a fresh surge of desire through him, his arousal sharpening into a heavy, aching throb low in his gut.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

He dropped the condom on the floor.

He knelt between her legs and lined himself up and pushed in slowly. Just the head first, and she gasped, and her cuffs rattled. He pulled back, pushed again, an inch deeper, watching her face the whole way — the stretch, the flutter of her lashes, the way her mouth fell open on a sound with no words in it. Another inch. Her hips tilted to take him. He sank in to the hilt in one long, deliberate slide and stayed there, buried, breathing hard through his nose, feeling her pulse around him like a second heartbeat.

"Liam," she said — a whisper, a prayer, the rule forgotten.

"I know," he said, and started to move.

Slow at first. Long strokes, all the way out and all the way back in, angled so that every pass dragged across the place that made her breath break. He watched for it — found the angle that made her eyes roll back, held it, worked it, and she came apart under him in pieces, moaning with no restraint now, hips rising to meet every thrust. Her bound hands pulled at the chain, and the leather held, and she loved it; he could see she loved it, the helplessness of it lighting her up from the inside.

He sped up. Harder. The slap of skin and the wet sound of her and the creak of the rail. He put a hand flat on her stomach and pressed down, feeling himself move inside her, and she cried out and clenched around him so hard he nearly lost it then.

"Again," he said, low, commanding. "Cum for me again."

And she did. She shattered around him — a second time, harder than the first, her whole body locking and shaking and her mouth open on a sound that went up and up. He felt her clamp down, tight and rhythmic, milking him, and the control he'd been holding onto all night broke in his hands. He drove in deep and came, spilling inside her, a long hot pulse that kept coming, and he groaned her name into her throat and didn't stop until he was empty.

And he knew she felt it — all of it — and her moan climbed higher than any sound she'd made all night, her back arching off the sheets, her bound wrists straining at the leather, her whole body taking it and shaking with it. He stayed buried in her, forehead down against her collarbone, both of them wrecked and breathing as if they'd finished a marathon.