“Time to let it go,” I finally whispered, turning my head to kiss the patch on his back before resting my other cheek there.
He flinched at first, almost as though the sound of my voice breaking through the quiet had caught him off guard. The muscles in his chest tightened before his hands reached up to grab my wrists and pull me farther into him. His breaths were ragged and I knew the words he thought he should be saying were rolling around on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't quite find the traction to push them out.
“Just let the guilt go,” I whispered again.
The warmth from his hands around my wrists and the beating of his heart under my palm had me closing my eyes and breathing him in. There wasn’t so much as daylight between our bodies as I stood there, and I didn’t want there to be. I wanted to be what he needed.
Something must have clicked inside him, because the second I spoke again, his body turned in my grip, his hands reaching up to my face quickly. “They tried to hurt you,” he whispered shakily.
“I can see where you’re going with this,” I said a little louder, my hand sliding back and reaching up to cup his cheeks. He did it to me all the time to keep my eyes on his, but this time it was my turn to keep his attention on me. I needed him to see how serious I was. There was no blame, not from me, and there were no regrets.
Drew's head shook slowly as he tried to hide his swallow. “You have no idea where I'm going with this. I've never wanted blood on my hands more than I do right now.”
“I know you do. Believe me, I do. That house was the only thing I had in the world that was worth anything. Every memory of my past was contained in those four walls. Yet, I know that blood will never change that. It will never sate that hunger, and it would take you away from me. I can’t be okay with that, Drew.”
His eyes fell to my mouth, pausing briefly before they shone back up at me, filled with nothing but sadness and confusion. “Don't ask me to walk away from this.”
“I’m not,” I said, realizing how much I meant it. “I couldn’t do that to you, but I’m asking you to be smart about it, Drew. I…” I sucked in a breath and looked down at my feet. I knew the next sentence was probably one of the most selfish I would utter in my lifetime. “I need you.”
“I'll get you killed,” he whispered softly.
My eyes scrunched together, my hands moving down to cup his neck as the crown of my head fell against his chest. I felt as though my own chest was cracking, my ribs being pried apart. The words weren’t there yet, but they were on the rails in that direction and I couldn’t, and wouldn’t accept them. “Don’t. Please. I need you, Drew.”
“Your home has been ruined, your brother hurt. There's a difference between need and want. There has to be.” I was almost convinced that he was trying to push me away until I heard the wobble of his voice and the way he was so obviously trying to convince himself more than anyone else around him.
I’d never been much of a crier in my life. I could count on one hand how many times I’d felt so broken that I just let myself go. I felt broken in that room, standing there with him. The thought of having to give him up made that ringing in myhead start and the dread pool in my gut until the tears slowly gathered, resting on my eyelids as I tried my hardest not to blink. Even looking at the floor, I knew once the first tear fell, I wouldn’t be able to stop and the inevitable shake of my body as the sobs broke would give me away.
“Drew…” I sucked in a deeper breath, the sound of the tremble making my thumbs rub the skin of his neck until I threw caution to the wind and looked up, meeting his gaze. “This isn’t about justwantanymore. Can’t you see? Can’t you feel it?”
He closed his eyes, taking himself away from me for just a moment, and even that was too much. When he opened them up again, they were filled with unshed emotion, just like mine, and that caused me more pain than anything that was about to pass his lips. “You know I can.”
“Then don’t say what you’re about to say.”
“This isn't the right life for you.”
My hands squeezed his neck. “Do you remember that conversation you and I had about choices?”
“Ayda...”
“I choose you, Drew. I choose you.”
His forehead crashed to mine, his hands taking their place in the back of my hair, his fingers curling inside it, tugging hard enough to pull my face up to his. “Why me? Why now?”
Pushing up on my toes, my legs trembled, but I wouldn’t be deterred. “Because I love you. Because I have never met a man like you in my life. You make me feel alive, you make me feel beautiful and you give me something to fight for. And now was the moment you chose to show up. I think I would have loved you in any time or place, but this is the time and this is the place, Drew.”
Pulling back, his hands remained in place as his eyes met mine and he gifted me with a new, lost look I'd never seen before. “You love me?”
For some reason, that was the moment the tears chose to break free, the heated weight of them tracking down my cheeks, even as I nodded emphatically. He was searching my eyes, but I knew what he would see there. I knew all of the answers he was looking for were so close to the surface I might as well have been wearing my heart as a button on my chest.
“I really do.”
Sliding his hands down to the nape of my neck, he pulled me impossibly closer, and even though his body was moving, his face remained completely still, torturing me as I waited for something... anything. Then I saw it, the slow smile that started to creep on one side of his face as he tilted his head and repeated in a raspy breath. “You love me.”
“How could I not?” I asked, pressing my chest against his.
“Jesus, Hanagan.” Drew worked his fingers and thumbs into the back of my neck, massaging me without even realizing what he was doing as he held my gaze. “We need to work on your choices, sweetheart.”
“Shut up and kiss me, Tucker.”
