The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,128

the back or anything.”

“Good.” His gaze remained locked with mine, and there was an intensity in his stare that I was only beginning to recognize and realize had been there every time he looked at me. It sent a shiver of knowing over my skin.

“You?” I whispered.

“Like brand-new.”

I wondered how much of that had to do with Grayson, but I said nothing. I had a feeling Grayson didn’t want Luc to know what he’d done for him.

“You sure you feel okay?” he asked. “That was one hell of a wound. Got one of your lungs. Nicked a couple of vital arteries.”

My skin chilled at the knowledge unspoken in his words. If I’d been human, I most likely would’ve been like Spencer, bleeding out before anyone could do a single thing. “I feel fine,” I told him. “Because of you.”

He still hadn’t looked away. “I killed that man.”

“I know.”

“He didn’t know who you were. Eaton had managed to get an alert out that there was an intruder. He saw you and thought you were it. He was just doing what the community trusts him to do, and I killed him.”

My gaze searched his as I rose a little onto my arms. There was a tender pull against the skin of my back, but nothing more. “Luc—”

But he hurt you. He made you bleed. His voice slipped through my thoughts. I don’t regret what I did.

“I would’ve done the same,” I admitted, and that was the truth, right or wrong. It was the truth.

“I know.” He dragged his thumb along my jaw and then slid it to my throat, where the pad of his finger rested over my pulse. “I had no idea if you could die from a wound like that or if the SOL guy was right about what could kill you.”

Massive brain trauma. That was what Steven had claimed could take out a Trojan, and apparently blowing them to smithereens could, too, but that wasn’t something we knew for sure. Especially if I was different from the others, and it was really beginning to look like that was the case.

“You were bleeding everywhere. That blood still stains your skin right now. It stains mine. That’s the second time in a very short period of time that I feared I’d lose you.”

“I’m—”

“Don’t apologize, Evie. Don’t.” He cupped the back of my head as he eased upward into a sitting position. The motion was fluid, causing little strain on the area between my shoulders. “There are a lot of things we need to talk about. Sarah. Hunter. What happened with her—with you—but right now, I need you. I need to feel you, be surrounded by you.” His forehead pressed to mine. “I need to forget that we’re both stained with your blood.”

Closing my eyes on a shuddering breath, I cupped his cheeks. “You have me.”

Luc kissed me, and there was nothing slow or tentative about the way his mouth moved or how his lips parted mine. The kiss deepened, and there was an edge of desperation to it, a hint of lingering fear.

The sheet tore away from us, landing somewhere near the foot of the bed on the floor. He broke the kiss, easing out from under me. Before I could question what he was doing, his lips pressed to the space that ached between my shoulders as I felt his fingers curling around the band of my pants.

Cool air washed over my now bare lower half, but the heat of Luc quickly chased it away. He moved behind me, skin against skin. A shiver rolled up my spine as an infinite spark transferred between us, something that could never be forced or fabricated.

The sight of his hand planting into the mattress beside my head and the feel of the hand at my hip flipped and twisted my insides into a heady mess that had me digging my fingers into the sheets. Desire wasn’t the only thing that charged the air around us. There was so much more as he pressed against me, into me. Love. Fear. Relief. Acceptance. I reached out, placing my hand over his, threading my fingers between his.

A long, antagonizing moment of stillness passed, his body coiled tight as a rope about to snap, and then he moved. The sound from the back of his throat seared my skin, and there was no sense of control or restraint. We fell in together, headfirst and without reservation, sinking deep into the flurry of sensation that went beyond the