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“What?”
“A surprise. It was a surprise for you.”
“For me?” My voice cracks.
He chuckles, his face still softened by something akin to tenderness. “Yes. For you. As soon as you told me we were good and you definitely wanted me for your man, I started looking. But it was harder to find than I expected, and I only just found what I was looking for today. I wanted to fix it up some for y—” He breaks off the word, shaking his head ruefully. “But anyway, I better show you now so you don’t convince yourself of some other ludicrous lies about my not loving you.”
The ache in my chest that’s been weighing me down all week has entirely lifted. In its place is a frantic fluttering.
We drive about a half hour, and he won’t give me any hint about where we’re going or the kind of surprise he has for me. We’re heading in a direction I’ve never been before. It’s not toward New Haven, but the landscape remains mostly wooded hills and the occasional ruins of former small towns.
Eventually he pulls to a stop just before a gravel drive that winds along through more woods.
“Are we here?” I ask, looking around. I don’t see anything but the road and the trees and the gravel drive.
“Yes.” He takes a breath that’s just slightly shaky. “Listen to me for a minute. I’m sorry I haven’t said anything to you. I’m not the most open man to begin with, and I’ve been living in constant crisis mode for five years now. It’s… it’s hard for me to let go enough to even get words out. But I honestly did think you knew.”
My eyebrows draw together. “You thought I knew?”
“I thought you knew how I felt. I thought it was obvious.”
I’ve been prepared to stay quiet and just listen since I’m realizing I’m finally going to hear a lot of things I’ve been desperate to hear for a really long time. But this is a little too much for me to tolerate. “Obvious? You thought it was obvious how you felt? Have you ever actually met yourself? It’s like trying to interpret a brick wall!”
He gives a huff of dry amusement and rubs his scalp with his fingertips in an unusually restless gesture. “Yeah, I guess so. But still…” He shakes his head and stares into the mid-distance. “Part of the problem is that I’ve spent so long trying not to feel for you the way I feel. You were always off-limits. At first because you were so young. Why do you think I always stayed so far away from you in those first years at the bunker? I knew you were… I knew it wouldn’t be safe for me to get too close to you. So I didn’t let myself… feel anything for you.”
“I thought you didn’t like me,” I whisper.
“You couldn’t have been more wrong about that. But then you came to me and demanded that I train you to fight and… it was like a gift. A legitimate excuse for me to be around you. But even then, I knew it was dangerous, so I kept as much emotional distance as I could.”
“I… I didn’t know any of that.”
He shoots me a wry look. “What the hell did you think after we started training and I was turned on around you like every other minute?”
A giggle surprises me. “I thought it was just… it was just a physical thing that didn’t mean anything.”
He reaches over to cup my cheek. “You were still supposed to be off-limits to me. You were sheltered and vulnerable and forced into a situation where it wasn’t possible for you to get normal experience with men. It felt wrong to press my advantage with you just because I was the only one around.”
“So what changed?”
“You did. You kept making the first move with me, and that was the only way I could convince myself it was allowed. So, at each step, I kept waiting for you to make the next move. Only then could I take what I wanted. Only then that I could allow myself to have it. But it still felt like… I was doing something wrong. Touching you. Fucking you. Being with you. It was everything I wanted and everything I couldn’t have. So I kept holding back, even when it seemed like you… you wanted me too. Until I was so completely in love with you that I’d never be able to stay away even if I was supposed to.”
I’m staring up at him, lips parted, cheeks still hotly flushed. “So you… you love me? For real?”
“Of course I love you, princess. I can barely remember how it felt to exist when I didn’t.”
My eyes are burning, filling with tears. But they don’t fall this time. “I love you too.”
He gazes at me for a long time, his expression deep, his head shaking just slightly.
“What?” I whisper, suddenly self-conscious for speaking the words even though they’re finally, finally safe.
“Nothing. Just I’ve dreamed for years of hearing you say that. But I never really believed you would.”
“Well, if you want to know the truth, it sounds like you constructed a lot of ridiculous nonsense that kept me in a forbidden category of your mind when I shouldn’t have been there. I’m a fully autonomous human being who can decide who I want to be with and who I want to love. I’m not your princess in a tower.”
“I’ve finally learned you shouldn’t be in a tower, but we’re going to have to disagree over whether or not you’re my princess.”
I can’t help but giggle at the slight indignation on his face. “Okay. As long as you don’t think I’m forbidden anymore.”
