“I try.”
“I’m decent,” I mumble, collapsing back against the pillows. “Or as decent as I’m going to get tonight.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, and brushes my hair away from my face.
“You should sleep.”
“Stay with me?”
“Always.”
He stretches out beside me, on top of the covers. I understand now why he maintains that small barrier—not because he’s afraid of intimacy, but because the temperature differencewould be hard to ignore all night. Cool skin against warm. Dead heart against beating one.
I curl up against him anyway, pressing my cheek against his chest. Against the place where his heart beats its slow, strange rhythm—one pulse every few seconds.
“Does it bother you?” he asks quietly. “The rhythm? How slow it is? Near silence?”
“I noticed it before.” I press my palm flat against his chest. “It doesn’t bother me. It’s just—different.”
“Different,” he repeats.
“Like dating someone who’s left-handed. Or who doesn’t like pizza.” I smile against his shirt. “A quirk. Not a deal-breaker.”
“Most people would consider the ‘near lack of heart beats’ slightly more significant than left-handedness.”
“I’m not most people.”
“No.” His arm tightens around me. “No, you’re really not.”
“Julian?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.” The words come out thick with exhaustion. “For staying. For taking care of me. For telling me the truth.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for.”
“There’s everything to thank you for.” I press closer, my ear against the slow pulse of his chest—that strange rhythm that should terrify me and somehow doesn’t. “You’re a good man, Julian Blackthorne. Even if technically you’re not a man at all.”
The silence stretches for a while. When he speaks, his voice is rough.
“I haven’t felt like a good man in a very long time.”
“Well, you are one. Take it from someone who dated a bad one for two years.” I yawn against him. “Preston would never have sat on a bathroom floor for me. He wouldn’t even hold my purse at the mall.”
“Preston is an idiot.”
“We’ve established that.” My eyes are heavy now. “Julian?”
“Yes?”
“Tomorrow. You promised to tell me about Damien. About Prague. About how to protect my family.”
His body goes still beneath me. “I remember.”
“I’m going to hold you to it. No more secrets, remember?”
“No more secrets.” His hand strokes my hair. “Tomorrow, I’ll tell you everything. All of it.”
