Page 92

My instincts screamed for self-preservation.

But when I looked into her eyes, I found myself doing something unprecedented. I leaned in and kissed her—not with the demanding passion that had marked our previous encounters, but with exquisite gentleness. A question rather than a claim. An offering rather than a taking.

She made a small sound against my lips, her body melting into mine. Her hands slipped into my hair, holding me to her with surprising strength, but she matched my tempo—slow, deliberate, exploring rather than consuming.

When we finally parted, her eyes remained closed, tears glistening on her lashes. "Lucas..."

"Let me show you," I said, the words emerging from that same unguarded place.

"What I can't yet say, let me demonstrate."

I lifted her then, not with the urgent desire of our previous encounters, but with careful reverence.

Carried her not to the bedroom but to the sofa, settling her across my lap, cradling her against my chest.

"Tell me about your week," I requested, stroking her hair with gentle fingers. "Not just your conclusions, but the process. How you arrived at them."

She looked startled by the request—this deviation from our physical pattern, this interest in her internal journey rather than her body.

"You want to talk?"

"I want to know you," I corrected.

"Beyond the physical. Beyond the professional mask you wear so capably. I want to understand how your mind works, what matters to you, who you are beneath the surface."

A tear slipped down her cheek, catching me off guard. "Savannah? Did I say something wrong?"

She shook her head, a small laugh escaping despite the moisture in her eyes.

"No, you said something right. Exactly right. It's just... no one has ever wanted that from me before. To know me beyond what I could offer them."

The revelation struck with uncomfortable precision. How many men had viewed this extraordinary woman as merely an asset, a trophy, an accessory to their ambitions? How close had I come to making the same mistake?

"Tell me," I encouraged, brushing the tear away with my thumb.

"I want to hear everything."

And remarkably, she did.

Curled against my chest in the darkening penthouse, Savannah Blake revealed herself to me in ways no physical intimacy could match.

She spoke of her childhood—a distant father, a mother who medicated her anxieties, a household where performance mattered more than presence. Of her relationships—men who had valued her accomplishments, her beauty, her social currency, but never her essence. Of her week apart—the journals she'd filled, the therapy sessions she'd scheduled, the brutal self-examination she'd undertaken.

"I realized something fundamental," she said, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my shirt. "My attraction to Miles wasn't about him specifically. It was about what he represented—success, power, validation. I wanted to matter to someone who mattered. To prove my worth by earning the approval of a man who rarely gave it freely."

The observation landed with uncomfortable force. "And me? Am I simply a more powerful version of the same pattern?"

She raised her head, meeting my gaze directly. "That's what I feared initially. That I'd graduated from the son to the father, seeking a more concentrated version of the same drug."

"And now?" I held my breath, awaiting her verdict.

"Now I understand it's entirely different." Her hand rose to cup my cheek.

"Miles wanted me diminished, controllable, an extension of himself. You want me expanded, challenging, fully realized. The difference is... everything."

Something shifted inside my chest—a lightening, an opening where there had been only careful constraint. Without conscious decision, I pulled her closer, pressing my face into her hair, breathing in her scent as if it were oxygen I'd been denied.

"I don't know how to do this," I admitted again, the words muffled against her temple. "How to be open in the way you deserve. How to trust that vulnerability won't lead to devastation."