“Moved on?” he echoed, voice low. “The way you just kissed me didn’t really scream ‘moved on.””
I stared at him, disbelief spiking into my already frayed nerves. “That’s not fair.”
“Who gives a shit about fairness?” he said, his gaze flicking to my mouth in a way that made my skin flush hot again. “You kissed me back. And I felt how much you wanted to.
You enjoyed that just as much as I did, Sera.”
“Because-” I broke off, hating the way my cheeks burned. “Because I’m still recovering from being kidnapped and possibly murdered, or gods know what other horrors that’d been planned for me! I was shaken, I was…I don’t know, I wasn’t in my right mind. Fear and adrenaline blasted all my common sense into smithereens.”
I crossed my arms tight over my chest, as much to keep from shaking as to hold my ground. “Don’t mistake that for anything else.”
Kieran’s expression darkened. “That wasn’t just adrenaline, Sera. I know you. And in all the years we were together, we’ve never kissed like-“
“Gods, do you hear yourself?” My voice rose, slicing through the cool night air. I didn’t want to hear him say what I already knew-in all the years we’d been functionally intimate, it had never felt like…that.
The raw, carnal heat. The electricity I could still feel sparking through me.
“You know me?” I shook my head. “No, you fucking don’t. And I’m not going to stay here and argue with you when you’re stark fucking naked a couple of feet away from dead bodies.”
“You had no problem kissing me in the same situation,” he shot back.
I exhaled sharply. “We’ve established that that was a shitty lapse of judgment on my part. I was out of my goddamn mind!”
Something flickered in Kieran’s eyes-hurt, maybe-but it was quickly masked by stubborn defiance. “You can tell yourself that all you want. Doesn’t make it true.”
My temper snapped. I yanked the door open, slid into the back seat, and slammed it hard enough to make the frame shudder. “Drive me home.”
Kieran didn’t move. His hands tightened at his sides, his jaw flexing like he was biting back words he wanted to spit at me. The silence stretched until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“You know what? Forget it.” I shoved the door back open, my movements sharp, angry. “I’ll walk.”
An aggravated sigh. “Sera-“
But I was already out, slamming the door behind me. The sound echoed off the empty street as I stalked away from the car, my sandals crunching against gravel and broken glass.
The adrenaline from earlier was ebbing fast, leaving only exhaustion, anger, and the faint tremor of something I didn’t want to name.
The night air felt thick, pressing in on me with the weight of what I’d just done. My pulse was still unsettled, my breath uneven, as if my body hadn’t yet decided whether it wanted to keep running from Kieran or run back to him. ?
I was still replaying the way his lips burned through me like a heated rod through butter, my skin tingling from the weight of his body against mine, the heat of his arousal pressed against me.
I could still hear the way his voice had cracked when he said my name-still trying to shove that sound into some dark corner of my mind-when headlights flared against the cracked asphalt ahead.
Another car came barreling down the street from the direction Kieran had come, engine growling low like some sleek predator on the hunt.
My stomach dropped.
The familiar silhouette of an Aston Martin filled my vision, closing the distance too fast, tires squealing as it swerved and came to a haphazard halt directly in my path.
The driver’s side door swung open, and out stepped Lucian.
Lucian’s sudden appearance froze me mid-step, and my body seized up.
My first instinct was to react-to explain something, anything-as though I’d been caught doing something wrong. Like a teenager whose parent had just walked into her bedroom at the worst possible moment, and her naked boyfriend was hiding out in her closet.
My pulse kicked into another gear as he came closer, my mind running wild with explanations for why my ex-husband was naked behind me and I looked kissed within an inch of my life.
But Lucian’s expression wasn’t suspicious. His gaze swept over me once, sharp and assessing, and then he sighed with relief.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” he said, stepping forward to wrap me in his arms. “More rogues showed up, and disposing of them took longer than I expected.”
My stomach twisted.
Right. The rogues
While I was tangled up in Kieran’s arms, Lucian had been dealing with his own chaos- fighting for me.
He could have gotten hurt, and here I was, flushed and guilty over a kiss I never should have let happen.
Especially mere hours after Lucian asked to be my boyfriend. My stomach churned, and I thought I was going to be sick.
I felt so fucking awful. What had gotten into me? Why had I let that happen?
“Are-are you okay?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay even. His familiar scent wrapped around me, and I closed my eyes, breathing him in, hoping it would banish the Kieran’s scent that had inundated my senses and wouldn’t leave.
Lucian gently pulled away but held me at arm’s length, and did one more once over.””
Nothing I couldn’t handle.” His smile didn’t waver, but there was a shadow in his eyes that told me it hadn’t been as easy as he wanted me to think.
The guilt pressed heavier.
Just because Kieran was the one who got me out of the car didn’t mean he saved me any more than Lucian had by taking on those rogues at the restaurant.
And I’d…
Fuck!
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lucian’s brows furrowed into a deep V. “What-“
His gaze shifted behind me, and I stiffened. I watched his eyes as he took in the dead rogues behind us. And naked Kieran.
But other than the sharp tick of a muscle in his jaw, his facial expression didn’t change.
“Kieran.” Lucian nodded, like back in the theater, except this time, the gesture looked stiff.
Force.
Heat warmed the left side of my body, and I instinctively bit my kiss-swollen lips as
Kieran’s deep voice rumbled through me. “Lucian.”
Lucian arched a brow. “You did this?”
“I would have left some for you if you hadn’t been so slow.”
My breath hitched at the obvious bite in Kieran’s voice, but Lucian took it in stride. One hand fell from my arm and reached out to Kieran. “Thank you for saving her.”
I ground my teeth so hard it would have been audible if the tension between both of them wasn’t humming at a deafening volume.
“I didn’t do you a favor,” Kieran ground out.
Lucian’s hand dropped to the side, and he nodded. “Still. Thank you. She’s in safe hands now.” The rest of his unspoken sentence was clear-Kieran could leave.
“Sera?” I flinched at the brusque way he said my name.
I forced myself to turn to him and exhaled softly-he was wearing a pair of grey sweatpants and a black T-shirt he must have had stashed in his car.
“I’m fine,” I said softly. “Thank you-again.”
His dark eyes flickered with something I felt deep in my chest, but he tore his gaze away the next second and stalked wordlessly to his car.
Lucian and I stayed seemingly suspended in time as we watched Kieran enter his car. The engine sputtered twice before it came to life.
I winced slightly as he drove past us. I’d ruined the G-wagon once with my blood, and now the bumper was ruined.
It felt like I was taking my first breath as I watched his brake lights shrink to the size of fireflies and then disappear altogether.
“Sera?” Lucian’s gentle squeeze pulled me back to the present.
I sighed softly. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Lucian’s eyes
But instead, his attention shifted slightly, his gaze dipping over my body, pausing on my arms, my temple. I tensed.
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