I squeak and then try to move, but he has a good hold of me, pulling me closer and locking his legs around mine.
“Killian!”
“I need you,” he confesses.
I stop squirming and look into his eyes. “What?”
“I need you, Tessa. Tonight. I need tonight. I need to hold you. Please.” There is a deep ache in his voice, and I feel it in my heart.
A deep sigh escapes, and I feel the fight start to leave me. “Just to sleep,” I tell him—and really myself more than anything. “Because I’m worried about leaving you this drunk and alone.”
People have had really bad things happen. He could fall, he could choke, there are a million things, right?
It would be irresponsible of me to leave him.
“Just to sleep,” he agrees.
The lights are bright as hell, and before I can say anything, he tells the home smart system to turn all the lights off and set the alarm.
Apparently he’s not too drunk to do that or haul me around.
I shift my body, and he loosens his hold around me a little. My head rests on his arm and we’re facing each other.
“Sleep, angel,” he tells me.
I wish I could, but my mind is running in circles. Worse than when he left. Now, I think about all the things he said. How he keeps asking me to stay. HowIreally fucking want to stay.
All of this is too much, and yet not enough.
He moves his hand slowly up my back, stopping between my shoulder blades, and his head lowers, until his forehead is resting against mine.
It feels so damn good being close to him.
My palm sits on his chest, and the pounding of his heart is in time with mine. His breathing evens out, and I relax a touch since he’s asleep. “I wish this could be my life,” I confess so softly as not to wake him. “After today, I was ready to think it was possible.” He doesn’t move and I continue on, “I hate that it’s not.”
Killian moves, and I freeze, hoping he didn’t hear any of that.
His eyes slowly flutter open and he stares at me. “It could be. You just have to want to fight for it.”
On the second to last word, his eyes close again, and he lets out a snore.
I stay awake for most of the night as I contemplate what he said and what I can even do.
When I woke up, Killian was gone.
I was alone in his bed, exhausted, emotionally drained, and confused as hell.
He not only left the bed, he left the farm.
Gary said he had a meeting with the guys from Cole Security. It was important, and he was gone without giving much more information.
I tried to call him, to find out what the hell the update was, but it went straight to voicemail.
Instead of sitting around, I decided that I needed to do something. Something that would help me make a decision about what I want regarding staying here or going back to New York—and also face the truth that I already know what I want.
So, I’m standing at Meredith’s door with a bottle of tequila and a whole lot of fear.
I lift my hand to knock, but the door opens and she’s there. “I was wondering what the hell you were doing out here.”
