“You can’t leave me again,” I yell out to her, desperate to make her return to me. “You lay in my arms, your skin against mine, and we connected in a way that can’t be broken.” I walk slowly toward where she has come to a stop. “I won’t let you go. I won’t let us go. Never apart again. Remember?”
Lyriope slowly turns, wiping the tears from her cheek. “You have no choice. We have no choice.”
Her words pain me.
“I can’t just watch you leave me, knowing it’s not what you really want,” I say. “It’s time you do what you want. Stop allowing others to control you.”
“That’s what I’m doing. You’ve had control over me too, Nick. Don’t you see that?” Lyriope asks coldly.
When I don’t answer her, Lyriope continues. “I’m a Morelli. I’ve not faced what that truly means my entire life, but it’s time to. It’s time I meet Bryant. It’s time I step into that family and try to embrace my lineage. It’s time I take control of me and who I am. And that doesn’t involve you right now. I’m sorry.”
I can’t look at her, sighing heavily. “I’m not going to stand in the way of you becoming a Morelli.”
“Then you need to leave,” Lyriope continues. “Because you being here… is getting in the way of that.”
“I’ll walk out that door if that is truly what you want,” I say. “But I know you’re lying. You don’t want me to leave. You want to be in my arms just as much as I want you in them.”
Lyriope doesn’t budge at my words.
“So you can win me as the highest bidder? You just don’t want to lose to those men. Is this really about me, or is this about your pride?” Her jaw tightens and her eyes glare. “You got your fuck from me. Our contract is null and void. So is this about… more games? Possession? Or is this about ego?”
“I wasn’t a good man,” I say as I reluctantly lift my gaze back to Lyriope. “Hell, I’m not far from the devil himself. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to protect you. It doesn’t take away that my heart fucking belongs to you whether I want it to or not. Do I have a huge ego? Fuck yes, I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that I care about you. That I don’t want to see you go. I declared you as mine, and I don’t take that lightly.”
Lyriope bites her lip.
“I have never felt this way about anyone before,” I say softly. “I have never allowed anything but greed and aggression inside me. I danced with the psychotic and dined with the demented. I loved every second of the raving lunatic until I met you. Your sanity soothed the madman, and for that… I am a changed man. I am a man who now thinks of someone but himself. I am a man who can see things so clearly. There is no more fog of madness when it comes to you. It’s just you. Me. Us.”
Silence falls between us, until I get the balls to ask, “Do you love me? You said the words once, but do you still mean them?”
Lyriope approaches me, her steps measured. Stopping before me, her hand comes to my face, cupping my stubbled cheek. “It doesn’t matter if I do or not. It doesn’t change the way things are. You said it yourself. You are not a man to love. And I have a past to face, and a future to find. Right now. This very minute, you’re clouding the view of both.”
“Bullshit!” I snap. “You’re scared. I see it. I smell it. I feel it.”
“Yes, I’m scared,” she finally admits. “I’m terrified. I don’t want anything to happen to you because of me. This has become dangerous. I don’t want you to fall in the crossfires.”
I look up at her, our gazes joined. “But I will die trying if I have to if it means us.”
Lyriope shakes her head. “Don’t do this, Nick,” she begs me. “I can’t stand by and watch this battle any longer. Admit defeat.”
My hand goes to the back of her head, my fingers lacing in her hair. “Whatever happened between us is worth fighting for,” I remind her. “It’s a battle I want to fight. You are worth everything.”
Lyriope doesn’t say a word.
Leaning into her, my lips lightly caress. Breaking our embrace, my face mere inches from hers, our foreheads rested against each other, my stare joined to hers. I watch as the tears continue to fall down her cheeks, and my heart once made of hard steel, crumbles.
Tenderly, I lick the salty tears away from her cheek, enjoying the taste of her skin beneath.
“I want you again,” I all but growl. “I want to make you mine. I want to live the rest of my life giving you pleasure, protecting you, and giving you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
Lyriope exhales a heavy breath. “Nick…” She struggles through her tears.
“Tell me you feel the same. Say the words.”
She shakes her head. “We can’t.”
I kiss her lightly again, my lips savoring the taste of hers. “Tell me, Lyriope…” I demand.
“You told me not to love you. Those were your rules, remember?”