He looked wrecked.
And all he said was, “If that’s what you need.”
That hurt worse than if he’d shouted.
Because James would’ve fought me. He would’ve turned it into a battle and then made himself the victim. He would’ve told me I was unstable, ungrateful, impossible.
Kazan heard me say I was leaving, and he let me. Because he thought it was what I needed.
The plan cracked wide open.
“That’s not what I need,” I said.
His head lifted.
The words came faster after that. Messier. Truer.
“It’s what I think I’m supposed to do. To protect you. To protect this place. James won’t stop, and I can’t be the reason he ruins everything.” My throat tightened. “But I don’t want to go.”
Kazan didn’t move. He watched me like if he breathed too hard, I’d take it back.
“I’ve been fighting this since I got here,” I admitted. “Whatever this is. Whatever I feel when I’m near you. I keep telling myself I can’t trust it because the last time I trusted myself about a man, I ended up running across the galaxy.”
His hands flexed at his sides.
“But you’re not him,” I said. “You’re nothing like him. And I think some part of me knew that before the rest of me did.” I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to be safe somewhere else. I want to be safe here. With you.”
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then Kazan crossed the room.
He didn’t grab me. He didn’t crowd me. He came down to one knee in front of me, putting himself below me even though he was still impossibly huge. Then he lifted one hand and touched my face so carefully it made my chest ache.
His palm covered my cheek. His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth.
“Say it again,” he said, voice low. “So I know I heard you right.”
“I want you.”
He kissed me. There was nothing careful about my answer.
I grabbed him by the front of his flannel and kissed him back, pouring everything I couldn’t say into it. Fear. Relief. Need. The terrible ache of almost losing something I’d barely let myself admit I wanted.
He wrapped an arm around me and lifted me off the hearth like I weighed nothing. My feet left the ground, and I clung to him. I didn’t want space between us. I didn’t want doubts, or contracts, or James, or anything else in the room with us.
Just him.
Just this.
He carried me to the kitchen counter and set me down on it. The height put us almost face-to-face, and I understood why he’d done it when he stepped between my knees and kissed me again.
His mouth was hot and hungry. His hand spread across my back, holding me close, while the other slid into my hair. My clip gave way, and my hair fell around my shoulders.
He pulled back just enough to look at me. There was a question in his eyes.
I nodded before he could ask it.
His hands went to my leggings, and he paused there too. Waiting. Making sure.
