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“You’ve already failed,” she murmurs. “I’m already worried. You’re acting weird.”
I smirk at this.
You’re acting weird.
It should sound strange coming from a woman I’ve only known for a day. Nobody has ever felt intimate enough with me to comment on my behavior, on how it’s changed or remained the same. But Rosie and I are fused together – by fate, by instinct, by certainty – and it feels right coming from her.
“Vito wants to see me,” I tell her.
A tremor moves through her. “What if he hurts you? What if he—”
“I won’t let him hurt me,” I growl. “I need to be around to take care of you. I never had much of a reason to live before, except for Chopper, the little rascal. But now I have you, I’ll fight ten times harder to keep myself breathing.”
“Why does he want to see you?” she asks, voice trembling, but masking it beneath forced steadiness.
“He didn’t say,” I tell her.
“What will we do?”
“I have a special wing of my house that serves as a safe room slash bunker,” I say. “It’s about the size of a normal home, but it can be sealed against attack. Once you initiate the sealing sequence, it automatically calls my contact in the police. It’s built for nuclear explosions. Nobody will be able to hurt you. No matter what happens, you and your mother will be safe.”
She springs to her feet, walking over to the balcony, the same way she did last night when we first revealed our innermost desires to each other.
She looks so radiant standing against the sun, the brightness framing her, making her sparkle like a jewel just for me.
I stand up and walk up behind her, reaching around to grip the railing, trapping her body against mine. She falls back against me, and I close my arms around her.
“I still can’t believe how natural this feels,” she whispers.
“I’m going to start calling you Miss Skeptical,” I say banteringly. “You need to start believing, Rosie. This is real. This is us. This is everything I’ve been waiting my whole damn life for.”
She smiles, eyes closed, but then her smile wavers and she opens her eyes, tilting her head to look up at me.
“You have to promise me you won’t let anything happen to you,” she says.
I chuckle darkly.
“If this is all a trick,” I say, “why do you give a damn?”
“I don’t think it’s a trick,” she replies. “I don’t feel it’s a trick. I was thinking about it last night. And I think, maybe… maybe I should stop letting the past rule me, you know?”
I lean down and claim her lips, kissing her passionately, spinning her so we can press our bodies together. She grips onto my shirt and moans as she rises to her tiptoes.
“Promise,” she says.
“I promise,” I snarl, gazing into the shifting copper of her captivating eyes.
“I hate that you have to leave me,” she murmurs. “I feel like there’s so much left for us to learn about each other.”
“Yeah?” I smirk, smoothing my hand up her body to her face, tucking wild strands of oaken hair behind her ear. “I feel like everything I need to know about you, I learned when I tasted you last night.”
“So that’s all I am, huh?” she giggles, shoving me playfully.
“That’s all that matters,” I chuckle, adding heavy sarcasm to my tone.
We both know I’m joking, that she means so much more to me than her body alone. We can joke like this, knowing it’s not serious, knowing we’d die for each other, because of how sharp and potent and real our bond is.
“What do you think I need to know, then, Miss Skeptical?” I ask.
“Well… what’s my favorite color?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “That’s vital knowledge, is it?”
“So what you’re saying is,” she says with a fun, captivating smile, “you don’t know. So you admit defeat, hmm?”
“No,” I say, tickling her in the side, long-dormant parts of me flaring to life when she giggles and twists against my touch. “I know what your favorite color is.”
“Hmm, go on, then.”
“Silver,” I tell her, after a pause.
Her mouth falls open, her eyes narrowing.
“How the heck did you know that?” she giggles.
“Because it’s the color of my hair,” I grin, wolfishly, enjoying myself more than I have in years. “And you can’t stop ogling me.”
“Ogling?” she laughs. “What a lovely way to put it.”
“How else would you describe it?”
“I’d say admiring,” she whispers, her fingers driving me near-wild when she trails her hand through my hair. “It’s so freaking hot, Ryland.”
“I’m just relieved you don’t give a damn about our age gap,” I say.
“I like it,” she says passionately. “Boys my age are so immature, so weak. Half of them act like they’re still ten years old. With you, I feel safe. I feel like I have a man. As long as it’s not—”
