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“See? That smile,” he said, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. “It makes my heart race and my knees go weak. God, Killian. I never stood a chance against you. Never. I wanted you the moment we met, and fell for you not long after that. I just never thought, never dared to believe that you could feel the same…” Levi shook his head. “You could have anyone.”
I curled my fingers around his and brought them up to my lips to press a fierce kiss there. “Maybe. But the thing is, I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”
Forty-Two
Levi
I SUCKED IN a shaky breath and nodded. “I’m starting to understand that.”
“Starting to?” Killian said, and brought my hand down to place it over his heart. “Feel that? You said I make your heart race. You do the exact same thing to mine. When are you going to understand, from the second you walked into my life, I was done?”
I swallowed, my fingertips digging into Killian’s chest, as he reached up with his other hand to cradle my cheek.
“But you already know that, don’t you, Levi?” I bit down into my lower lip, and Killian swiped his thumb over it. “How could you not? You’re smart, possibly the smartest man I know. And after our first meeting, everyone else—the groupies, the casual one-nighters, the friends with benefits—they all vanished from my life. Just like I told you.”
“I know,” I said, my voice breathy, my heart thudding so hard that I was surprised Killian couldn’t hear it.
“And why do you think I did that?”
I went to speak, but when nothing came out, Killian lowered his head and whispered in my ear, “Because you beautiful, stubborn man, I didn’t want to talk to, think about, or look at anyone that wasn’t you. I still don’t. I love you, Levi. I think I always have. I was just waiting for you to walk into my life.”
If it wasn’t for Killian’s hand holding mine, and his palm cradling my cheek, I was positive I would’ve melted at his feet. As it was, I was finding it increasingly difficult to think, to speak, to articulate everything my body was feeling, because never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that Killian would be standing in his hallway telling me everything I’d ever wanted to hear.
“Killian—”
“Uh ah,” he said, and trailed the back of his fingers down my cheek. “It’s your turn to listen now. Your turn to understand how damn sorry I am for what I said to Viper. I didn’t mean it, not any of it—”
“I know,” I said, and closed my eyes as I leaned into his touch. It was time to lay this all out. If we were going to have a chance at a future together, I needed to be honest with him, and I needed to start right here. “I think, deep down, I knew at the time. I was scared. That’s not easy for me to say, but this was getting more serious, and—”
“That was the easiest way to put an end to us before you thought I would?”
Wow, it was uncanny how well he knew me.
“Yes. I’m not proud of that. Or the way I acted when you came to see me at my place and apologize. You’ll never know how hard it was for me to tell you to leave. But I knew if I let you back in I was going to fall all the way. I was going to wind up handing you my heart with no care as to what you ended up doing with it—and I was terrified that that would be something I couldn’t recover from. Then you gave me that song…”
I caught myself as my eyes blurred and a lump formed in the back of my throat.
“Killian… That song, those words? They are some of the most beautiful lyrics I’ve ever read. And to know you wrote it after our night together? Wow. I must’ve read them a hundred times over that night.” I blinked back the tears filling my eyes and gave a halfhearted laugh. “I was a fool. I was so busy running from my past that I almost flew right by my future.”
Killian let go of my hand and took hold of my face between his. “You are no fool. You were protecting your heart. And you didn’t fly by anything. I’m standing right here, and I don’t know about you, but I have a really good feeling that this future of yours…of ours, is going to be epic.”
“Epic, huh?”
“When it comes to you and me, you better believe it.” Killian brushed his lips over the top of mine and the sweet, almost chaste kiss made my stomach flip and my body tremble. “The reason I didn’t do relationships before you was because I never wanted to promise the other person something I couldn’t give—my heart. I’ve waited my whole life to give that over. I’ve waited my whole life for you. I love you, Levi.”
