“You answer my questions,” I continued. “Even when they’re uncomfortable.”
“Yes.”
“And you do not make promises. Not about how safe I’ll be, not about what I can handle, and definitely not about how any of this ends.”
Something like shame flickered in his face.
“All right.”
I took another breath.
“And if this keeps going, really going, then at some point, I meet the actual truth of your life. Not the polished version. Not the charmingly expensive restaurant version. The real one.”
That made him go still.
I saw then that this part frightened him too.
Not because he thought I was weak.
Because he knew exactly what I’d be stepping into.
“And if I hate it?” I asked.
His voice came out low and steady. “Then I let you walk away.”
I searched his face for any sign that he didn’t mean it.
I didn’t find one.
That made it easier to close the last of the distance between us.
I lifted my hand and touched his jaw, lightly at first.
His eyes shut for half a second.
“I’m not promising you forever tonight,” I said. “I’m promising you honesty, and a real chance. That’s what I have.”
When he opened his eyes again, something in his face had gone almost unbearably open.
“For now,” he said, “that’s more than enough.”
His voice had grown rough around the edges, and the look in his eyes made something low and molten unfurl inside me.
I had come here prepared for fear, for heartbreak, for some final impossible choice between the man I loved and the world he came from.
I had not come here prepared for the fierce relief of standing my ground and finding that he still wanted me there.
For the unbearable tenderness of him agreeing to my terms without trying to bargain them smaller.
For the way honesty had only made me want him more.
I lifted my hand to his jaw, intending only to touch him, but the moment my fingers brushed the roughness there, his eyes shut briefly and a breath left him that sounded almost painful.
That did something dangerous to me.
I kissed him first.
Not the tentative, searching kisses from before. Not the careful ones.
