“I’ve never told you I love you,” I say with more snark in my voice than I intended, but I don’t appreciate him beating me to the punch, especially on this.
He props up his head on a fist. “No, you haven’t.”
“Are you the type of man that just assumes something like that, without any verifiable evidence?”
“Oh, I have evidence.”
I scramble up to a seated position and fold my arms over my chest. “What evidence are you referring to, Mr. York?”
He mirrors my position. “You wrote me a beautiful song and sang it to me. You compared me to a sunrise.”
“Who says I love the sunrise?” I scoff. “Besides, you wrote a song for me too, and that doesn’t mean anything.”
He smiles and nods. “Oh yes, it does. I love you unconditionally. I love you to the end of time and back again. I was telling you I loved you with every note I played on that violin.”
I gasp at his declaration, struck mute by his sincerity.
“I love you, Zoe. If I haven’t made it clear before, I do. This isn’t just biology.”
I throw myself across the bed, tackling him to the mattress, and deliver a long, passionate kiss to his smiling mouth. When I finally pull back, I’m not sure if we’ve been kissing for thirty seconds or three minutes. I’ve completely lost myself. “I love you too,” I tell him.
My heart swells. The way he’s looking at me is like my every childhood dream of what love should be. This is my endgame. This is forever.
I roll off him and climb from the bed. “Now that that’s settled, go do your job before I lose my nerve and chain you to the bed.”
He stands and kisses me on the nose. “Don’t give up on that dream, little witch. The night is young. You can chain me to the bed later.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
SEB
“You look ready for a fight.”
Remus can barely stand still. Dressed in fighting leathers and enough weapons to take on an army, he fidgets beside me outside the Santa Barbara mansion that contains our next target. Unlike our last job, there are signs of life inside and a few cars in the drive.
“If I’m ever in bed for that long again, I hope it’s because I’ve found a mate and not because I’m recovering from a run-in with the Order.”
I grin, thinking of Zoe. “Definitely a better reason to stay horizontal.”
“What’s it like?” Remus asks. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. We both know that we’re less than a week out from his alignment. He’s older than me, which means the symptoms of his appetency will be grueling. Almost unbearable. I pray to the creator that he finds a mate soon.
For a while, I just stop and think about how to explain it, and then it comes to me. “You know when you were little and you’d fall asleep on the couch, and your parents would carry you to bed and tuck you in?”
“I think I do.”
“And maybe you’d wake up a little. Not all the way awake, but enough to hear them talking or laughing. You didn’t know what they were talking about, but you felt warm and safe. You knew that you were loved.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what it feels like. She’s this soothing presence, this source of warmth and connection. When I’m with her, everything makes sense. All my fears, my stressors, fade into the background.”
“Shit. Sounds nice.” He rubs the back of his neck, scowling.
“You’ll find her, Remus. The perfect woman for you is out there somewhere.”
He snorts. “I don’t know, man. It’s harder for Geminis. We’re an air sign. We need change. I’m constantly second-guessing myself. If I’m at war with my own thoughts half the time, how will one woman ever be enough to keep me interested?”
“That’s not narcissistic or anything.” I laugh.
