“I don’t know what’s happening,” I confess. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
Nicolas’s gaze drops. “I haven’t been very nice to you, have I?”
I shrug. “You haven’t been mean. You just…”
“Didn’t care,” he finishes lamely. “And that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I do care. I always have, but I’ve been so scared that if I let you in, you’ll break my heart.”
The confession is so soft, so raw, I almost reach for him, but keep my fingers bunched into fists in my lap.
“You were right,” I tell him with all the confidence in me. “I will hurt you.”
His throat muscles bob once before he lifts his eyes to mine. “I don’t think so. I think you’re scared. I think you’ve been raised to believe you’re like this and you accepted it. Dom’s right. If you let us, we’ll prove you wrong.” He pauses to let me process, gaze searching my face. “What do you think? Will you stay with us?”
“Do you want to be with us, Isla?”
It’s a trick question whether Nick means for it to be or not. Even with the warmth of his fingers holding my chin, forcing me to meet the hard truth, the answer itself settles in my throat.
“I do. So much, but it’s a bad idea. I’m not worth the gamble.”
The grind of his jaw momentarily silences me.
“Who told you that?”
I blink at the question. “No one. I just know.”
“Well, you’re wrong.” His fingers are oddly gentle sweeping back locks of hair off my cheek. “And if I find out that someone filled your head with that shit, I’ll need my own lawyer because I’m not walking away until we’ve had a long talk.”
I’m having a hard time believing any of this is real. Maybe it’s all an elaborate joke, but Nicolas doesn’t have that kind of sense of humor.
“Baby steps,” he muses when I take too long to answer. “We’re going to keep you, Isla.”
My eyebrows lift to mirror the tilt in my lips. “That’s baby steps?”
“Yup.” He strokes my cheek with the back of his bent knuckles. “As of this moment, you’re ours. We’ll figure out the how later. But,” he captures my chin and holds me in place to peer deep into my eyes, “if you run, I will find you, Isla. I will bring you home and I will put you over my knees. I will spank you so fucking hard, you won’t be able to sit for a week.”
“Within reason,” Dom interjects from somewhere behind me.
“No,” Nicolas snaps. “No exceptions. We will never give you a reason to run from us. If something happens and you feel that urge, you will come find us and we will talk about it. Understand?”
It’s too good to be true.
I’m too emotional, to happy and excited and scared to find the holes I’m going to trip over. The fact that Nicolas is even considering, the fact that I’m in his lap and he’s holding me…
“What if you regret—?”
It only darkens the clouds in his eyes. “Understand, Isla?”
I swallow and nod. “Understand,” I voice when he tells me to say it.
Against mine, his chest rises and falls with the breath he’d been holding. The fingers on my chin drift up and lightly touch my cheek, skim along my jawline. A lock of hair is swept behind my ear. Little gestures that are seemingly inconsequential, and yet I feel each one to my soul.
“There is nothing you can tell us that we won’t take care of,” he says gently. “You just need to come to us.”
What can I do, except nod and let my lashes close when he leans forward. My body betrays my mind and melts into the security of his hold with the first brush of his lips over mine. For a moment, I let myself believe maybe I can be happy even as every part of my being knows I will eventually run.
Chapter Fifteen
?Nicolas?
