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She throws back her head and laughs, and my god, every minute of suffering that I’ve ever gone through is worth having her here now, letting that incredible sound loose.

“I concur,” she snorts. “Wholeheartedly.” She grows serious, taking my hand in hers.

She settles it on her calf, which is way sexier than it should be.

It’s a real testament as to how far gone I am that I’m this hard just from touching her through her leggings.

“I want to take back the power. Claim it for us.”

My head is so scrambled that it takes me a second to get back on track and follow what she’s saying.

“I was thinking how none of this has been our choice. It’s something that happened to us.

I was thinking about that all wrong. I do have a choice.

You have a choice. It’s crazy and scary, but I choose you .

Even if I just realized that you’re okay and we’re still moving past trauma, this is what I want. It’s not just happening to me.”

Christ. The way her mind works is as awe inspiring and beautiful as the rest of her, even if it hits me like a bunch of flaming arrows, eviscerating me from the inside out.

“My mom told me that you can’t choose what goes on in life all the time, but you can choose how and where you want to process it.

It took me a long time to truly understand what that meant.

I’m so sorry that I threw my own pain and insecurity and unsteadiness back at you when you were only trying to help.

I’m really going to make an effort to find myself again. ”

My hand tightens around her ankle. I give her the only thing I truly can. Honesty. “You can’t be so hard on yourself. Not after what you had to endure.”

She nods, biting her lower lip. “But I didn’t have to be hard on you. We could go through this together.”

“I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“I know.” She blinks rapidly, her voice thickening as she struggles to hold back tears. “It’s a lot of pressure. It shouldn’t be all on you. We can share it. You get fifty percent, and I get the other half.”

“More like ninety-ten.”

“My mom also used to say that something good always comes from something bad, even if we have to spend a lifetime trying to understand what it is.”

I close my eyes and let the silence stretch on.

I don’t know what to say. How do I convince her this is a terrible idea when my heart isn’t in wrecking anything to protect her?

I want to be more for her. I want to fix the world, give her freedom, let her choose, glue back all the broken pieces of her heart.

I want this to be real.

I want it to last.

Even if it should probably never have started.

She retracts her leg so my hand lands on her foot.

She wriggles her toes against my palm. “You don’t look good right now and I say that out of pure care and concern.

You’re not feeling well. You’re in too much pain because you decided to freaking flay yourself alive down there.

You need a distraction, not a conversation that weighs ten thousand fucking pounds. ”

“I—”

“Take me through what a normal day looks like for you.”

If that’s the kind of distraction she means, maybe I can do that. I’m terrified of how low I’ve let my guard drop right now. The other day at her house. Nearly every time I’m around her. “You mean as a professional stalker?”

“Normal as in abnormal.” She grins at me, tickling my palm with her toes again. It’s remarkable how comfortable she is here, in my bed. With me. Maybe she doesn’t realize what a big deal it is for me to let her see me at a low point like this.

No, she knows.

I swallow around the lump in my throat and the piercing pain in my gut, the nerves and anxiety filling up my chest. I’m fighting it, that lightness that’s trying to feel that this is right.

I don’t want to lose the nerves, the edginess, the wariness.

Those instincts have gone a long way to protect me.

Even though I keep giving in, I can’t claim this for us. An us shouldn’t exist.

Marcus never meant for me to take care of his sister this way. If he was alive and he found out I was in bed with her, that I’d kissed her, that I’d let her undo my pants and get down on her knees for me, that I’m halfway to gone for her, he’d…

He wouldn’t hate the idea at all. He might have some reservations, but he would have loved you for her. He would have known that you’d do anything to keep her safe. You’d hurt yourself a thousand times over before you ever allowed her to suffer.

“Abnormal normal.” My voice shakes. I can’t pour out the stuff in my head, but we both know it’s there. “Hmm. Let’s see. I really have nothing. It’s all very boring.”

“I’m sure!” She scrambles over and goes to poke me in the ribs, but stops, knowing how it would make me flinch and how much it would hurt.

“You’re going to have to tell me something sometime .

That’s part of the percentage sharing.” She adjusts so she’s laid out parallel with me, her feet touching mine above the blankets.

She lines her face up with mine, so close our noses nearly touch.

“God, how could I not know you were coming? I don’t mean- I- you just kind of bowled me over.

I never knew that another person could do this silent call that goes straight to my heart. You’re burying yourself inside of me.”

That dreamy look on her face and her accompanying words don’t just press my panic button. They storm it. When Kael disliked me, she was much safer. I was much safer. It’s hard, letting someone in. She’s making an effort to be open, and I appreciate it. I want it. It also scares me senseless.

My life was always going to be solitary. I didn’t necessarily choose that path, but it’s the one that I was walking anyway. If she didn’t see me coming, I’m like the poor fucker who steps out into the middle of the street and gets hit by a speeding truck.

I’m a fucking wreck tonight. My body. My head. My heart.

“How can everything inside of one person just know when it comes to someone else? Is this even real? We’re living a life with fake names and a fake situation,” she says.

“That doesn’t have any bearing on what this is.” Great. It would be wonderful if I could give my brain a chance to catch up with my mouth.

“So you do admit there’s something.”

“I admit it, I just don’t know that it can be what you want it to be. I don’t know if I can.”

Her eyes bore through me, straight to the back of my skull, like she can see what’s in my head more clearly than I can. Some days, it’s a fucking mess in there. If she could pick it apart and decode it for herself and share the secrets of it with me, I’d probably thank her.

Maybe.

“I need you to tell me something and don’t bullshit me.”

I can’t agree to that until I know what it is. There is information that I can never, ever give her because it would endanger her. I’ve made promises that I can’t break, even for her.

“When you said you find people who don’t want to be found, you’re not looking for good people. You’re looking for people who need to be brought to justice. You’re doing jobs for the law, or as close to it as you could call it when it comes to a job like that.”

We’ve touched on this before. She already has the answer. I can give her just the barest hint of a nod.

Her palm flattens out against my bare chest, the heat of her scorching me hotter than my back, even though it’s basically been flayed wide open. “Why did you let me think that you were something that you weren’t?”

“I didn’t know you’d gone there until you did.”

“You let me be mad at you, think the worst of you, say horrible things. You deserved none of it, but you took it all.”

“I was there to protect you. You didn’t have to like me for me to do that.”

“Why do you think distance is safer for me?”

The one thing I don’t want to be in this life is a liar.

I’ll allow misunderstandings, but only if they serve a greater good.

She’s asking me straight up for the truth and I can’t deny her.

“I’m going to need some time to sort out what I think now.

I don’t want to offer you anything less than all of me, but how can I do that?

” It’s never been on the table before. I’ve never been in a position where someone’s asked me to give it.

She inhales sharply and I barely stop myself from making the same sound. There’s honesty and then there’s too much . She finds my hand and interlaces her fingers. I try with my whole being not to hold onto her as desperately as I want to. If I did, I’d never be able to let go.

My throat hurts. My back hurts. My stomach hurts.

My chest is beyond hurting. It’s going to implode, and my head?

It’s such a jumbled mess that I can feel a white hot headache moving in behind my eyes.

But the real pain has nothing to do with the tattoo, it’s the fact that for the first time in my life I feel like I’ve been cracked open.

Kael squeezes my hand. “I’ll give you time, but only if you’re thinking about the positives and the real legit negatives, not stuff that doesn’t matter.

If you promise you’ll be fair in your assessment, I can leave you to decide what’s best for you.

But you have to decide for you . If I’m going to ask you for anything, it’s to trust that I’ve already made that decision for me .

Choose living. Choose happiness , even if you never believed it was possible.

I guess that’s all I’ll say, because you need to sleep. ”

Breathing is nearly impossible. It feels a lot like breaking. Maybe the roaring in my ears is the sound of my ribs cracking around my heart. My swallows are audible.

True to her word, she shifts, only taking her hand away when she turns, giving me her back. She tucks my arm around her, sliding it over her hip.

I might be in a ton of pain and a fuckload of emotional turmoil, but my cock seems to like this just fine.

She tucks up against me and I know that she can feel my erection pressing against her ass, even with all the layers of blankets.

“Is a platonic spooning okay? Two people who just want to be close to each other?”

“As long as it doesn’t turn out like the platonic painting session.”

She giggles. “I like that you can still be funny, even if you have to pretend that you’re ninety-nine percent serious.”

She snuggles even closer. It’s not helping the fact that I’m very well aware that I have zero clothes on under here.

“Just rub my arm a little. I like that. It’ll help me fall asleep. Maybe it’ll help you too.”

I don’t want to do it and give her false hope, but then I figure that’s an asshole thing to even think, so I follow her instructions, tracing the shape of her slowly. Memorizing. Wanting. Fighting myself.

“I might need more time than you figure is okay, but please give me space. I swear to you that even if you can’t see me, I’ll be there, keeping watch through the cameras and I’ll drive by several times a night to check on your house.”

She’s quiet for a long time. I can sense her hurt. Can she feel mine? Is it palpable? Is it clawing its way towards her like a wild animal?

“Like you always have.”

Her softly spoken words are full of kindness and trust, and devoid of anger. “Yes.”

She relaxes, and in a few minutes, I can tell by her even breaths that she’s asleep. Trusting me to hold her, to have her back, to do the right thing.

To know what that is.

Fuck me, the agony of this tattoo is nothing compared to what’s going to be tearing me apart inside over the days to come.