“Not at all,” I said. “I’m glad you did.”
His arm came around me then, slow and careful, like he was asking permission with his body.
I went willingly.
29
WYATT
When I finished—when the last word about Project Trueborn and my fourteen half-brothers and my father's impossible resurrection hung in the air like smoke that wouldn't clear, wouldn't dissipate no matter how much I wanted it to—I waited for her to recoil.
To ask how I could be part of something like that, how I could sit here and calmly tell her I was literally bred for a purpose like some kind of lab experiment, like livestock with a pedigree. To tell me it was too much, too strange, too dangerous to touch with a ten-foot pole. To look at me like I was contaminated by association, like being designed instead of just born made me less human, less real, less worthy of the kind of love she'd offered me last night in that hotel bed when the world still made sense.
She didn't.
Instead, she lifted our joined hands—mine still trembling slightly from the weight of confession, hers steady as bedrock—and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. Soft. Deliberate. Reverent, even.
Like I was something precious instead of something manufactured in a government program nobody was supposed to know about.
"Thank you," she said quietly, her voice cutting through the noise in my head like a blade through fog.
I blinked, completely thrown, my brain struggling to process the response because it wasn't what I'd expected, wasn't what I'd braced for. "For what?"
"For trusting me with it." She met my eyes, and there was no fear in them at all, no hesitation, no careful distance. Just that steady warmth that made my chest ache like something was breaking open inside me. "For not running from me again. For letting me see all of you—even the parts you think are broken or wrong or too damaged to love."
My throat closed up tight, words jamming there like they were trying to escape and couldn't find the exit, couldn't push past the emotion blocking the way. "You still want this? After knowing ... everything? After knowing my entire existence was planned by people I've never met for purposes I'm still trying to understand?"
She smiled—small, sad around the edges but so achingly real it hurt to look at, like staring directly at the sun. "Especially after knowing everything. Because now I know why you run. And I can love you, anyway. I can love you because of who you are, not in spite of what you came from."
The word love hit me square in the chest, warm and terrifying and too big to hold, too big to deserve.
I pulled her into me then, crushing her against my chest hard enough that she gasped softly, burying my face in her hair, breathing her in like oxygen after drowning, like she was the only thing keeping me tethered to something real, something that made sense in a world that had just revealed itself to be built on lies.
She wrapped her arms around me, holding tight, fingers pressing into my back like she could hold me together by force of will alone, like she could keep all my broken pieces from scattering to the four winds.
We stayed like that until my breathing evened out, until the shaking in my shoulders stopped, until the world felt less like it was ending in fire and more like it was just ... shifting. Rearranging itself into a shape I didn't recognize yet but might be able to live in, if I was brave enough to try.
Then she pulled back just enough to look at me, copper hair falling across her face, catching the afternoon light filtering through the windows and turning it molten. "What happens now?"
I exhaled slowly, trying to think past the relief of having her here, having her know the worst of it, having her stay despite everything I'd just dumped on her like a confession too heavy to carry alone anymore. "I don't know. I need to talk to my father again. Need to understand what Dominion Hall actually is, what they do beyond just existing, what they want from me, what risks come with accepting whatever they're offering. Need to figure out how to keep you safe from whatever fallout might come from Klein or anyone else who's looking into this, who might use you to get to me."
She nodded, serious but not afraid, like she was already mentally organizing the problem into manageable pieces the way she probably did with her counseling clients. "We'll figure it out together."
"Together," I echoed, and the word settled into me like a promise I finally believed I could keep, like something solid and permanent instead of another lie I told myself to feel less alone in the dark.
Then her expression shifted—something warmer sliding into her eyes, something that made the air between us change, chargewith different energy. She smiled slow and wicked, the kind of smile that made heat pool low in my gut and made every coherent thought scatter.
"But first ..." she said, voice dropping lower, rougher, intimate.
She leaned in and kissed me.
Not soft. Not careful. Not the gentle comfort we'd been sharing while I talked through my family's nightmare.
Hungry.
Her mouth opened under mine, tongue sweeping in bold and claiming and demanding a response I was more than willing to give. Her hands slid under my shirt, nails dragging lightly down my back, making me groan into her mouth, making my cock harden instantly, blood rushing south so fast I felt dizzy with want.
I flipped us so she was under me on the sofa, my weight braced on my forearms. She arched up immediately like she'd been waiting for this, like she'd been holding herself back and now didn't have to, legs wrapping around my waist, pulling me down until every inch of us pressed together, until I could feel the heat of her even through our clothes, feel how much she wanted this, wanted me.
