Lines Shattered
717 Words
Avery didn’t sleep.
Her body ached from him, her lips swollen, her sheets still tangled with the scent of Elias. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face—feral, beautiful, broken—and felt the way he tore her apart only to piece her back together again.
She should’ve felt shame. She should’ve been drowning in regret. But lying there in the dark, her heart drumming too loud, she whispered the truth into the silence.
“I love him.”
The words terrified her more than the men who had broken into their home. More than the idea of her father discovering them. More than the morality they had already shattered.
It wasn’t just s*x. It had never been just s*x.
It was the way Elias looked at her as if she were his salvation and his destruction in the same breath. The way he touched her, not to please himself, but to stake a claim, to brand her. The way he risked everything with a smirk and a loaded gun because he refused to bow to anyone.
She loved him.
When she finally drifted into sleep, it was restless and fevered, filled with flashes of his hands gripping her, his voice growling her name.
By morning, she tried to compose herself, tried to be the perfect daughter again—bright smile, polite words, hands folded neatly at breakfast. Her father rambled about business deals, the staff hovered quietly, and Avery nodded in all the right places.
But under the table, Elias’s knee brushed hers.
The jolt made her fork clatter against the plate. Her father glanced up sharply. Elias only smirked, sipping his coffee, his foot sliding along her calf in a slow, taunting stroke.
Her cheeks burned. She forced herself to look away, but the pulse between her legs throbbed at the contact.
Later, when the house was quiet, he found her in the library. He didn’t ask permission. He closed the door, leaned back against it, and simply watched her, his eyes dark with hunger and something deeper.
“You’re avoiding me again,” he said. His tone was lazy, but the sharpness underneath made her shiver.
She closed the book she hadn’t been reading. “I’m trying to think.”
“About what?” He stalked closer, each step slow, deliberate, like a predator closing in. “About how good I made you scream last night? About how you begged me to ruin you?”
Her chest tightened. “About the fact that I can’t stop.”
He stopped in front of her, tilting her chin up. “Can’t stop what?”
She swallowed hard, her pulse racing. “Can’t stop loving you.”
The silence stretched, heavy, suffocating. His eyes burned into hers, sharp as knives, soft as fire. His hand clenched in her hair, pulling her head back until she gasped.
“Say it again,” he ordered, voice rough.
Her lips trembled. “I love you.”
For a moment, the mask slipped. Elias’s breath hitched, his jaw tightening as if the words wounded him even as they healed something deeper. Then he kissed her, hard, brutal, desperate.
The book tumbled from her lap as he shoved her back into the chair, his hands everywhere—gripping her waist, sliding under her blouse, tearing at buttons. She whimpered, threading her fingers into his hair, arching against him like she’d been starving for him all her life.
He broke the kiss only to press his forehead to hers, breathing ragged. “You don’t get it, Avery. You don’t know what I am, what loving me will cost you.”
Her hands cupped his face, forcing him to look at her. “Then let it cost me. I don’t care. I’m already yours.”
The sound he made was raw, almost pained, as if her words unraveled him. He kissed her again, slower this time, his tongue sweeping hers, his grip less violent but no less consuming.
For the first time, it wasn’t just about lust. It was about surrender. About a love that shouldn’t exist, but did—burning brighter for all its wrongness.
Avery knew then: whatever happened, whatever storm Elias brought into her world, she wasn’t running anymore.
She was his. In every way that mattered.
- Writer
