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Even in the near-dreamlike state I was in, I couldn’t fool my mind into believing it was someone it wasn’t.
The muscles weren’t broad and comforting, they were lean and built for stealth.
A hum of electricity wasn’t rolling along my arms and burning where he was touching me, but the air felt thick with his presence, and I would know that presence as if it were my own shadow.
My eyes slowly opened to the old room, the moonlight shining brightly through the floor-to-ceiling windows. A rush of nostalgia hit me like a wave waking to this room in his arms.
“I remember the first time I came home from a job and found you in my bed,” he whispered against my shoulder.
Despite the heaviness of the day, a soft laugh sounded in my chest.
“I stood at the foot of the bed trying to memorize how perfect you looked. I knew I wanted to come home to you waiting for me every night. I’d known it my whole life.” He dipped his head, running his nose along my shoulder and down my back before pausing. “And then I woke you.”
“And I punched you.”
“You fucking punched me.” His chest moved with his silent laugh, his lips grazing along the skin bared by my tank. “I was so shocked I just watched you climb off my bed and walk out of this room.”
“I told you not to do that job for Mickey,” I whispered. “I told you, and you went anyway. I wanted you to know that I was mad.”
“I had an idea.” The slightest hint of amusement coated his words before we fell into silence. After a few moments, he pled, “Tell me this isn’t happening, Lily.”
I gripped the hand that was clutching my waist, emotion tightening my throat. “I’m so sorry.”
“What do I have to do? How do we go back?”
“I don’t think we can,” I whispered, pain etched into every word.
“Give me a chance to fix this. You can’t just stop loving me after a lifetime of—”
“I didn’t. I don’t know how to stop loving you,” I admitted. “But there is irreparable damage made to the love that we have, and there isn’t a way to fix that.”
I started to twist in his arms but stopped before he could instinctively attempt to halt the movement. I knew he would try to let me face him, and I knew it wouldn’t last. And even though I wanted desperately to look into his eyes while we had this conversation, it was easier this way . . .
It felt right.
This was how Kieran and I had always done things, and it should end the same.
“You’re the most loyal man I know, Kieran,” I said, settling back into his arms and gripping his hand. “I think that’s why it was so earth-shattering when it seemed like you were a completely different person after Aric’s death. But while you were doing things for the right reasons, I was left in the dark. Wondering when you were going to come back and stop breaking my heart. And four years of brokenness and that kind of isolation is . . . it’s too long. It’s damaging. I knew I’d lost you long ago, but I refused to accept it because there was a part of me holding out hope you hadn’t really turned into him. And then I found out about Texas, and that was the breaking point for me . . .”
His arm constricted around me, as if his hold on me now could prevent what had happened all those weeks ago.
“But I promise you, I never meant to break your heart too. It just . . . it just happened. I fought it, but . . .”
How do you continue fighting that kind of pull?
How do you continue fighting the kind of love you only find once in a lifetime?
“Beck told me,” he said gruffly. “He told me everything you told him. So I know you ended it with Dare.”
My heart contracted, the pain so sudden that I gasped.
Kieran rolled me so I was mostly on top of him, my face an inch from his. “Give us another chance. We’ll leave. We’ll disappear.”
“We can’t. You’ve told me countless times we can’t.”
“There’s no reason to stay here. Beck can finish the job. I’ll find a way to keep you safe. Let me remind you how we can be.”
I tilted my head, my face pinching in pain. “Kieran—”
