"You've been inside my life for eight years, and I never knew." She's pacing now, hands in her hair, breath coming in short gasps. "I thought I was free. I thought I got away. I thought?—"
"You were never free." I keep my voice calm. Soft. The voice you use with frightened animals. "You were never going to get away. The moment I saw you, Liberty—the moment you looked at me like you could see exactly what I was—I knew."
"Knew what?" She stops pacing, stares at me with wild eyes.
"That you were mine."
She goes still. Completely, utterly still, like a rabbit in the shadow of a hawk.
The silence stretches between us, heavy and electric.
"You're insane."
"Probably." I take a step toward her. She takes a step back. "But that doesn't make it any less true."
"I'm not yours. I've never been yours. I don't belong to anyone?—"
"You've belonged to me since you were sixteen years old." Another step. She hits the railing, nowhere left to retreat, and satisfaction floods through me, hot and dark. "You felt it too. Don't pretend you didn't. That pull between us—you felt it every time I walked into a room. That's why you ran."
"I ran because youterrifiedme."
"No." I stop in front of her, close enough to see the gold flecks in her green eyes, to count her eyelashes, that her breath ghosts across my lips when she exhales. "You ran because you terrified yourself. Because you knew if you stayed, you'd give in. And you weren't ready."
Her breath is coming fast now.
I can see her pulse hammering in the hollow of her throat.
Her pupils are blown wide, black swallowing the green, and her lips are parted, and she's so close I could kiss her if I leaned forward two inches.
I don't.
Not yet.
"I'm ready now," I tell her. "Are you?"
She slaps me.
The crack echoes across the terrace, sharp and sudden.
My head snaps to the side.
Pain blooms across my cheek, hot and bright, and my blood sings with it.
My cock hardens in my pants, straining against the zipper, and I have to close my eyes for a moment to absorb the sweet shock of it.
She hit me.
Sheactuallyhit me.
I turn back to her slowly, deliberately, and I smile.
I can feel it on my face—not the polished mask I wear for the town, but something rawer. Hungrier.
"There she is." My voice comes out low and rough, scraped over gravel. "There's my soldier."
"I am notyouranything." Her hand is trembling, her chest heaving beneath the thin white cotton.
"You're everything." I catch her wrist before she can hit me again. Her pulse is racing beneath my thumb—I can feel it pounding, frantic, alive, and the sensation shoots straight to my cock. "You're everything, Liberty. You have been since the moment I saw you. And I've spent eight years making sure that when you finally came home, there'd be nowhere left to run."
