The silence was thick, broken only by the soft rustle of paper as I turned another page in the oversized book on my lap. I wasn’t reading anymore. Not really. I was just waiting.

And right on cue, the door creaked open.

He stepped in like a shadow—broad-shouldered, dark-eyed, and deadly quiet. Simon “Ghost” Riley. My bodyguard. My tormentor. My only weakness.

“You shouldn’t be up,” he said, voice low and unmistakably irritated.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

He crossed the room with the weight of a man who’d marched through warzones and hellfires. His mask was gone, for once. Just his piercing eyes and that ever-present scowl remained. “You’re a damn magnet for trouble, you know that?”

I smiled slightly, closing the book. “And yet here you are. Still following me around like a soldier on a leash.”

He stopped just short of touching distance. “Don’t mistake duty for choice.”

I stood. “And don’t mistake your silence for indifference, Ghost.”

He stared at me for a long moment. Then, quietly, “You have no idea what you do to me.”

My breath caught.

“I can’t touch you. Can’t want you. But I do. And every damn day, it gets harder not to cross that line.”

I stepped closer, heart racing. “Then cross it.”

He clenched his fists, jaw tight. “Princess—”

“I’m not your princess right now,” I whispered. “I’m just me. And I’m tired of pretending I don’t see the way you look at me like you’d burn down the world if I asked.”

There was a pause. And then, in one swift motion, he closed the gap between us, grabbing the back of my neck and pulling me into him.

“God forgive me,” he murmured before his lips crashed against mine—hungry, desperate, forbidden.