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He wanted to be furious with her for that, the way the caustic, aloof teenage boy she'd known so well would respond to such an act of defiant generosity of spirit. But the man he'd since become couldn't muster any anger. What he felt instead was a squeezing in his chest, an all-too-pleasant sense of gratitude and pride that she was his.
Should have been his, he corrected himself harshly.
And, as her damnable vision assured him, could not be his for long.
His answering curse was rough and self-directed as he rounded a turn in the corridor and stalked past the closed door of the bunker's shower room.
The water was running on the other side.
It wasn't Doc or Nina, seeing how just a few minutes ago Kellan had left the two of them with Chaz's body at the opposite end of the fortress. And Candice wasn't going anywhere for days. She was resting quietly in bed when he'd checked on her on his way here.
Keep walking.
That's what he should do. And yet he paused outside the door and turned the latch.
Mira stood naked under the spray of the shower, her head tipped back, water sluicing over her pale-blond hair and down her creamy skin.
Kellan's breath left him in a rush. Instead of quietly closing the door and moving on, he opened it wider and stepped inside the steam-filled room. He pulled the door closed behind him.
At the resulting soft click, Mira covered herself with her hands and arms and looked his way. There was uncertainty in her lavender eyes. Lips parted but unspeaking.
Kellan stood there, taking in the sight of her. "You stayed," he murmured.
She swallowed, water dripping off her chin, spiking her long lashes. "I stayed."
He nodded, but he could feel a scowl furrowing deep into his brow. "I just looked in on Candice. She told me that you'd been in to see her, said the two of you talked . . . about me?"
"Yes," Mira said softly, still hiding herself from him, not quite ready to drop her guard, not that he could blame her.
"You didn't tell her my name," he remarked. "You didn't tell her about my past with the Order." Head lowered, eyes rooted on her, he took a step forward. Then another. "You kept my secrets. All of them."
"Of course," she replied.
"You protected me," he acknowledged. Now he was standing directly in front of her, right at the edge of the open shower. "You did that for me, even though I gave you no reason to."
She gave him a faint nod, arms still crossed over herself like a shield. "Yes."
Her inhaled breath turned into a little squeak as he walked into the water with her, clothing, boots, and all. He stood before her, getting drenched head to toe and not giving a damn about it. "You could've made a clean break today. Goddamn, I wish you had."
"I - " she began, but he cut her off with a hissed curse.
"You could've been gone from all of this. Instead you helped clean up a mess that belonged to me, then you had the tenderness of heart to look in on one of my injured crew." He shook his head and gently took her hands in his, pulled them away from her naked body. He dropped a kiss to each of her clenched fists. "After everything I told you out there today, you stayed."
She stared at him, her lips parted slightly, breasts rising and falling with each rapid breath she drew into her lungs. Kellan was still holding her hands. Slowly he lowered them to her sides, away from the beauty of her nude body. "After everything I've done," he whispered harshly, "not only today, or eight years ago, when I left, letting you believe I was dead, but since the first day we met, Mouse. Ever since then, since the very beginning, you've stayed with me. You've always had my back."
"I always will," she replied. Her voice was quiet, but her eyes were resolute. "When you love someone, that's what you do."
Kellan went still. He could hardly move, could hardly command his lungs to pull in breath. "Don't say that, Mira. That's the worst thing you can say to me right now."
"Why?" She gazed up at him under the spray of the shower, her skin bathed in warm light from the heat of his eyes as their hazel color flashed with sparks of amber. "Why shouldn't I tell you how I feel about you?"
He searched for his voice but found only an otherworldly growl. "Because when you say that, it makes me want to hold on tighter to you when I should be letting you go. And I need to let you go . . . before things get any worse."
"Then let go, Kellan."
Her words took him aback. It was a command, spoken without edge, without the slightest waver. He stared at her beautiful face, at the courageous, unflinching eyes and impish nose with its smattering of light freckles. At the stubborn mouth that had never given him an ounce of pity, not even when it came to pleasure. A mouth that was pressed into a flat line now, waiting for his response.
"If you don't love me," she said, "if you truly want me gone . . . then let go."
