Page 58 of Theta

"Well, to him, yeah. I legit don't remember what I said. Some order. Lay down, or something relatively tame like that. And he…he just looked at me weird, and then ignored me. It was in the middle of things so I just went along, but it stuck in my craw, y'know? I don't like being ignored."

"Who does?" Killy asks. "Sorry. Shutting up."

I give him a smile and a trailing of my fingertip across his lower lip—he has such wonderful lips, full and plump and soft and expressive and so kissable and touchable, and I find myself touching his mouth quite often because I simply can't get enough.

"I don't need you to shut up, Killy. Just keep the interruptions and questions to a minimum until I'm done with the hard part." I lean my head sideways onto his shoulder. "That was the first red flag I ignored. Well, if you don't include the needing to know where I’m going and who I’m talking to as a red flag."

Killian snorts. "Um, yeah, that's a red flag, babe. A big one."

"Shut up. I may be smart, but I never claimed to be wise." I just breathe for a moment or two and then continue. "Every time Everett and I slept together, there was something like that. And I think he genuinely was trying to let it go because he cared about me."

"Why do I feel like you're trying to see the best in him even now?"

"Because I am," I answer. "I guess that's just part of my nature."

"Admirable."

"Maybe. Gets me into trouble, though. Case in point—every time I got too assertive, in everyday life and especially in the bedroom department, he got more and more irritated by it. I noticed it and made up excuses. Tried to bite my tongue more instead of saying that stuff. Tried to defer to him more."

Killian's brow furrows. "I don't like that. You're a badass, Story. Badasses defer to no one."

I smile, sniff a not-quite laugh. "Oh, Killy, sweet, sweet Killy." I turn my face into the side of his neck. "You can't possibly know how badly I need to hear so many of the things you're saying. I’ve needed to hear them for so long." My eyes burn. "You can't know how it feels to hear them. From you, especially. Your opinion of me matters more than anyone else's. Even my parents. I know they love me. I know they're insanely proud of me. And that matters to me so fucking much. But you…they're my parents. You're…"

"Just some guy."

I shake my head. "No. Not even close. Not just some guy." I cup his face and gaze into his eyes up close. "The guy. My guy. I hope."

"If there's anything in this life that I want to be more than anything else, it's yours."

I blink hard. "Then you are. You're mine."

He wipes a thumb under my eyes. "And that's all I need."

I lean in and kiss him, and for a few minutes, we just get lost in each other. This is not a kiss meant to lead to sex. It's a kiss meant to conjoin our souls, mate our hearts.

He pulls away first. "God, I love you."

My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth as I consider saying it back. "I have to get all this out, Killy."

His gaze is calm and understanding. "I know."

"I don't want you to think that I don't feel—"

He touches my lips with a finger, silencing me. "Shush, Story. I say it because I feel it. I'm confident in what I feel for you. It’ll be true whether you return it or not. I think you do, and yeah, it'll mean the whole fucking world to me to hear you say it." His green eyes are serious and deep and piercing. "When you're ready. Whenever that is."

I blink a few more times, and then descend back into the sordid tale of how I came to be ashamed of my sexuality. "Everett and I dated for most of med school, and it was a toxic relationship for most of that time. I was trying to be someone I wasn't, and he was pretending that who I am at my core didn't piss him off."

"That can't have felt good."

"It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't been through it how you can get stuck in a relationship you know is shitty. And just to be clear, it went both ways. He was pretending, and so was I. I acted like his possessiveness and jealousy weren't a big-ass problem. I acted like it didn't cut me to the core when he shut me down because I forgot myself and got too assertive. I made excuses for his behavior, and I know he made them for mine. But we were stuck. We did like each other—or parts of each other. And sometimes, a shitty relationship seems like a better option than loneliness and the depression that can come with being alone."

"I can see that," Killy says.

"It came to a head during finals. We were both stressed the heck out to the max. He was working to become a research PhD, by the way. Molecular biology. He was brilliant—is brilliant. Anyway. When I get super stressed out, one of the kind of fucked-up ways I cope is sex. It's an outlet, I guess." I can see that this bugs him a little, but he says nothing, and I watch him work through it—his emotions, to me at least, are easily readable. "I'm sorry, Killy, I know—"

He shakes his head and interrupts me. "No. No apologizing for who you are, not fucking ever. Is it a little uncomfortable to think about you having sex with other people? Sure, obviously. You're your own woman, Story. And I want to know what makes you tick. I want to know everything about you, good, bad, ugly, beautiful, weird, amazing."

“You really mean that,” I say, staring at him.