L'Amour en Code

Chapter 81

I blinked up at him, lips still parted under the weight of his touch, skin burning where he’d brushed me like a secret.

And just like that—without a single word more—he'd silenced the one thing that had kept us from falling completely off the edge.

God help me, I was already falling.

He didn’t move.
Not right away.

His finger lingered just a second too long—long enough to brand the shape of his touch onto my skin, long enough to make my breath catch and my spine curve with something traitorous. Something wicked. Something real.

And when he finally dropped his hand, it wasn’t relief that washed over me.
It was tension. Dense. Coiled. Waiting to snap.

My heart was hammering. Slamming against my ribs like it wanted out, like it wanted him, and I hated it. Hated how easy it was for him to undo me with a single look, a single word, a single damn touch.

He leaned in slightly, his scent crawling over me like silk and smoke—amber, citrus, something dark and expensive. And that look in his eyes?
It wasn’t just smug.
It was lethal.

“You say it like it’ll make me stop,” he murmured, voice all sin and smoke. “Like I’ll suddenly un-want you if you remind me of her.”

I swallowed hard. My throat burned. “You should.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw.
Then he laughed—but it was short. Strained. A flash of something unhinged under the surface.

“I should, shouldn’t I?” he said, eyes burning into mine now. “I should pretend I don’t think about you every time I’m alone. I should act like I don’t remember your voice more vividly than hers. Like I don’t see you in every room I walk into first. But guess what, Safa—”

He leaned closer, lips a breath from my cheek, from my pulse, from everything fragile inside me.

“I don’t want her. I want you. I always did. And I already told you—I’m not marrying a woman who is in my life thinking of another man.”

He pulled back just enough to meet my stunned gaze.

“Got it?”

And God help me, I did.
Every inch of me did.
But that didn’t make this burn any easier.

My lips parted, but nothing came out.
No clever retort.
No biting comeback.
Just breath. Hot. Shaky. Useless.

Because what could I possibly say to that?

His words were still echoing inside me like aftershocks, rattling through the places I’d locked up tight. He didn’t just want me. He chose me—over the woman he was supposed to marry. Over logic. Over everything.

And somehow, that didn’t feel like a win.
It felt like drowning in warm water. Beautiful. Terrifying. Deep.

“You’re out of your mind,” I whispered, but my voice was traitorously soft. Too soft. It didn’t even sound like mine.

He smiled—slow and knowing. Like he’d just heard the yes hiding under my no.
“Probably,” he murmured, eyes dragging across my face. “But if losing my mind means I get to keep chasing yours, I don’t think I want it back.”

God.
I looked away. I had to.
Because if I kept looking at him with that heat curling between us like smoke, I’d do something insanely stupid. Like believe him. Like forgive him. Like forget every reason I’d built to keep him out.

But his voice found me again. Low. Dangerous.

“You keep reminding me of her like it matters.”
His fingers brushed a lock of hair away from my cheek, gentle, reverent.
“But all I see is you.”