I pushed up to sitting, drawing one knee up. I angled myself so I was a little farther behind him, my chest pressed to his shoulder. My fingers brushed through the silky locks of his hair. Playing with the barely-there curl at the edge of his ear where his hair had gotten longer in the amount of time since we had been here.
“That didn’t feel like pain to me,” I whispered.
He grunted in return. “That’s what I want. To make you feel good. Treat you like a queen the way you deserve. But I’m afraid the only thing I’m going to do is drag my bad into your good.”
I scoffed. “Yet I’m the one who came to you because my psycho ex wants me dead? Concocted an entire plot to get you to marry me so you’d adopt my kids? Talk about baggage.”
My fingers slipped down to brush along his cheek, my palm settling on the stubble of his jaw.
Cupping him gently so maybe he could feel a little of what I felt when he looked at me.
Cared for.
Shielded and shrouded.
Desolation took over his features. “You witnessed what happened tonight.”
Fear rebounded. Tumbling through my insides and hauling me back into the nightmare. My guts sick with the idea of what could have happened. Sick with the thought of losing him.
“You protected us. That’s what I witnessed.” Dread twisted through my being. “Do you…do you think they’re related to Ethan?”
He gave a harsh shake of his head. “They were specifically sending a message to me.”
Confusion bound. “Who were they?”
His thick throat bobbed. “Not sure. They just implied that I should have known I wouldn’t get away with what I did.” He stalled before he pressed on, “Keep telling you I’m not exactly a good guy, Daisy.”
Maybe it was the first time I really believed it.
The first time I really believed that he might be involved in the sordid.
After today? After meeting his family? After what happened on our way home?
A tremble rocked through me.
“What exactly does that mean?”
He turned away like he was going to shut me down. Ignore the subject. Close himself off the way he’d done since I got here.
The gruff man so different from the boy I once knew.
But he was still the same person.
The same soul and light.
I recognized it as clearly as I recognized the flame that burned in me whenever he came near.
“Tell me what’s going on, Cash. Tell me who you really are.”
Regret billowed out of him. “I can’t let you go to that place, Daisy.”
Disbelief shot from my mouth. “Too late, because I’m already there. I’m alreadyrighthere.”
I slid my hand around to his opposite cheek and drew his face in my direction.
Forcing him to look at me.
To see me.
