Now I’m in his home…ourhome… and I’m standing at the penthouse window, watching the snow collect on the rooftops below the Fortress as the sun tries to break through the storm when Dallas comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist.
“You’ve been staring out the window for more than five minutes,” he murmurs against my hair. I’ve grown it out a little, letting it fall a couple of inches past my shoulders. He brushes it aside, pressing a kiss to my naked neck. “Please don’t tell me that you decided you’d rather take a dive than stick it out with me. Because I got a shrink you could talk to, Luce. Comes highly recommended.”
Now, I’ve been talking to a therapist to help me work through my missing memories. When he realized how much that was helping me, something finally clicked for Dallas. With Adrian’s help, he found someone to talk to, to help him with some of the urges he’d been dealing with. Not because he planned on ending things; not my Dallas, not when we’re finally making a good go of this. He did it because he wants to banish the demons that Jack Collins left behind, and in a perverse way, going to therapy to talk it out—something that would’ve given the old bastard a conniption if he knew his only boy was talking about his feelings to an outsider—is doing a much better job than eliminating any Owed who challenged Dallas first, then his cousin.
Of course, he’s still doingthat, too, but whatever helps. My memory is still shaky at best, but if there’s one thing Idoremember, it’s how much I fucking love Dallas Collins. I loved him then, I loved him when I had no idea who he was apart from the lies he told me, and even when I thought I’d never be able to forgive him for lying to me—no matter his reasons—I folded almost immediately. I love him now, and if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that everything I did, I did for him.
If he blows his brains out? I’d jump because I… I can’t live without him. Knowing that he was safe, that he was thriving, that he wasalive… that’s why I left him. I feel the certainty of that all the way down to my bones. In my own way, I was protecting him, but if anything ever happened to Dallas, that would be the end of Lucy.
He needs to understand that. Peering over my shoulder, gazing up at him, I say, “The only way I’d jump if I was falling after you.”
“Good thing my boots are firmly planted on the ground then.” It’s as much a heated growl against my skin as it is a promise. “So you’re not plotting another escape? That’s good.But what are you looking at? With the snow blowing around, you can’t see shit.”
I shrug, then lean back against the safety of his solid chest. “I don’t know. I kind of like it,” I say. “When the wind slows, I can see where the snow is sticking. It makes everything look clean.”
He hums, but there’s a hint of annoyance in the sound.
I turn fully in his arms, going up on my tiptoes so that I can get a better look at his face. His scruffy jaw is tight, and there’s a flicker of frustration in his deep green eyes as he peers over my head and out the window.
Dallas hates windows as much as I do. First, because of his mom, then due to my own accident. For a moment, I think that’s why he’s not happy to find me staring through the glass, but as his gaze darts back and forth, his cheeks hollowing, I realize there’s something more than that.
I brace my palms against his middle. “What’s the matter? Something wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Just thinking about the snow. I don’t mind getting snowed-in together tomorrow, but I want to be able to go out today.”
“I hope you haven’t left your Christmas shopping until last minute,” I tease. And it is a tease. I accidentally stumbled upon the stash of gifts he’s been collecting for me since Thanksgiving when I went looking in his closet because… okay, I was snooping. But that’s also because I wanted to sneak a peek at the size of his boots so I could get him a winter pair since my stubborn lover refuses to upgrade his normal boots despite our unusually wintry December.
I almost want to grab the wrapped box I stowed in a linen closet so that he can change his shoes if he really wants to go out, but I’m not sure why he would need to?—
—until Dallas reminds me with a shrug, “Adrian invited us to have dinner with him and Loni. My truck is a beast. It’ll get usthere, no problem, but not if we get stuck with a foot of snow or something.”
I pat his side. “Weatherman says it’s only a squall. We might get an inch or two tops before it’s over, but we should be able to make it there alright. You said dinner was at… six?”
“Seven. It’s tradition.” Glancing away, presenting me with his profile as he stares at the tree in the corner, he says, “Ever since my mom… Jack couldn’t give a shit when it came to Christmas. I would go to my aunt and uncle’s place, have dinner with Adrian, know what it was like to be part of a real family. When he and Loni got hitched, they invited me last year. Now that I have you… we can stay in if you want. Start our own tradition, Dandelion.”
We can, but I heard the wistfulness in his voice when he mentioned family. Dallas is all I have now. Even if I wanted to be selfish and keep him to myself for Christmas, I wouldn’t do that to him.
“I’d like to go to your cousin’s,” I tell him, “as long as we’re home before Santa comes tonight.”
His lips twitch, a sly smile, though his jaw relaxes at the same time and I know I’ve erased a few of his demons at least for a little while. “It’s a deal.”
Dallas drops his head, taking a quick kiss as he reaches out, settling his hands on my hips. Pulling back just enough to meet my eyes even if he doesn’t let me go, he asks, “Something special you’re hoping to find under the tree?”
“When you give me everything I want before I can even ask for it?” A new wardrobe, a new life… “You spoil me.”
“You deserve to be spoiled,” is his husky response. “But I mean it, Lucy. You want it, it’s yours.”
My heart trips over itself. It’s the earnestness that nearly kills me. He means it. God, he’d dig a knife into his chest, carve out his heart, and hand it to me if he thought I wanted him to.
But that’s not what I want.
What I want…
“I want to get married,” I blurt out.
Dallas blinks. Once, twice, then his lips curl. “We are married. Remember? I’m your husband and nothing can change that.”
Because he told me he was. Because he made sure the only other man who could claim the position was eliminated from contention. Because, in the Order, little things like laws and consent and protocol mean jackshit when you’re one of the men at the top.
