The silence had grown as dense as a suffocating fog, in which every thought, every feeling moved with greater difficulty—and Lucian Thornewell, a man guided until now by the cold rationality of the world, by ruthless decisiveness and unbending discipline, stood before a woman who, with a single breath, had stirred more in him than anyone ever had—and that realization did not merely burn him; it tore him apart from the inside, piece by piece.
His eyes burned darkly as they fixed on Andromeda. Her lips were flushed, her chest rose and fell rapidly, as if she were trying to regain control—but it was already too late. There was no more control. Only the two of them. And that wild, pulsing desire that would tolerate no delay.
Lucian’s hand rose slowly. Not suddenly. Not roughly. But with the
