The truth of this base, brutal act he promised to commit.
One that maybe made me a horrible person because I hoped that he did.
“Then we’ll leave and let you live in peace, and I promise, I won’t ever ask you for anything else.”
Torment wound around him, and I scratched my nails gently across the hot skin of his chest.
“Please,” I whispered.
A long groan left him, and he opened to me, those eyes swallowing me down as he stared at me through the fluttery, flimsy light.
His being all around.
The man towering.
A dark cloud.
A perfect cover.
He pressed my hand even closer. His voice was the softest I’d ever heard it. “Never could say no to you, could I?”
Relief slammed me. So sharp that I bowed forward and the air heaved from my lungs.
“Are you…saying what I think you are?”
“Guess I am.”
“Thank you. I know it’s not enough, but it’s all I can give you right now.”
He dipped his hazel gaze to ensure I was looking at him.
Like I could look anywhere else.
“Told you I owe you everything.” Grief poured out of him.
I searched his face. “That’s not why I’m asking this of you.”
“Then why me?”
He wasn’t going to like what I had to tell him, but I needed him to know, anyway. Because he was the one who had brought me out of my shell. Made me look at myself when I felt small and insignificant and unloved.
Lost in a world where there was no place for me.
And with Cash, I’d found a place.
For once in my life, I truly belonged.
“Because you’ve always been the best person I know. The one who saw a shy girl whom everyone else discarded and believed something great in her.”
His thumb ran over the back of my hand. “I’ve got news for you, Daisy. You are great.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek to stop the flush. “I want to be great for my kids, Cash. I do. And I’m starting here, with you, because you are the only person I could imagine raising them if I don’t have the honor to.”
“It’s not comin’ to that, remember?”
“I know.” I couldn’t stop the smile that tweaked the edge of my mouth.
He exhaled a weighty breath. “What does this look like?”
