Chapter 1 - The Touch
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“What are you doing?” Chloe asked, instinctively trying to pull her oversized cardigan tighter around her waist to hide herself from his gaze.
Arthur did not let go of her hand. His grip was firm but impossibly gentle, a stark contrast to the rough calluses lining his palms. He stepped closer, eliminating the safety of the distance she usually kept between them.
“I am looking at you,” he said, his voice dropping into a low, quiet register that made her breath catch in her throat.
“I don’t like being looked at like this,” she murmured, her cheeks flushing a deep, embarrassed red.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re evaluating a flaw.”
Arthur’s jaw tightened. He released her hand, only to reach up and slowly push the fabric of her cardigan off her shoulder. It fell to the floor in a soft heap, leaving her standing in just her simple cotton camisole and jeans. She shivered, wanting to cross her arms, but his eyes held her completely captive.
“I have spent my entire life surrounded by people who are manufactured,” Arthur said, his eyes tracing the soft, natural curves of her hips, the fullness of her waist. “Women who starve themselves. Men who carve themselves into stone to look invincible. It is all exhausting, Chloe. It is all a lie.”
He stepped into her personal space. His large, warm hands rested gently on her hips.
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“You are the most real thing I have ever touched,” he promised, his thumbs brushing against the bare skin of her waist. “There is not a single flaw in the way you were made. I want to see you. All of you.”
For the first time in her life, Chloe didn’t pull away. She didn’t try to make herself smaller. She let the most dangerous man in Chicago hold her, realizing with terrifying clarity that she was already falling hopelessly in love with a man whose world could swallow her whole.
