She stared at me like I’d knocked the wind out of her, but I lifted my palm to her cheek and cupped it gently, looking right into her eyes so she could see that there was no talking me out of this.
“I’m not doing it because you need saving. You don’t. I know that, but you deserve the right to choose what happens next. You carried everyone else for so long that you forgot you’re allowed to be carried too. So, I am going to fix this, and when I do, you’re going to decide where we go from there.”
CHAPTER 45
JANE
“Can we go to bed?” I heard myself ask without my brain having given permission for the words. “You said I get to decide where we go, and I want to go to bed.”
For a long moment, I thought he might turn me down. Because why not? My own mother had thrown me solidly under the bus today, driven over all my hopes and dreams not only for myself, but for my brothers and our family name, and then she’d shoved it into reverse and driven over me again.
My youngest brother knew I’d been bankrolling their lives, which meant it was naive to think Isaac, Ryan, and Holden didn’t know as well. Colin had always known, but the others?Fuck, I just really don’t want to think about it.
Alex just looked me and then, without a word, because he was the most perfect man I’d never even thought to ask for, he stood and extended a hand toward me. I placed my palm in his and he pulled me up, slowly leading me to his bedroom.
Ourbedroom.
The notion was still beyond crazy, but that didn’t make it any less true. Especially now that I’d shown up on his doorstep with all my most important earthly belongings in tow.
All the lights in the room were off, except for a single lamp on the nightstand. It lit the cavernous bedroom in a soft, golden glow. The entire city sparkled like a blanket beyond his sprawling windows.
He stopped when we were in the room, still holding my hand as he turned to face me. “Do you want to take a shower before bed?”
I slowly shook my head, eyes locked on his. I took a step into him and let go of his hands only to wrap my arms around his neck. “What I want is for you to take me to bed.”
A lock of hair fell across his forehead as he angled his head to look directly into my eyes. Those piercing green eyes weren’t filled with heat the way they usually were when I said anything along those lines. Tonight, they shone with worry. The furrow between his eyebrows completed the picture.
“Do you not want to?” I asked, trying to keep the sting of rejection out of my tone. “It’s okay. I?—”
“Let’s get one thing perfectly straight,” he said, tightening his grip when I tried to move away from him. That gaze bored into mine fiercely, his voice loaded with meaning. “I always want you, Killer.Always. That’s not a question. The only question is whether you’re sureyouwant this after the day you’ve had.”
“I’ve never been more sure about anything.” I pushed myself up on my tiptoes and brushed the barest of kisses across his lips, my fingers tangling into the hair at the back of his head. “Here’s the thing, Alex. You were right downstairs. I lost everything today. Everything except you, but it turns out that having you makes it worth losing everything else.”
He blinked a couple times in rapid succession and opened his mouth to speak, but I pressed a finger to it and inhaled a deep breath. “No. Let me. Please. You’ve said so much. You’ve made me feel like I could keep going on one of the worst days in my life, and you told me that you’re in love with me.”
A small smile quirked on his lips. “So you did catch that, huh? I was starting to wonder.”
“Oh, I caught it. My head was just spinning too much to make sense of it at the time. I was being pulled in too many different directions at once.”
“So you said.”
“I did.” I stroked my fingernails across his scalp and pushed myself flush against him, still never looking away. “It’s only you and me now, though. One good thing about this post-Thayer world is that you have my full attention.”
“For now.”
I shook my head. “Whatever happens tomorrow, happens. The only thing that’s important to me now is you. Because I love you too, Alex. I’m in love with you and I think I have been all along. I just didn’t know it because I’d never felt it before.”
Alex suddenly gripped my hips. His tongue parted my lips as he kissed me, his words coming out in ragged pants between kisses. “You love me?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” I smiled against his mouth. “You’re stuck with me now, dear husband.”
“Damn.” He smirked, lifting his head away from mine but using his grip on my hips to push me toward the bed. “Oh, well. I suppose that’ll be okay.”
As he laid me down, I laughed. “You’re willing to put up with me, huh?”
