“Liar.” Rae pushed me back on the bed, planting a palm either side of my head. “You were asleep, and I woke up next to you, half convinced you were in some kind of coma, so I prattled on at you until Dom came in thinking we had visitors.”
A laugh so genuine it made my stomach hurt bubbled out of me. Rae smiled too, and Isha’s words echoed in my head. “Take the win and move on.”Could we really do that? Did Raewantto? Sabbing was in his blood perhaps even more than it was mine. Could he leave it behind?
“Hey.” Rae tapped the side of my head. “Where did you go?”
“I’m right here.”
“Come on, man. Let’s do this.”
“Do what?”
Rae took my chin in his hand and leaned down so his lips were millimetres from mine. “Tell me you love me.”
I stared at him, paralysed by irrational fear, and at the same time horrified that he didn’t already know. “I do love you. Do you love me?”
“I do, Cash. Probably too much, but I’m okay with that.”
He loves me.For a moment, the world stopped, then it hit me like a bullet that I’d known it for ages. Rae’s life was as complex as his conscience, and I’d messed him around enough to wreck just about everything, but aside from my very darkest hours, some part of me had always known this moment would come. “Maybe I love you too much too. I don’t want you to go home.”
Rae kissed me, slow and sweet, and full of promise. “Then maybe it’s a stroke of luck that I don’t have a home anymore. Didn’t Lucky tell you Dom’s building company has officially put an offer in for Fletch’s land? I’m pretty sure Fletch will take it.”
It was news to me, but it made sense, and another piece of the puzzle I craved so badly slipped into place. With the hunt shut down, and Fletch’s land sold, Rae was as free as he wanted to be. “Does that mean you have an answer to my question?”
“About what I’m going to do with my life now?”
I nodded, pecking a nervous kiss to Rae’s scratchy cheek, mourning the loss of his weight against me when he rolled onto his back.
He blew out a breath. “I’m going to take the job at theObserver.They already know about my blog, and I’m going to carry on with that too, and perhaps find a way to incorporate it into my paid work at some point. I also offered my blog up to Petra from Bucks, and guy from the Hertfordshire sab team. That way I can keep my hand in even when I’m not actively sabbing anymore.”
My heart struck up a slow, hopeful tattoo. “You’re giving it up?”
“I don’t know,” Rae said. “But whatever happens, I’m tired, man. I need a break.”
For weeks, I’d been fixated on my own exhaustion, drifting in a fog of self-absorbed fatigue, but as I gazed at Rae now, the shadows beneath his molten eyes seemed to jump out at me. I reached out to trace them. Had they always been there? “It was really hard for me the first time I stepped away, especially because the hunt was still active. It haunts me even now.”
Rae winced. “I know, but the way I see it I’m no good to any fox if I’m too tired to fight their corner. Besides, I’m not stepping away from the cause entirely, just adapting my role to survive. Even without needing to be with you, I-I can’t do it anymore, Cash. It hurts too much.”
His anguish was like a knife to my heart. I moved like a snake to lie over him, crushing him against me. “If it didn’t hurt, it was never real.”
Rae wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. “I know, and I’ll get over it one day, probably, maybe.”
He wouldn’t, and neither would I, but we had each other. Welovedeach other.
Perhaps it would be enough.
I kissed him again to be sure.
Epilogue
Eight months later…
Rae
If I’d thought Cash was beautiful in the winter, half hidden by thick coats and hats, he was fucking enchanting in the summer, playing football in Hyde Park with Lucky, while me and Dom dozed in the sunshine, ignoring the paparazzo crouched behind a nearby bush. After six months of living with my lover and his two BFFs, I’d grown used to the near constant photographers. Sometimes, I even joined Lucky at the front door, handing out tea and sickly sweet smiles.
It was a fun way to waste an afternoon.
Not that any afternoon I’d spent with these men was ever a waste. I was more in love with Cash than I could ever say, I adored Lucky, and Dom was my fucking hero. The deal for Fletch’s land had gone through a few months back, leaving Fletch and Meg with more choices and opportunity than they’d ever had. Fuckers had booked a round-the-world cruise, and I was so damn happy for them.
