“I am…” He swallows. “…so mad at you.” He rolls his head, pressing into my skull. “Yet I am too relieved to see that you’re okay.” Broken eyes meet mine when he drags himself an inch back from me. “If anything happens to you, I will blame myself forever, Citrus. Do you not get that? Out of everyone here,I’mthe only person who knows your secret. I feel responsible for making sure I live up to that trust. If anything happens to you, it’s becauseIfailed to protect you from an alien world.”
Mouth dry, I whisper, “But…it isn’t completely alien, Shoulders. There are a lot of things I do know.”
“I’m not trying to undermine that, Lemonade.” He lifts his free hand, cups my cheek, skates his touch around the shell of my ear. “But all it takes is one variable being off between what you know and reality. A single miscalculation…” His fingers tremble, so he draws his hand back and collapses into the space beside me. Covering his face, he whispers, “There is so much blood on my hands. So many lives I wasencouragedto leave behind. Please.” His voice fades to near silence as he echoespleaseonce more.
Resting my sword against the couch, I wrap my arms around him, holding as tight as I can. “I’m sorry.” I sniff. “I’m so sorry.” I bury my face against his shirt, in the earthy scents, until the rims of my glasses bruise my nose. “I wanted to prove something. But I shouldn’t have gone behind your back to do it. I just…I want to take care of you, too.”
Without notice, his arms sweep me into his lap and cradle me there, against the hammer of his heart. Lips to my hair, he crushes me as close as physically possible. “You are the first person in my life who feels like my own flesh and blood, Citrus. I don’t know how to explain it. I just don’t think I’d survive losing you. You’ve kept me up every night since we met. First, from confusion, then worry and concern, then the phantom sensation of your nearness. I lie awake, thinking about how you’re just one room over, and it kills me for reasons I don’t understand.”
His grip on me is near bruising while my mind struggles to comprehend what he’s saying.
In not so many words, it sounds like a confession. The parts left out are the ones that imply he knows it.
As he holds me, his breaths even, level, and calm—like I’m a drug feeding peace into him from every place our bodies touch.
I understand the trauma of feeling like no one is safe. My family never created a space for me to thrive, so I grew up on edge, afraid. Samson never had a family fail him, but he also grew up in an environment that treated him like a tool and an inconvenience.
I can’t imagine adding horrors like death and threat of fatal injury to my upbringing. It was hard enough knowing I existed by mistake and served no purpose beyond making life easier for parents who never wanted me.
For me, the illusion of love came at a price.
For Samson, there has been no such delusion.
Starved.
We are both starved.
But I had pictures and ideas and media surrounding me to provide examples of love.
Samson’s had pain, then isolation.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, daring to lift my face so my lips skim his neck.
We both shudder in time, and his hold on me becomes more complete, fingers spreading to encompass as much of my body as possible. My heart can barely keep up with the sensation of his closeness. He’s so solid beneath me, and yet I’m barely tethered to this world.
This is everything I want.
Every day.
Always.
Someone desperate to have me.
Someone terrified to lose me.
Someone whowantsme. Really, trulywants me.
I kiss his jaw. “I wasn’t thinking at the depth I should have been. You aren’t reacting because of superficial reasons. In the world I know, danger has human faces, so it feels quieter. The horrors areelsewhere, ignored becausethat could never happen to me. And, if they don’t happen to you directly, it can sometimes feel like they don’t happen at all. But, here, they have happened to you directly.” I wrap my arms around his neck, sink my fingers into his hair. “I am so sorry for being insensitive to that. It was selfish to assume you are someone I need to prove something to. Being petty shouldn’t be in my character description because I know being irrational isn’t in yours.”
His head turns, pressing his lips to my throat. Sparks soar into me from the connection, and I commit the hard kiss to the very memory of my soul. His mouth moves against my flesh. “I care deeply for you, Lemonade. Please know if you don’t already,I have never let anyone else get this close. I’m still trying to figure out why you’re the exception, but just know that you are.”
I love him.
I’ve hurt him.
The pain of that crushes my heart and my lungs, and all I can utter again is, “I’m so sorry.”
“Shh.” He kisses my throat. “I forgive you. I’d forgive you for anything. Just please don’t scare me like this again. Anything trying to hurt you needs to go through me first.”
