“Do you really believe that you’re the savior?”
Part of me wanted to laugh. “I don’t know what to believe. Can you imagine a worse person for that position?”
“I can think of no one better,” he said quietly. Oh, that was like a direct hit to my heart. He was tugging on my emotions again and that was too dangerous. It would be easier if I kept this about our physicality.
I wished this nervousness would abate. “I know that we have always had this.”
“This?”
I gestured between us. “This physical attraction. We have always wanted each other, even when we were furious. So maybe this isn’t fair of me, but I want us to be ... us. The way we were in our dreams. Being able to talk and laugh. We have been friends and I would likethat again.” We had also been doing many other pleasurable things to one another in those dreams, and I hoped he wouldn’t bring that up.
This seemed foolish. I reminded myself that, just a few hours ago, I had wanted his disdain and anger because they helped to create a chasm that made things easier for me on the attraction front.
But I needed him in my life in some form. I knew we were meant to work together. There was a reason he’d been in my dreams for so long.
A reason why when I first met him, it was like remembering someone I had forgotten.
“I told you,” he said, and his heated voice skated over my skin. “Whatever you want, you have only to ask and I will do it.”
All the air in the room left and I couldn’t breathe. When he’d said that before, we’d been mostly naked and he had been using his mouth to do the most—
He suddenly stood and went into the washroom.
I decided to take this opportunity to teach my body how to move oxygen in and out of my lungs again, and to calm myself down. I couldn’t ask him to be my friend and then immediately turn around and pounce on him.
When he came back out, my heart lifted at seeing him. He walked over to the bed, looking down at me. He reached for a pillow and a blanket and put them on the floor.
A sick taste filled my mouth as I watched him settle in. My racing heartbeat was no longer from desire but from fear. He had told me once that he would never sleep on the floor. That if I wanted to be away from him, I was welcome to do so—but he never would.
Now he was.
I should let this happen. Get distance. Let the divide between us grow wider.
But I didn’t want to keep being caught in the same endless cycle.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked.
He was in the midst of arranging the blanket over him when he stopped to look at me. “I’m not trying to punish you, wife. I’m ... doing what I promised Io. Protecting you. Even from me.”
I didn’t want that. I wanted to be close to him. Even if that wasn’t fair to either one of us.
“I trust you,” I said softly. I knew that he could control himself. Much better than I could.
He made a sound at the back of his throat and then lay down. “I think it’s better if we stay apart.”
My legs were trembling, but I managed to scoot to the edge and walk over to him. I knelt down. “I don’t. I want to be with you.”
It was one of the most honest and scary things I’d ever said to him, and I felt completely exposed. Vulnerable. Like I had crawled out on the highest limb of a tree and walked to the edge.
Would he pull me to him or let me fall? I waited. He could turn on his side and ignore me and I would leave him alone. Or if he told me to go, I would.
“Please,” I said.
He held his arms out and reached for me. I cuddled up next to him while he put the blanket over both of us. The floor was cold and hard but I didn’t care. I wanted to be close to him.
No, it wasn’t just want. Ineededit. At some point I had started to need him, and while the thought terrified me, this time it wasn’t enough to make me leave his arms.
Chapter Twenty-One
