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“Yes,” he said quickly—no thought, just an answer.

I took a breath. “Do you want me?”

“Always. That was never in question.”

That quickly, I was back to breathing. “Do you think you could ever love me?”

“You broke my heart, killed all my dreams.”

It was true, I had.

“You did it for what you thought was the right reason,” he told me, relaxing his arm, no longer holding me away even though my hands had never left his thighs.

“Yes.”

“But you were wrong.”

“I have to be honest with you in all things if there’s any hope for us.”

He nodded.

“If I had to do it all again, I would.”

He recoiled, trying to get off my lap, but I cupped his nape and held him still, my other hand like a vise on his thigh. “I was shot, nearly died. And even if I’d gone to my grave without you knowing that all I wanted was to claim the other half of me, at least I’d be the only one dead. No one would have ever gone after you.”

He stopped moving and stilled, staring into my eyes, searching them.

I let go of the back of his neck and took hold of his hand, flattening it over my heart, holding it there. “Keeping you safe was my sole priority.”

It felt like years went by, that was how excruciating it was to wait for him to say something, to tell me what his judgment was.

“I will beg to stay here,” I confessed, my breath hitching as I started to panic. “Tell me what you want or need and I⁠—”

“Time.”

It took me a second to calm my racing heart and respond to him. “Sorry?”

“I need time.”

I cleared my throat, feeling the ache to claim my mate. His scent, how he’d responded to my kisses, the feel of him in my arms… Every instinct I had told me to take him, here, now, fuck him and mark him and make him mine.

“How—” I had to get the animal out of my voice and sound like a man, but the growl was all there was. “How much time do you… need?”

“As long as you made me wait for you,” he said, lifting up out of my lap and standing over me.

I couldn’t breathe.

He backed away from me slowly, his gaze locked with mine until he hit the sofa, the beautiful leather one, and sat down hard. His breath kept catching, almost like it was stopping and starting. He was trying to get it to even out, but he was having trouble.

Sitting across from him, I tried to figure out what to say to get him to change his mind.

“It’s horrible to feel powerless in the most important decision in your life,” he said sadly. “Isn’t it?”

I nodded and didn’t even care that my eyes were filling. Who cared if I cried in front of my mate?

“And it wasn’t painful for me because of the loss of intimacy, as I’d never had that. What I grieved for was that the one person who was my other half didn’t want me.”

“But that’s not true,” I snarled at him, the anger rushing out of me, my hands turning to claws without conscious thought.