The Taste of Sin
Selene
The only reason I stayed was because I didn't trust myself to leave.
Lucian had fallen asleep beside me.
At least I thought he had.
But when I shifted—slow, quiet—his hand moved too. Sliding lower. Possessive, like his body knew mine didn't belong anywhere else.
"You're awake," I whispered.
His voice was a low hum against my skin. "You were going to sneak out."
I swallowed. "I should."
His breath touched my throat. "Then why haven't you?"
My silence answered him.
And he kissed me like it was a dare.
---
This time wasn't frenzied like before. It was worse.
Slow.
Calculated.
The kind of intimacy that stripped skin from soul and whispered, I remember exactly how to ruin you.
His mouth moved down my body like prayer and sin wrapped in velvet. He knew how to unravel me, how to wait until I was on the edge of something dangerous—then pull me back just to drag me there again.
When he pushed into me, I felt it in places deeper than my body.
It wasn't just sex.
It was remembering.
It was reclaiming.
It was me forgetting that he was still lying to me.
---
Afterward, I lay tangled in sheets, heartbeat slowing, breath ragged. Lucian sat at the edge of the bed, back rigid, hands steepled beneath his mouth.
Thinking.
Planning.
"Whoever's watching us," I said quietly, "they want us close."
"They think it's our weakness," he murmured. "But they've never seen us burn."
I sat up. "And if it is a weakness?"
He turned.
And for the first time in a long time, I saw something behind his eyes that wasn't ice.
Fear.
Not for him.
For me.
---
I left before dawn. I needed space. Air. Control.
But as I stepped outside the building, the black car was still there.
Parked. Still. Waiting.
And this time… the window was cracked.
A hand reached out briefly. Holding something.
I didn't get close.
But I saw it clearly.
A photo.
Me and Lucian—through the glass.
From last night.
Someone had watched all of it.
---
Lucian
By the time I realized she was gone, my chest felt like it had been hollowed out.
She hadn't even taken her coat.
But she left something else.
A note. Written in her handwriting. But she didn't write it.
You never learned to play fair, Lucian.
My jaw locked. My stomach dropped.
This wasn't hers.
It was a message.
Someone was in my apartment.
---
I checked the cameras.
All wiped.
All except one—deep in the system, buried behind encrypted backups.
Someone had been in my suite.
Wearing gloves.
Carrying a phone that emitted a signal jammer.
Not stealing.
Leaving.
And on that same feed—five hours earlier—Selene.
Sleeping.
Completely unaware.
They'd been close enough to touch her.
And didn't.
Because that wasn't the point.
They were sending me a warning.
---
Elsewhere…
"She let him in," the voice said.
The screen showed Selene. Walking down the street in daylight. Face calm. Eyes sharp.
"She still doesn't know," the other answered. Female. Young. Cold. "But she will."
"She's too close to Wolfe."
"That's the point."
"How long until she remembers the rest?"
A pause.
Then a slow, bone-deep smile.
"When it's too late."
---
Selene
I didn't go home.
I took a cab to the edge of the city. Somewhere forgotten. Somewhere safe.
And as I opened the door to the motel room, I found something already waiting for me.
A single envelope.
No stamp. No return address.
Inside?
A torn page from an old psychology manual.
And one line underlined in red:
"The subject will experience a full mental breach only when reunited with the original trigger event."
Beneath that?
A name.
Liora.
And a date circled in black ink.
Tomorrow.