“Stop playing word games with me, Nash Stirling. You’ve never been cruel, so don’t begin now. It doesn’t suit you, and I see it for what it is—a technique to push me away. It won’t work. I’ve seen your true heart.”
His eyes flutter closed, and he releases a breath. “You see what you want to see, which are only the best parts. I have many more parts.”
“We all have those parts. The key is how we use them.”
“I want to be alone.”
“Nope.”
“Daphne.”
I put my hand on his chest and push. His eyes flip open, and he scowls as I walk him backward. “No, you don’t get to disappear whenever you think you might risk others. Damn, if I did that, I would constantly be alone. My every turn is a disaster waiting to happen. Do you see me running off and hiding?”
“It’s not the same.”
“No?”
“No. You don’t wake up knowing you are being driven by forces greater than us all to hurt the ones you love.”
I shake my head as he hits the bed and drops back in surprise. I climb onto his lap and put my hands on either side of his head. “It doesn’t matter how great those forces are, because you already answered them with the greatest weapon ever known.”
“Which is?”
“Love.”
I crush my lips to his, holding nothing back. Not the way I feel when I’m in his arms or the loss I feel when I walk into a room and he’s not there. I pour the heartache of watching him mourn me from the stars and the tightness I get from knowing he’s still hiding things from me even now. I don’t demand those secrets, but when I sweep my tongue against his, I tell him I will always be here—through the fire, during the storm, and when he’s drowning and adrift. I am his anchor.
His hands tangle in my hair while arguing with everything I say without using words. But I break each argument with the most powerful thing to exist. The one thing that binds us all, whether sisters, friends, or partners. He can snarl and glare and beat his chest if he wishes, but I’m not going anywhere.
He flips us, and my body bounces on the bed. He jumps up and moves toward the wall I came through earlier. “Let me out,” he growls.
“Not going to happen,” I say as I stand and strip off my nightgown.
“What do you mean?”
“The All Knowing isn’t going to release you until I say.”
“Then tell him to.”
I shake my head. Nash eyes the window, but it slams shut with a kind of finality that makes him flinch. There’s no escape now.
Naked, I climb back onto the bed and kneel in the center with my arms outstretched.
“I can’t. I need Theo,” he growls.
“No, you don’t. You never did.”
“If I lose control?—”
“Then you’ll be joining me, because I am already hopelessly gone for you.”
He paces around the edge of the bed, eyes never leaving mine. “That’s not the same, and you know it.”
“Actually, on account of you telling me very little, I know exactly that.”
I widen my knees and let my hands drift between the valley of my breasts. He glares at me and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. The shadows in the room inch closer, reluctant voyeurs excited by what’s to come. Both of us, hopefully.
“Come here,” I whisper.
