Page 283 of Once Upon a Fable

I’D LIVED THROUGH MANY things, yet this...this was the hardest.

I’d always been independent and not afraid of tackling things that scared other people, but right now? Having Kas treat me as if he would gladly plunge a knife into his heart if he so much as said a harsh wordterrifiedme.

It terrified because I wanted so, so much to believe we’d turned a corner. That this was him acknowledging that we couldn’t keep going the way we had. The hating, the arguing, the explosions that always ended up with me hurt and him struggling to understand what he’d done wrong.

He was like a wolf cub, stumbling and growling, alone without a role model to show him the right path. He could be forgiven for his mistakes while slowly coming alive again. It was understandable for someone who’d turned his back on his own kind to fumble.

But what I couldn’t accept was how much this version of him made mefeel.

Tonight had been one of the scariest of my life. I’d been taken by force, and ordinarily, any woman who’d lived through that was completely in her right to murder the perpetrator and run straight to the police.

But I couldn’t.

Not just because I was trapped by a chain, but because I’d been infected by insidious feelings that webbed like starlight between us. And it wasn’t just a web. It was deeper than that; it’d slipped beneath our skin and threaded around our hearts.

Our insides matched—I was sure of it.

Both riddledwith star-strings, pulsing and glowing, tying us together with no way to get free.

Dammit.

All my life, I’d wanted to feel a tiny fraction of what I did for this messed-up man, and the fact that I could—even after what he’d done—scrambled me up until we were both as fucked up as the other.

“Gem.” He kissed me deeper, his tongue hunting mine. In that delicate moment, he wasn’t a stranger in a forgotten valley, and he wasn’t the beast who’d stolen everything from me. He was just a man—a man I was finding harder and harder to pretend wasn’t made for me.

Every instinct wanted to submit to him. To melt and kiss him back.

But if I did and he switched? If I allowed my guard to drop, only for it all to unravel because of his past, I didn’t think I could survive that.

I’d gotten this far by convincing myself that he didn’t mean anything to me. That I would still run when I had the chance. Yet now...

God, now?

I sucked in a breath as his kiss switched from demanding to soft again, giving me the choice to pull away.

Now, I no longer knew anything, and I wanted to know everything. I wanted to knowhim. I wanted to know every shadow and scar. I wanted him to talk to me, to purge, to share.

He made me dare to dream that perhaps, just perhaps, I might be strong enough to save him.

Was that possible?

Or just a stupid fantasy?

I never relaxed as he kissed his way from my mouth to my jaw to my ear. His touch made my nerves dance with need, but I stayed stiff. I was too conditioned to expect his cruelness, his coldness. I was floundering the longer he treated me gently.

Dropping his hands from my cheeks, he ran them lightly down my throat to my shoulders.

I tensed to stone. I couldn’t help it. His fingers near my neck made instincts wary of his intentions.

“It fucking kills me to know I’m the reason you tense like that.” He ran his thumbs over my shoulders, leaving a wake of tingles. His gaze fell on my shirt buttons between my breasts.

My nipples instantly pebbled, hungry for touch, choosing recklessness instead of common sense.

His breath caught. His right hand dropped lower and cupped me. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered, running his touch over my nipple and sending a lance of fire to my core. “I give you my word. Tonight, I’m yours.”

His mouth slipped back over mine as his hand palmed my entire breast. This time, when his tongue dipped past my lips, I touched him back with mine.

I willingly kissed him, and his chest vibrated with a growl of gratitude.