“Nothing. Amusing myself.”
He hums as he strolls toward me. My soul flickers in my chest as he drops to a knee and finishes lacing my boots for me. Air rushes from my lungs as he caresses my calf and lays a kiss to my thigh.
Even with the material blocking his way, the heat of his mouth sends chill bumps racing across my skin. When he stands, he slides his hand around the side of my neck and traces circles against my pulse.
“Everything will be okay. Believe what you said to Yemi.”
“I do.”
“That’s not the complete truth now, is it?” He arches his brow, giving me an opportunity to fess up.
“Are you giving my soul any privacy?”
He shakes his head at me. Not falling for the distraction.
“I give you about as much privacy as you give me.”
Okay, so…damn. None.
“I believe, physically, we’re all going to be fine.”
“Just physically?”
“I hope mentally as well, but I’m not as confident in that department. I’m concerned about Yemi, Sevryn, all of us. Are we going to face another fight? How’s that going to affect Creed? Will Riven go Chaos crazy? Is Amick going to get lost in his thoughts again? Will you…”
I don’t want to finish my sentence.
Yesterday, I put on a brave face when convincing Creed we needed to do this. I still believe that to be true, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about all the shit that could go wrong or what it could do to us.
“You know you’re phenomenal at getting the attention off yourself, right?”
My eyes widen before I smooth my features out.
“What?”
He chuckles lightly, giving me a pointed smirk.
“You’ve yet to talk about what happened toyouin the Abandon and you think you’ve gotten away with it.”
“I…that’s not. I didn’t—”
“It’s okay, Thayla. For now. I have to ask, though. Did our reactions cause you not to trust us with this?”
Gods, my heart.
“Kyzen, no. Absolutely not.” I exhale, closing my eyes. The guilt in his indescribably pains me. “It’s just habitual. That’s asorry excuse, but it is. I shoved everything down, threw all my focus on the four of you, and when you all started getting back to normal…”
“You did too.”
“Yeah.”
He nods like he completely understands, and honestly, I wholeheartedly believe he does.
“We’re going to talk about it after this. No more bottling it up. Okay?”
“Okay,” I breathe.
He lays a gentle kiss on my cheek, and I bask in the warmth it sends through my body.
