I almost snarled at remembering. “Being called trash wouldn’t hurt me. Or Levi. He knew that. He used that word to hurtyou. You’re the easier way to get to me. He knew this. He miscalculated, and he will learn that truth. Do not take that from me. I will never stand aside and let someone hurt you.”
“Eight—”
“You wouldn’t stand aside for me.”
She stopped. Her eyes held mine. Those words got through to her. She was wavering.
Her hands lifted, taking hold of my shirt again. Higher up. They sunk in, fisting once again. “Yeah. Okay. I get that, but I can’t handle that. I can’t. Knowing you would beat him down until he harmed himself? I will not have that on me. Do not put that on me. You don’t want me to ask you not to protect me or hurt back for me, then return the respect.”
“What are you asking for?”
“Scale back. Don’t go to the extremes you do. Not everyone is the same. There’s a difference between someone robbing me and someone who said a word that hurt my feelings.”
“Not to me.”
She quieted, playing with her hands between our bodies for a moment before her shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I get that you don’t see adifference, but there is one. In normal people world, there’s a difference. A big one. In Creighton world, I get that harm is harm. You don’t see the difference, but ...” She took hold of my shirt and fisted it again. “I live in normal people world. I’m affected by what you do in normal people world. Not just for—my housemate, but for everyone that you would hurt on my behalf. You don’t feel it, but I do. Everything you do to them, I feel. I carry that weight. I’m not saying never avenge me, just scale it back. Compromise. I can live with that. Learn the difference between a small slight and someone who’s going to rob me, or do something worse.”
A growl left me at the thought of either of those happening to her, but she was trying. This was important to her.
I angled my head to get a better read on her.
Then I saw it. This wasthebig obstacle for us.
I shook my head. “You are lumping two separate items together. A compromise on everyone who harms you versus scaling back on your roommate.” I wanted to tell her she couldn’t ask for both, but I couldn’t go that far. I would lose her. “What you are asking is for one favor and then another bigger favor from me. What are you giving for both of them?”
She cursed under her breath, glaring at me. Her hand turned inward, and I could feel her nails through my shirt. I grunted, my hand pressing down on her thigh as I bucked up underneath her.
She expelled an annoyed growl. “How do I give you permission to hurt a friend of mine?”
“I’ll run it by you.”
“What?”
I let go of the back of her neck and skimmed my finger down her throat. She shivered in its trail. “I will present you three options, and you can approve one.”
“And if I don’t like all three of them?”
“I’ll present three new options, but you will have to approve one.”
She cursed again, her entire body beginning to shake in my arms. She had begun to move her hips over me. I could see she didn’t know she was doing it. “Fine. What do you want from me in exchange for that?”
I considered her. I couldn’t push too far with this request, but it would need to count. “I want to know why you don’t want me to call you Quokka. You used to like the name.”
Panic flared from her before she blanketed it. “What? No.”
I caught the back of her neck again, but my touch was soft. “I am scaling back, for you. Give me this in return.”
Her next curse was whispered, but she jerked her head in a nod. “Fine. Yes. I’ll tell you.”
The darkness in me shifted aside, knowing the void that was in me, the one that she seemed to fill when she was near me, a flicker of something good sparked there. That was her. Her tiny ray of sunshine that had somehow lodged itself in me and refused to leave. It was doing a little dancing jig.
I’d never tell, though.
She grinned at me, blowing out some air upward over her own forehead. “You make me sweat something fierce.”
“Stop,” I taunted. “You’ll make me preen.”
Laughter burst from her, and that dancing jig inside of me quaked before it exploded, growing triple in size. She was so goddamn beautiful, in every way that mattered to humanity. I loved her. I was sure of it.
