[Warning: The Chapter contains mature content. Proceed with caution.]

"For some reason, I’m only just realizing this now... Lucian, you’re absolutely my type."

Silence fell between them as they held each other’s gaze.

The lines on Lucian’s face deepened as he studied the realization in her eyes. But instead of feeling anything else, he frowned.

"Are you saying that to test me?" he asked with a shallow breath, pressing the last strip of tape over her bandage. "Just because I can’t touch you right now because of this..."

"Touch me."

His furrowed brows tightened as he met her gaze again. "Do you think I won’t?"

If he didn’t care about her at all, he would.

To him, this felt like a test. The doctor had been strict — let her rest, don’t tire her out. Even though it hadn’t been said directly, Lucian understood that it included their bedroom activities. She might act like herself, but her wound was still fresh. He couldn’t reopen it just because he couldn’t control himself.

But as his displeasure rose, so did the growing clarity that she was being completely serious.

"For some reason, I feel strange," she murmured, turning slightly and lowering her knees as she faced him. She looked him in the eye, and he wore the same puzzled expression, as though this realization didn’t quite make sense to her either.

"But somehow... whenever I look at you since I woke up — no, since I saw you last night — I want to be with you," she said, choosing her words carefully, as if searching for the right ones to describe a feeling that had been haunting her.

"Not just a kiss. I keep thinking..." she trailed off, unsure whether these were the right words given how inappropriate they sounded. She didn’t fully understand it herself, but somehow the thought kept replaying in her head.

"...what it would be like to be fucked like a whore."

"..."

Lucian blinked. She raised her brows and nodded, as though satisfied she’d finally worded it correctly. For a moment, he thought his ears were deceiving him. There was no way he’d heard that right.

Then she added with a light chuckle, "I guess that turned me on. Am I deprived?"

No, he thought.

If anyone here was deprived, it was him.

Because even now, even when he was supposed to be doing nothing more than dressing her wound, his mind had already wandered — to what it would feel like to kiss down her back and, while doing so, let his hands roam lower.

Lucian’s thoughts went blank as he stared at her teasing smile. A hiss escaped his lips.

"Fuck," he breathed, finding himself already leaning toward her, seizing her lips, which he knew he shouldn’t.

He should have covered her body, stepped back, and stopped listening. He should have done everything possible to stop himself from letting it get to this point.

But he didn’t.

Why?

Because he was just as deprived.

Even now, he couldn’t help but drink in her breath, bite at her lips, and touch her in places only he ever had.

He should pull away, but with her eyes fluttering shut, her lips moving against his, and her tongue slipping between them, every reason he had vanished. Though he stayed careful not to graze her wound, he let her climb on top of him until his back met the soft mattress.

She kissed him just as hungrily while his hand slid up her thigh and squeezed them. Her hand rested on his chest as she pressed her body against his. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

The soft heat of her body pressed against his erection, her hips rolling slowly over him.

Lucian hissed as she suddenly broke away from his lips, trailing kisses down his neck while her hand slipped between them and found him. She stroked him, feeling the weight of him without slipping her hand beneath his waistband.

He felt her lips against his neck — then realized something — and turned toward her. There, she was grinning. Ashley drew her head back until her face hovered only a palm’s width away from his.

"Lucian," she whispered. "I think... I just thought of a position that won’t strain my back."

His breathing turned heavy. He reached up, fingers combing through the side of her hair as he lifted his head to claim her lips again.

With a ragged breath, he whispered against her mouth,

"Me too."

A soft giggle escaped her lips. He smiled against hers before deepening the kiss.

Slowly, one by one, what little they still wore fell away, along with the medicines and supplies scattered across the bed.

His back rested against the headboard, his hands holding her hips steady as she sat above him. As her back arched and her head tipped back, his arms wrapped around her body — still careful to avoid her wounded shoulder.

His face pressed against her chest, lips closing over her as her body moved. Her moans were muffled by his hand covering her lips, leaving only the creak of the bed and the sound of their bodies tangled in the same rhythm to fill the quiet room.

Surely, they were both what others would call deprived.

After everything that had happened the night before — after brushing so closely against life and death — something about it had ignited them both. They couldn’t help it.

As they reached their peak, she hunched forward, her lips falling onto his. She moaned his name into his mouth, and Lucian took it all in as he felt her clench around him.

A grunt tore from him, every instinct screaming at him to flip her beneath him, and the only thing stopping him was the fact that he knew better.

So with her above him, he couldn’t pull away. He filled her completely.

Deep, ragged breaths filled the room as her body went limp against his. He cradled her gently, sweat beading along his forehead, not bothering to care as he buried his face in the side of her neck and hair.

His fingertips trailed along her back.

"I’ll get something to clean you up," he murmured.

"Why?" Ashley drew her head back to look at him. Exhaustion was written clearly across her face, but the curve of her lips said something else entirely.

His lips parted. "No more."

But this time, it was she who didn’t listen, taking his lips again as if genuinely testing how many lives she had left. And like the deprived man he was, he accepted the challenge without hesitation.

Somehow, for the first time, what passed between them felt unlike anything before. They couldn’t call the other times anything less than good, but compared to tonight, tonight was something else entirely.

Because it was the first time she had matched him completely, without holding back. If anything, she wanted him just as much as he wanted her... and one night was nowhere near enough.