Heat Like a Weapon
Selene
I didn't want to spend the night.
But fear has a way of smothering pride.
Lucian said nothing as he opened the door to his penthouse and let me in. The air smelled like dark wood, expensive cologne, and something unspoken.
My bag slipped from my shoulder. He caught it without looking.
Like my body, his memory still worked.
He poured whiskey. Not for him. For me.
Then he stood at the window, back to me, watching the city burn gold under midnight. "You should get some rest."
I walked slowly toward him, drink untouched.
"You said they want chaos."
He didn't turn. "They want to wake up the version of you they buried."
"And what version is that?"
His jaw ticked. "The one who stopped asking questions when the truth got too dangerous."
---
I stepped closer. Close enough to feel the charge between us.
"You think you know me?"
Lucian finally turned.
Eyes dark. Voice darker.
"I've known you in ways no one else ever will."
My breath caught. Not from fear. From the truth in his voice.
He didn't kiss me.
He invaded me.
His mouth crashed against mine with the kind of hunger that splits a person in half—hot, furious, familiar. His hands slid around my waist, pulled me into him like he needed to remember what we used to be.
I gasped against his mouth as his thigh slipped between mine, pressing. His hand slid under my shirt—warm, rough, remembering.
"You're still mine," he growled.
"No," I whispered, clawing at his belt. "You just forgot I was fire."
He lifted me in one swift move. My legs locked around his waist. He carried me to the kitchen island like he couldn't wait for a bed.
I kissed him like punishment. Like revenge. Like prayer.
He tore open my blouse—buttons flew. His teeth scraped down my collarbone.
"I hate how good this feels," I said breathlessly.
"Then you'll hate what I do next."
---
He knelt.
Pulled my underwear aside like a threat.
His mouth was heat and filth and devotion all at once.
I moaned his name—just once—and it sounded like surrender.
But I wasn't surrendering.
I was *remembering*.
What it felt like to be ruined by him.
And want more.
---
We ended tangled in his bed, breathless and raw. Skin against skin, sheets twisted, our hearts beating like war drums.
He kissed the inside of my thigh like he still owned me.
And for one stupid second, I let him.
---
Later, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. His arm was draped across my stomach. Possessive. Thoughtless.
And something inside me whispered—
This is wrong.
Because I wasn't just here for safety.
I was being pulled back into a life I barely survived once before.
And Lucian?
He was hiding something.
---
Lucian
I watched her sleep.
She looked peaceful. But I knew better.
Selene Blackwood doesn't rest. She waits.
She thinks I don't know what she's hiding. But I do.
Because while she was in my bed, I was already making moves.
Tracking the black car.
Running surveillance on the building.
And pulling intel from names she didn't know I still had access to.
And I found something.
Dr. Nathan Kearse.
The man who used to treat her father.
The same man who disappeared right after the Blackwood scandal.
The same man tied to a now-defunct research clinic that specialized in memory partitioning and behavioral suggestion.
Selene thinks her trauma is hers alone.
She doesn't know someone built it.
She doesn't know they're back.
---
Elsewhere…
A screen flickered.
Grainy footage. Two bodies. Tangled in shadows. Her face. His hand. Caught through a long-range lens.
"You were right," a male voice murmured.
"She still falls when he touches her," said the woman beside him. Her voice low, precise. Cold. "But now we all get to watch."