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Adler snorted at that. "Pretty much everyone I know is a killer, Lou. And all of 'em have a good reason. But I think ya have them all beat. There is a fine line between crazy and determined. I think ya toe it just fine." He paused for a moment before his fingers swiped up my arm again, touching the last unshaded bullet. "This one is yer brother."
It wasn't a question, but I answered it anyway. "Yes."
"Because he has been harder to find, or because ya aren't sure ya can do it?"
That was a good question.
I thought about it a lot over the years.
Was he truly hard to find?
Or had I not looked as hard for him?
"I think it is more than I am afraid of what will happen when I am finally done. This has been my mission in life. What does someone do when they accomplish it? Do they just move on? How does someone just move on? When this thing that has consumed you for so long is suddenly not there anymore?"
"Ya gotta find somethin' else to take its place. Somethin' positive," he suggested, hand sliding up to stroke down my jaw. "Somethin' that feels good."
I half-snorted at that.
"The only thing I know that feels good is eating. You want me to replace my life's mission with food? I'll blow up to three-hundred pounds."
"Ya'd still be sexy," he told me with a wicked curve to his lips. "But there is somethin' else ya find pleasin' too," he reminded me, even just the mention of it sending a shiver through my system.
"So you want me to make sex my new life's mission."
His eyes were dancing as he nodded. "Well, that or ya start collecting antique cat statues."
"Why cat statues?" I asked, smiling, never having claimed to be a cat person.
"'Cause if ya start collectin' creepy ass fuckin' dolls, I am outta here."
"What?" I asked, shaking my head, getting a feeling that this was somehow something he had given thought to. Though why that would be the case was completely beyond me. "Well, we wouldn't want that, would we?" I asked, sliding my hand up his back, finding the familiarity of it comforting, something I never could have gotten to know with any other man.
"Well, since ya brought that up," he started, voice going serious again. "Let's have that talk too. Since everything else is on the table now."
"What talk?" I asked, stomach tensing up again.
"The one about us."
"What about us?"
Why did my voice sound so choked?
Was that nervousness?
Hope?
A combination of the two?
I honestly didn't even know.
"Think ya know that ya never would have told me that story if ya weren't thinkin' thoughts more than sex."
He wasn't wrong.
I never gave men my story.
I never gave anyone my story.
Not even my family.
Not the whole of it anyway.
Parts were always mine.
But I had shared them with Adler.
It said something.
It meant something.
"I turned down a job a couple days ago to spend more time with you," I admitted, somehow feeling like that was easier to admit that maybe, just maybe, I was okay with us putting a label on this.
"I conned Roderick into takin' two of my guard shifts this week," he surprised me by admitting.
"How?"
"For such a ladies man, he's got a soft side for his buddies finding their women, no matter how much he might rib 'em about it."
"Am I your woman, Adler?" I heard my voice ask. But that couldn't be right. I would never ask something like that.
Except, there was no denying it, I had.
I had just asked him if I belonged to him.
"Duchess, ya were my woman the moment ya pushed me up against the wall."
"You sap," I declared, smiling when he leaned down and nipped my shoulder in retribution.
"Ya gonna call me yer man, Lou?"
My belly fluttered, a mix of nerves and anticipation.
This felt like an important moment.
As important as giving him my story, as getting his out of him as well.
Because this was speaking of a future.
This was promising something I had never promised someone before.
Fidelity, support, and - I was having a hard time even thinking it - love.
For someone who had been so alone in life, so fiercely independent, that there were two parts of me warring inside.
The part of me that said I was okay alone, that life was easier without connections, that emotion and attachment only led to disappointment or heartache was battling the other part of me, a long-buried part, one I hadn't known still existed until Adler had found it, dug it out, brushed it off, and showed it to me. The part of me that yearned for connection, for stability, for a shoulder to lean on, for a chest to sleep on.
Adler was offering me just that.
And for the first time in my life, the part that was softer, sweeter, kinder was winning out.
