Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 226

226 Afterglow

Arya’s POVO

When I woke up, the first thing I felt was warmth.

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Not just from the sun spilling through the curtains. Not just from the thick blankets

wrapped around me.

It was the kind of warmth that settled low in my body and stayed there, soft and

dangerous, like a secret I could still feel under my skin.

For a few seconds, I didn’t move.

I just lay there on Lev’s bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling heavy in the sweetest way. My

limbs felt lazy. My body felt used. Not in a bad way. Not in a way that made me want to

hide. In a way that made heat creep up my neck the second memory came rushing back.

The balcony.

His mouth on mine.

His hands on my body.

The way his voice had gone rough when he said my name.

The way he had looked at me like he had been holding himself back for too long and had finally decided he was done pretending.

I shut my eyes.

Bad idea.

Because the moment I did, it all came back sharper.

How he had kissed me against the night air. How the moon had hung above us while his hands slid over my waist and down my thighs. How he had made me feel wanted in a way that was not gentle or timid or uncertain. He had wanted me with his whole body. With his whole wolf. With all that dark, controlled hunger he carried around like a

weapon.

And then after the balcony, the room.

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The bed.

The sheets.

His mouth at my

throat.

His palm at the back of my neck.

The way he had pulled me closer every single time like the idea of distance offended

him.

My face burned.

Ria made a pleased little sound in my head, practically purring.

‘Now this is more like it.’

I pressed the back of my hand over my mouth, but it did nothing. I was smiling like a

fool.

It made me blush harder.

I turned my head then, expecting to find him beside me, maybe watching me, maybe asleep, maybe looking entirely too calm for a man who had ruined me for half the night.

But the space next to me was empty.

The sheets were disturbed. The pillow had the faint dent of where his head had been. His scent still clung to everything. Dark woods. clean skin. male wolf. That deep scent that always made something in me go weak and alert at the same time.

I pushed myself up slowly, and my body reminded me exactly how the night had gone.

I sucked in a breath.

Ria laughed.

‘You liked that.’

I glared at absolutely nothing.

I did not answer her because there was no point. She already knew.

The room was quiet. Too quiet. It should have felt awkward, waking up alone in a man’s bed after a night like that. It should have felt strange. But it didn’t. Maybe it was because

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his scent was everywhere. Maybe it was because something about this room already felt less like a place I had entered and more like a place that had opened for me.

Or maybe it was because somewhere deep inside, in the part of me that was still bruised

and wary and trying not to hope too much, I already knew Lev had not slipped away

because he regretted anything.

That man did not strike me as the sort to run from what he wanted.

Still, I sat there for a moment, pulling the blanket to my chest, trying to gather myself.

The truth was, I had never imagined I would get here this way.

Not after James.

Not after the humiliation.

Not after losing my child.

Not after being made to feel like the easiest thing in the world to replace.

There had been a time when I thought all the softness in me had been buried under rage. Buried under shame. Buried under that awful ache of knowing the man I had built my life with had chosen power over me and called it necessity.

I thought that part of me was dead.

But Lev had touched me last night like nothing in me was broken beyond reach.

That was what scared me.

Not his hands.

Not his hunger.

Not even the intensity of what was growing between us.

It was the fact that I was responding. So easily. So deeply. Like some starving part of me had taken one look at what he was offering and gone yes, that, I want that, give me

more.

That scared me more than I wanted to admit.

I got out of bed and looked around for something to wear while Ria lounged smugly in the back of my mind like she had won some private argument.

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<226 Afterglow

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My nightgown from last night was somewhere on the floor. One heel was near the couch. The other had somehow ended up closer to the bed. My robe was hanging half off

a chair.

I stared at the mess for a second and another wave of heat washed through me.

God.

He really had gone all night.

I bent to pick up my robe and my body protested again, which only made the memory

worse.

Or better.

I hated that both things could be true at once.

By the time I stepped into the bathroom, I had at least managed to get my face into some kind of neutral expression, but the second I looked into the mirror, I lost that battle

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