“Yes.”
The word sits in the kitchen between us. Small and enormous simultaneously.
“Why haven’t you,” I say. Still level. I am extremely impressive, honestly.
Hex looks at his hands. Then at the window. Then at me, and there is something in his face that I haven’t seen before, not in any version of him, not the goading Hex or the princely Hex or the terrifyingly powerful Hex that I haven’t quite seen but felt the edges of when he scared the thugs out of the coffee shop. This is something underneath all of those. Something that doesn’t have a name.
“I’m not ready,” he says.
“Not strong enough?”
“Not…” He stops. Starts again. “There are things I am not ready to leave.”
I look at him. He looks at me.
The ring is on the table between us, glinting softly in the pre-dawn light. Neither of us looks at it.
“That’s not an answer,” I say.
“I know.”
“Hex.”
“Adam.” And the way he says it is different. Not the teasing drawl he usually gives my name. Just my name, very simply, as if it means something particular to him, something that he is not going to say out loud.
I am going to need him to say it out loud.
“Tell me,” I say.
He reaches across the table and his hand covers mine, and I go very still.
“You know why,” he says quietly.
“I want to hear you say it.”
For a long moment he just looks at me, and the predawn light is doing something to his edges, making him look more solidthan ever, more present, more entirely and irrevocably here. Then something in him shifts, some last resistance folding away.
“My love,” he breathes softly, and he leans across the table and kisses me.
Not the way he usually does. Not the deliberate, devastating, I have all the time in the world way, that he usually deploys when he wants to make me lose my mind. This is quieter than that. Softer. It is a kiss that has something to say and is saying it the only way he apparently knows how right now.
I lean into it and let him.
There is urgency in the kiss. A hunger. But also a careful reverence. Hex always kisses me carefully. As if kissing me is a great honour and something special.
I am finding it quite addictive. This level of attention is doing things to my ego. At this rate, I’m going to become as insufferably bigheaded as he is.
But much more concerning than that, is the fact I’m not quite sure how I am ever going to be able to kiss anyone else.
However, that’s a problem for another day. Right now it is four in the morning and the sun is thinking about rising, and a shadow prince is kissing me in my kitchen as if I’m someone worth kissing.
Hex’s lips are soft. Commanding. He takes control of the kiss with a calm, steady confidence that is doing terrible things to me.
Terrible things like filling me with a need to let him do whatever he wants to me. Several times. And then again for good measure.
I pull away from the kiss.
“Bedroom,” I say. Possibly in a sexy rasp, probably in a hoarse croak.
