Kazimir chuckled indignantly but then got a hold of himself. He didn’t have a right to his pride here. If he wanted this to work, if he didn’t want Nate to up and leave him all over again the second his leg healed and he was able to, he needed to convince him to stay. But how? Would saying he was sorry really work?
“I was an ass,” he began, figuring it couldn’t hurt to try. “I—”
“You were panicking,” Nate said.
Kaz paused. “Yes. Yes, I was.”
“And I kept interrupting you,” he added. “I’m sorry about that.”
It was delivered simply but sincerely, and Kaz felt a prickle of something pleasant creep up on him at hearing it.
Maybe there really was something to saying that word after all.
“It’s my fault, I should never have treated you like that,” Kaz began. “Not after promising that I would treat you like my boyfriend. You deserved better. You deserve better. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.”
Kaz blinked. “Okay? Okay as in you forgive me?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“I like the rough kind of sex we have, Kazimir. I like when you take control of the situation and I don’t have to worry about anything. But you can’t keep weaponizing it like that. Sex isn’t a means to controlme. It’s something I want us to share. Can you understand that?”
“Honestly?” A part of him whispered he should just go with the flow and worry about the rest later, but if this was a real chance, it could be his last, and he didn’t want to blow it. “Only a little. My instincts are telling me to order you to stay here, with me, in my bed, forever. To tell you that you can never leave me, no matter what. I want to own you, Narek. But…I’m trying to be better. I’m trying to readjust my thinking. It’s going to take time, and I might not ever be fully successful. Just, please give me a chance, hmm? I don’t want to live without you.”
“Why?” Nate asked.
“Because you’re the only person on the entire planet who might actually believe change is even possible for someone like me.” Nate was the only one who’d ever called Kaz out on his shit, spoken to him like he was a regular person and not a fearedBrumal member or a spoiled corporate heir. “I forced you to come to me. But I don’t want to force you to stay.”
He wanted Nate to make that decision all on his own.
For once in his life, Kaz wanted to be chosen.
He wanted someone to pickhim. He didn’t want them staying or leaving based on his last name or threats.
“All right,” Nate replied calmly, so calmly, in fact, that for a moment Kaz was certain he’d misheard him.
“What?”
The corner of his mouth turned up, his split lip reopening from the move, though he didn’t seem to notice. “I said, all right. Let’s give this another try. I’ll be your boyfriend. I want to be.”
“You do?”
“What happened to all that confidence you’ve always carried around in spades?” he teased.
Kazimir had lost that the second Nate had walked out the door and left him chained to the bed. He’d shattered and come apart right then and there, and even though Nate was back, in front of him and smiling, the reminder of that pain lingered still.
He never wanted to experience that type of loss again.
His gaze swept over Nate’s battered face and he leaned in, gently running the pad of his thumb over his brow, one of the few places that wasn’t bruised. “I should have done worse than merely shot them in the head. They deserved to be tortured for this.”
Nate slipped an arm out from beneath the blanket Kaz had tucked him under once the doctor had finished and grabbed his wrist lightly. “It’s fine. It wasn’t that bad.”
“They shot you,” he reminded with a growl.
“Right, about that. What’s the damage?”
