I can see how desperately he wants to believe that. He’s still holding back, though, as if, this time, I’m the one who’s lying.
“What if… what if you get your memories all the way back and you change your mind?”
His voice is nearly drowned out by the explosions on the television, that’s how quiet he is.
I shake my head. “It won’t happen.”
“But—”
“Are you trying to talk me out of loving you?”
“What? No!”
“Good.” I pat his chest. “Just making sure. Because if I can still love you after learning
His expression shadows over. “That’s who I am, Lucy. For good or for bad, that’s what my old man made of me. I’m a killer, not a King. You know how me and Adrian have been working on something? He’s taking over as King as soon as we can make sure we have the numbers on our side to change leadership without any more bloodshed.”
“But if there has to be any, you’ll be doing the bloodshedding?”
I wait for him to deny it, but he doesn’t. He can’t. Not when we said no more lies…
“Can you still love me if I go back to being an enforcer?”
“Depends. Were you an enforcer when we first met?”
He hesitates for a moment before… “Yes.”
“And I knew about it?”
He nods.
“And did I ever give you any sign that I was only with you because you were supposed to be the King one day?”
“No,” he grates out. “In fact, my continued loyalty to the Order… to Jack… when you knew how much I fucking hated the way things were was the only hitch in our whole relationship. The skulking around, the hiding… you wanted to say fuck the Order and let everyone know we were in love, but I knew that would only put you in danger so I couldn’t it. I…” Turning to face me fully, his expression cracks. “It’s all my fault. I tried so hard to save you and lost you anyway. Because of the Order. I thought, it might be worth it, if I could make it better for the Owed that come after me, but…”
“Adrian would do a better job of it?”
Dallas huffs out a breath. “Better than me, that’s for sure.”
“Okay.”
He blinks. “Okay?”
“Yeah. You don’t want to be King. I want my husband to be happy. If you want to stick it out in the Order, working for your cousin… well, I already thought he was your boss. Just make sure to tell him that if anything happens to you, he has to deal with me.”
Dallas laughs. It’s first real, joyous laugh that I’ve heard from him… well, ever, I think… and it goes straight to my head… to my heart… to my pussy.
I glance at the screen. I have no fucking idea what’s going on, and no interest in watching the rest of it. But it’s me and it’s Dallas and, other than the television, it’s dark…
And I’m suddenly so fucking horny, ithurts.
“Hey. This is one of your favorite movies, isn’t it?”
His grin is cheeky and warm as he runs his fingers through my loose hair. “Guilty as charged.”
“How much longer until the end?”
Dallas looks up. As soon as he recognizes what part of the movie we’re at, he shrugs. “Another twenty minutes?”
