Chapter 99 Choice
Lila POV
The moment the door shut behind him, a heavy silence swallowed the room, thick and suffocating and my stomach twisted, caught somewhere between aching desire and gnawing uncertainty. Without thinking, my fingers drifted to the bandage wrapped around my arm. Even through the cloth, the skin beneath still burned, raw and tender, a constant reminder of what had just happened.
Nico moved slowly, deliberately, like a predator that had no need to rush. Each step he took toward the door felt measured and controlled. Then the sharp click of the lock echoed through the room, loud and final, slicing through the quiet like a gunshot.
My pulse jumped as he turned toward me as his fingers worked the buttons of his shirt, unhurried, confident. “How does it feel?” he asked calmly.
I lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug, trying to hide how aware I suddenly was of everything and the heat in the room and my own racing heart. “Let’s just say,” I murmured, “I’ve felt worse pain than getting a tattoo.”
A faint curve touched his lips, but his eyes stayed dark, unreadable. “I wasn’t talking about the pain.”
I frowned slightly. “Then what were you talking about?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he shrugged his shirt off and tossed it aside like it meant nothing and my breath caught despite myself.
Standing there without it, he looked almost unreal. Strong lines of muscle stretched beneath smooth olive skin, every movement fluid, powerful. Nico Moretti was devastating to look at beautiful in a way that didn’t feel human. There was something dangerous about him, something carved from shadow and fire the darkness that lived behind those deep brown eyes made him even more magnetic, like he had been shaped by both heaven and hell, neither willing to let him go.
“I meant,” he said quietly, his voice lower now, heavier, “how it feels to have your body marked.”
My throat tightened and I couldn’t bring myself to meet his gaze, not when he stood there like temptation made flesh. “So that’s what this is?” I asked softly. “You marked me?”
His stare hardened instantly, locking onto me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. “Believe me, little pet,” he said, his voice roughened by something deeper than anger, “that tattoo doesn’t even come close to how I truly want to mark you.”
The words sent a shiver through me.
“That ink,” he continued, quieter now but far more dangerous, “is only a symbol, a promise and a reminder for both of us of what we are to each other.”
My feet moved before I realized it, drawn toward him like gravity itself had shifted. “How can I be your salvation,” I whispered, my voice fragile, “when all I’ve done is bring war to your doorstep?”
He closed the distance too, stepping forward until the space between us vanished. I had to tilt my head back just to hold his gaze. Up close, he felt overwhelming heat, power, presence like standing too near a flame you couldn’t stop reaching for.
“That may be true,” he admitted, his voice steady but burning beneath the surface. “You are ruining me.” A pause and a breath then softer, almost reverent, “But you did something no one else ever could.”
My heart stumbled. “What?”
His hand lifted, sliding behind me until his fingers tangled in my hair slowly and deliberately, he wrapped a fist around the golden strands and tightened just enough to make my breath hitch.
“You freed the beast,” he murmured, his voice turning darker, rawer. “And in doing so, you freed me from a life that was nothing but emptiness.”
My pulse thundered wildly in my ears and the heat rolling off his body wrapped around me, sinking into my skin, into my bones. It was intoxicating, overwhelming. Every nerve felt alive, electric, as if his very presence ignited something primal inside me.
One of his fingers traced the line of my jaw, slow and deliberate. His breath ghosted across my lips, close enough to promise a kiss yet cruel enough to withhold it. The anticipation was torture.
Achingly slow, his touch drifted downward, gliding along my neck until it reached the collar of my dress.
“What if my answer is yes?” he murmured, his gaze following the path of his own finger like he was hypnotized by the contact.
My brows drew together faintly. “Yes to what?”
He toyed with the edge of my dress absentmindedly, his focus still fixed on me. “The question you once asked me,” he said softly. “The one that’s been living in your head ever since, the one that’s been burning holes through your thoughts.”
His grip tightened slightly in my hair as he gathered more of it in his fist then he tugged gently, forcing my head back until my throat was exposed and he leaned down, his lips barely brushing the shell of my ear.
“What if my answer is yes?” he whispered, his breath hot against my skin. “That you’re free, free to decide whether you walk away or stay by my side.”
A sharp gasp escaped me before I could stop it as my chest rose and fell too quickly, my lungs refusing to steady. “Is that really your answer, Nico?” I breathed. “Are you saying yes?”
He moved closer still, until his lips brushed along the curve of my ear. I could hear the quiet rhythm of his breathing, feel the warmth of it sinking into my skin. It was hypnotic the way he spoke, the way he touched me, the way he made the world shrink until nothing existed beyond him.
“If it is,” he murmured against my neck, his lips tracing slow circles over my skin, “would you stay?”
For a moment, my mind blurred completely, slipping under the weight of everything the heat, the desire, the pull that always dragged me back to him no matter how hard I tried to resist. It felt like drowning in something beautiful and dangerous all at once but then reality crashed back in.
This wasn’t just us anymore no matter what we did, no matter how tightly we held onto each other, it would never again be only him and me. Everything had changed. Everything was different now and the worst part was Nico had no idea.
Things had become far more complicated since the day I asked him that question and since the day I begged to know if I had the freedom to choose my own fate.
Back then, I didn’t have that freedom because he had taken it from me and now?
Now he was offering it and now he was placing the choice in my hands but it didn’t matter because even if he gave me the world, the truth remained the same and I still wasn’t free not anymore and not when the life growing quietly inside me had already made the choice for me.