“I do still like you,” I said quietly. The admission felt vulnerable when I couldn’t picture Owen outside of the rampant fantasies I had of him. Outside of the one night spent with him. Hell, I didn’t know a single thing about him other than his penchant for breaking into my apartment and how my pulse spiked around him.
“But…” Owen prompted softly, catching the hesitation I couldn’t quite hide. I swallowed hard.
Liking him wasn’t the problem. It was all the other things.
“I don’t even know you,” I admitted. “I don’t know anything about you.”
His expression softened, and a small smile curled the corners of his mouth, drawing my attention downward.
“Eyes up here, baby,” he instructed, his tone gentle but unforgiving. My gaze snapped right back to meet his. “Ask me anything.”
And just like that, I forgot every question I’d ever asked to get to know someone as I stared into his dark eyes. They held me, patient and full of genuine interest. It was as if he was waiting to hang onto every word that came out of my mouth.
Heat coiled through my core when he took one step closer, and the line of his body pressed lightly to mine.
Damn it. He was so distracting.
“I’m waiting, Liam.” His lips brushed against my cheek, and my knees went weak.
“It’s hard… to think when you… when you’re doing that,” I let out breathlessly.
“Should I stop?” he asked as he started to pull back. My hand flew up and caught in the front of his shirt to keep him close. The action made him chuckle. He kissed the curve of my cheekbone lightly. “Then ask me something, or I’ll have no choice but to pull away.”
“Is your name Owen?” I replied because, honestly, I didn’t even know that.
“My full name is Owen Richard Wells,” he said. “I’m forty-four. I was born in New York. I studied dance at Juilliard before quitting and moving to Los Angeles to find work as a dance choreographer. I spent years traveling the country to do shows before I moved to Seattle for a job. After that, I ended up at the Society. And I have a cat named Ethel. She’s mean and grumpy and extremely pampered. Does that answer all your questions?”
“Um…” Truth be told, my mind was still wrapping around everything else he’d said. Dumbly, I asked, “What’s your favorite color?”
“Burgundy.” His lips brushed against my cheek once more, drifting closer to my mouth. It took everything I had not to turn into him. “Anything else?”
My fingers tightened in his shirt, and for as much as I wanted to lean into the moment, I couldn’t. I gently pushed him back until I could meet his gaze.
“Why?” I whispered. His brows furrowed slightly. “Why are you here, Owen?”
As much as I wanted him there, I struggled to fathom why he was because none of it made any sense. The way he looked at me made no sense. The Society wasn’t supposed to work like this. Maybe I’d gotten wrapped up in it a little bit, but it was crazy to think that he had too, no matter how much I secretly hoped that he was.
His head tilted slightly as he considered me. He seemed to carefully construct an answer while I waited. The action made my stomach drop slightly. I hated the waiting.
“Because the man who never wanted anyone met the man who wanted to be wanted,” Owen whispered. I frowned. Was that supposed to mean something to me? “I’ve been alone my whole life, and I’ve done so purposefully. I’ve never wanted anyone around—”
“Except Ethel,” I interjected.
“Ethel domesticated herself one day and decided I was the poor soul chosen to take care of her,” he retorted. I bit back a laugh at the bitter tone in his voice as he said the words. “My point, Liam, is that I have been very content and comfortable in my life alone with my cat… until you.”
“Until me?” I repeated with disbelief. Had I heard him wrong? I shook my head as I tried to work it out. “I don’t know what that means.”
“I have never wanted anyone. Ever,” Owen clarified. “And yet, I find myself wanting you in ways I never believed possible. Ithink about you constantly. I find that not knowing how you are or where you are or what you’re doing is unbearable. I want to be the person you tell those things to. I want to be the person you check in with as your day goes on. I want to be the first person you see when you wake up every day, and I want to be the last person you see before you go to bed. I want to be the one you go to for comfort when your anxiety is too much.”
His voice had dropped lower by the last sentence, rough around the edges with a kind of vulnerability that made my heart ache. There was nothing polished or carefully curated about the words he said. Every word was full of the kind of raw honesty you couldn’t fake or practice.
“And I know how insane this sounds, considering how little we know each other and considering the nature of how we got here,” he admitted quietly. “And yet, every part of me is pulled right back to you every time I tell myself it’s nothing. That this feeling between us is nothing.”
His thumb brushed lightly against my hip, rubbing reassuring circles—whether it was for me or for him, I wasn’t sure. Maybe we both needed it as the weight of his words settled over us.
“So, when I say I have been very content and comfortable in my life until you, I mean I don’t want another day alone without you.”
My chest constricted painfully as I struggled to digest every word he’d said. I’d spent so much of my life feeling tolerated and needed only when I had something to offer that I didn’t know what to do with them.
