Page 40 of Twisted Road

She drew up her knees, put her chin on top of them and then turned her head to one side to regard him soberly. Her eyes had gone a darker green. He could look into her eyes all day. She had a gorgeous face. Those high cheekbones and that straight little nose dusted with freckles. He was very, very partial to her freckles. Most of the swelling and bruising had faded away, leaving only a faint smudge of yellow here and there.

“All right, Wildfire, I’ll bite. Why isn’t it the same?”

“You’re going to tire of me, whether you want to admit it or not. I’m a boring person. I cut and color hair for a living. I have routines I have to follow. I fixate on things.”

“These are all things I’m very aware of about you, Lyric. I don’t think you’re boring. I prefer your company to anyone else I know, and that’s saying something, because I like being around my Torpedo Ink brothers and sisters. I especially like that you fixate on things because that means you’ll fixate on me. I want to be your entire focus because I’m greedy like that.”

He crouched down beside the tub and cupped the side of her face in his palm. “Seeing you nearly die after finally realizing you were the only one I would ever be able to be with made me see I wasn’t going to let you go. Knowing you gave me something that allowed me to be human, that brought me back to life, and then watching you almost die, is too fuckin’ much for me to handle. So, okay, I’ve gotten overprotective. You may have to put up with that for a century or two until I don’t wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe, terrified I’m going to have to live without you.”

Her green eyes searched his, looking for a single sign of dishonesty, but Keys was confident she wouldn’t find one because he’d never been more honest in his life.

She sat up slowly. “You really believe what you’re saying.” There was pure astonishment in her voice.

“I wish you’d pay attention, Lyric. I’ve been trying to get across to you that everything has changed between us. Everything. I meant what I said about your choices. You can do pretty much anything you damn well want, with the exception of leaving me. That’s the one rule we’re both going to hold sacred. And yes, I’m protective of you as my woman, my best friend and my lover. I’m also very protective of our relationship. I’m fully aware I’ll never find anything like this again, so I’m going to be extremely careful of it.”

“But, Keys…” She broke off, her lashes doing that fluttering thing that sent heat to his cock. Her signal she had no idea what to say.

“I need you to get on board with this. Stop fighting it. It’s going to take both of us to figure out how this is going to work.”

She rubbed her chin on her knees. “You’re so certain?”

“More than I’ve ever been certain of anything in my life. I need to know you think I’m worth the risk.”

That brought her head up, and her eyes met his. “Keys. Of course I think you’re worth any risk.”

“Even if your heart is shattered in the end? Because if we don’t make it, that’s what’s going to happen to me, and I’m standing here telling you, you’re worth that risk. I want you to believe with every cell in your body, your heart, hell, baby, your soul, that I’m worth that to you.”

“Keys.” Just his name. An ache in her voice. “You’ve always been the one for me.”

He took a deep breath. “In my life, Lyric, I’ve never been anyone’s one. Not my mother, not my aunts, not the women in the hellhole where I was raised. I have two sisters I grew up with who I love and respect, but when they look at me, they don’t see what you see. They see the monster.”

She gave a quick shake of her head. “You aren’t a monster.”

“I do monstrous things. I can’t look at myself too closely, Lyric, or I see nothing but that killer. It had come to that point with me. I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer when I first laid eyes on you. You were so incredibly beautiful standing in the doorway of your salon, and you smiled at me. For the first time ever, I felt alive. I felt seen. That was you giving that to me, and I wasted six months fighting it. Hell”—he shoved his hand through his hair—“maybe I didn’t recognize it for what it was because I’ve never had anything remotely close to what I feel from you or for you.”

“You say you’re protective of me and then you’re angry because I am of you,” she said. “A relationship goes both ways. I see you in trouble, I have no choice but to help you survive. My need to keep you alive is every bit as strong as yours is.”

He had a visceral reaction to that statement, but he was wise enough to keep it to himself. There were two very strong emotions at war. He liked hearing he meant that much to her, but no way in hell was she going to put herself in harm’s way again. Now, though, wasn’t the time to keep laying down the law. She was on the verge of capitulating, and he was going to hold her to whatever concessions she gave him because he knew she would have doubts and try to resort to her usual way of dealing with fears. She would try to run from him. He knew her far better than she realized.

“I’m listening. Don’t say I agree, but I’m listening.”

She looked around and he immediately held out a towel. It gave him far too much satisfaction to see that her body had his marks all over it. Everywhere. Fingerprints, thumbprints, bite marks, even juvenile hickeys. There wasn’t a place on her he hadn’t claimed.

“The prisoner you took so you could ask questions…”

He kept his expression the same, but it took effort. That prisoner was the last thing he wanted to discuss with her.

“You didn’t want to tell me about him or what you found out because it was bad news for me, wasn’t it? He wasn’t a biker out for your blood. Declan and his crew found me, didn’t they? They paid a fortune for those men to kill me. It wasn’t you they were after. I was the one who got you hurt.”

He shrugged. He was damn proud of her, even though he wished she weren’t quite so smart. “Too bad for them. We got the information we needed, and Code is on it. It won’t take long to find them. Miles is in prison. Easy pickings.”

She had dried off her body and was looking around for her clothes. Her head jerked up alertly. “What does that mean?”

“You’re my woman, Lyric, can we at least agree on that?”

She bit her lip and gave the slightest nod, but he could tell she didn’t really believe him.

“Out loud. Say it out loud. I need the words.”