My world rocked. For a moment, I thought I couldn’t breathe. I thought that maybe I was never going to be able to breathe again.
But I did. “You mean it?” I whispered.
He squeezed me tight, giving me his answer that way.
I didn’t mean to say it but I did, and I know I sounded like I’d lost my mind. “You’re fucking scary, Lexi. You know that?”
The smooth skin of his chin brushed my temple. “You’re one of the only people on this world, in this entire fucking universe, who never has to be scared of me.”
I reached for the part of his cape I could touch and grabbed a handful of it. “But I am because nobody else has to trust you with other stuff. With the stuff you could hurt without even using your strength, you know?”
His fingers curled over my hip. “If I wouldn’t hurt a stranger that could use a foot up their ass, why would I hurt the only person I’m not related to that I’ve ever been able to be myself around?”
Oh boy.Oh boy.I pressed my face even closer to his chest, to that smooth fucking skin right there. I opened my eyes. “I don’t know where this marshmallow filling inside you is coming from, but I’m all about it,” I mumbled, hearing how shaky that came out.
Even my bones felt his laugh. “You know you have nothing to be scared of. I’m your sneaky shit.”
I grunted, and he laughed again.
“Come here. I’m going to tell you a little secret,” he whispered, and I sat up straight. His face was intense. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t mad. He was just focused. On me. “What my grandmother showed me was you crawling on the floor with a baby on your back. My baby. Our baby. It was so real, he smelled just like you.”
I leaned back. Way back.
Then I blinked up at him.
“There is no place I wouldn’t look for you. Seven miles deep in the ocean. On a planet in a distant galaxy. I would go anywhere for you if someone took you, Gracie,” Alex said, his voice intense. Then he leaned toward my ear again and said in the barest whisper, “I know your parents let you down, but I would never. All those things I promised I’d never do, wouldn’t mean shit to me if it came down to you or anyone we made together in the future. All those things we worry about Grandmother doing wouldn’t be anything compared to what I would be capable of. Nothing and no one is ever going to hurt you again. I won’t let it happen.”
The center of my fucking existence rocked.
If there was such a thing as a good kind of heart attack, that’s exactly what I would have been having.
So I wasn’t surprised that my voice came out high as a fucking kite as I said, “You’re talking about mass destruction, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so attracted to you.”
His laugh was another puff against my skin.
My throat swelled up, but I found the strength to say, “But I don’t want you to think you want to be with me because someone told you that you should.”
Alex’s head jerked backward, and oh, those eyes were glowing. “Didn’t I just finish explaining that’s why I stayed away?”
“Yes, but I had to say it again.”
He scowled. “What I feel for you, it’s got nothing to do with what anybody else wants or needs. I don’t give a fuck about any of that. That’s what I give a shit about. Being with you makes me happy. I know you know what that has to mean to me.”
I squeezed his cape tighter.
“I didn’t want to like you. I didn’t plan on feeling this protective of you and your smile and your heart. Definitely didn’t want to fall in love with you and your secrets. But then you had to go off and say, ‘You snooze you lose, motherfucker,’and I knew my life was never going to be the same after that.” He dipped his head again and snuggled me even closer as he said, “And I don’t want it to be.”
Of all the things he could have said….
Of all the things he could have done….
I pulled back to take in his face, that perfect fucking face, and I made my own choice.
I didn’t want life to be the same ever again either.
And if I couldn’t trust this son of a bitch, there was no one in the world I would ever be able to.
But that was the fucking thing—he hadn’t wanted to like me, and I hadn’t wanted to trust him.
