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"I don't know what you want."

The words came without the usual deflection, and for a second I forgot whatever sarcastic thing I'd been about to say.

Instead, I sat on the edge of the bed and worked Stella's sneakers off my feet. They were half a size too big, their laces tied in knots a fifteen-year-old had apparently designed to survive nuclear war. I kicked them beneath the other bed and caught my reflection in the mirror: borrowed hoodie that smelled faintly of Amber's kitchen, battered jeans that had survived a demon, a laundromat, and half of Lake Erie, and hair that had been through Hell and looked appropriately punished for it.

Four days ago I had owned nineteen pairs of shoes each worth more than that truck.

I barely recognized that woman. Stranger still, I wasn't sure I missed all of her at all.

"I want to ask you something." I tucked one foot beneath me and pushed myself to keep talking before I panicked. "And I want you to actually answer me. No staring at the ceiling and telling me some unrelated story about the fifteenth century until I forget what I asked."

Humor lightened his features and a twinkle appeared in his eyes. "All right."

"When you said you wouldn't start this…" I motioned between us, because apparently I was twenty-six years old and still incapable of discussing sex without resorting to hand gestures. My heart was beating hard enough to feel beneath my jaw. "You said you wouldn't be the one to reach for me first. Not while you're like this. Because if you lost control, I'd be the one paying the price for a decision you made."

The faint amusement disappeared from his face. "Yes."

"Do you still mean that?"

"I do."

"Even after everything that's happened between us?"

River shifted at the door, but he didn't come any closer. "Especially after everything that's happened between us. My hunger for you doesn't make me less dangerous, Hazel."

Well. There went my pulse.

"I know that."

"No." His eyes stayed on mine. "You know what you've seen. You don't know what I'm capable of if I lose control."

"And you don't know what I'm asking yet." I stood, mostly because sitting there while he looked at me like that had become impossible. "I'm not asking you to promise me nothing can go wrong. I'm asking if you still refuse to make this choice for me."

He went very still.

I swallowed and forced myself to hold his gaze. "Because if that's the only thing standing between us, stop deciding for both of us and let me tell you what I want."

For several seconds, River said nothing.

Then his lips curled slightly at one corner, but there was nothing playful left in his eyes. He was looking at me like he wanted to devour me where I stood. I had been dressed to the nines with my hair and makeup done and never once felt as wanted as I did standing in a dingy motel room in a borrowed hoodie.

"All right, Firefly." His voice dropped low enough to send a shiver down my spine. "Tell me what you want."

Oh, Goddess.

It had been considerably easier to imagine this conversation when River wasn't standing across from me waiting for an answer. The words I'd rehearsed scattered the second his gaze dropped to my mouth and stayed there.

I told him anyway.

I'm not going to repeat exactly what came out of my mouth, partly because it was nobody's business and partly because it was beyond embarrassing. The version I'd practiced had been considerably more elegant. There was a for Goddess' sake somewhere in the middle. I may have pointed at the bed. At one point, after stumbling over a sentence that should not have been nearly that difficult, I heard myself say, "I mean, look at you," waving in his general direction, which had not been part of my argument but remained, in my opinion, an excellent point.

One of River's eyebrows lifted.

That bastard.

He didn't interrupt. Didn't help. Didn't close the distance between us even when the tension in his body made it perfectly clear that standing still was costing him greatly. He simply watched me stumble through every mortifying word, his attention so completely fixated on me that by the time I finished, my cheeks were burning.

When I finally ran out of words, River just stared at me.