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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
While Kelsey made arrangements for her brother to see to her dog for the night, Dex jumped into a shower as hot as he could stand it. Despite the fire, and the hot tea, and the blanket, and the dogs, and Kelsey’s tender care, he felt frozen all the way to his marrow.
His humiliation went just as deep.
Jesus fucking fuck, she’d found him outside in his goddamnunderwear, just about literally freezing his balls off.
If she hadn’t shown, maybe he would have. He had no idea what he did when he lost time like that, what was going on in his head was a different reality entirely, but this wasn’t the first time he’d come out of it in a potentially dangerous situation. Usually, he came back to his body right where he’d left it, but sometimes …
Sometimes, he came back about five seconds from dying. It happened rarely; the episodes, if that was the proper word, generally lasted five to ten minutes and he was usually in basically the same position as he last remembered. But sometimes, like tonight, he went away for a long damn time. This one was more than an hour, which might be a new record.
When they were long, sometimes some part of his basic programming stayed online and kept him moving. A couple times, he’d come out of it walking down the street. Once he’d gone off while he was making dinner, and he’d kept chopping vegetables, with a nine-inch chef’s knife, until a whole bag of carrots was sliced. Not a scratch on him, but still.
He’d been lucky he hadn’t killed himself, or gotten himself killed, during those spells. If not for Kelsey, though, this time might have been the last time. The cold he felt was so deep and encompassing it was almost beyond sensation.
It wasn’t necessarily a good reason to let Kelsey into his life, to try to build something with her, but it definitely wasn’t a bad one. Being alone was dangerous for a guy like him.
He stayed in the shower until the water began to lose temperature and he no longer felt like his muscles were made of ice crystals.
Drawing the shower curtain back, he saw a little stack of clothes on the closed toilet—clean sweats, t-shirt, hoodie, underwear, and socks. Kelsey had done some rooting around in his dresser drawers, and also sneaked into the bathroom.
He wished she’d let him know she was in there. But the mood wasn’t right for the playful kind of shower.
He dried off, dressed in the clothes Kelsey had laid out for him, and left the bathroom. None of his dogs was around the bathroom door, and that was odd enough to make him frown. They usually crowded in the hall and waited for him whenever they were on the wrong side of a closed door.
He found them in the living room, with Kelsey. She sat in the corner of his sectional, scrolling through her phone, buried under five dogs. His pack had already made their decision about her.
How was Mr. Darcy around other dogs? That question probably needed an answer pretty soon. He thought about asking, but just then she looked up and smiled at him, and all he could think of was her. How beautiful. How sweet. How good. Howloving.
He loved her, didn’t he?
Yeah, he did.
“You look much better!” she cheered. “How do you feel?”
“Much better.” He went to the sofa. Charlie jumped down right away, no need for a command, and the other dogs followed. Lizzie, curled on Kelsey’s lap, lifted her head and gave Dex an irritated look, but she got down, too. Canine politics were rigid. Lizzie was their princess, but she was not the boss.
Dex took up the warm spot where Charlie had lain, right beside Kelsey, and stretched his arm across the back of the sofa, behind her. She dropped her hands to her lap and smiled at him. “What?”
He’d been thinking intense thoughts and probably looking at her with an expression that reflected them. People generally thought he had a good poker face, but it wasn’t true. He wore his feelings on his face. It was just that he hardly ever felt real enjoyment or, god forbid, actual happiness, so his expression was usually a frown, in any situation.
“I want to say something. It’s probably intense, probably too much. If it freaks you out, I understand. If you want to go, I understand.”
She blinked. “Okay …”
“I’ll start by saying I’m done with the idea that I’m wrong for you. You’re right that that’s your call to make. I can’t know what’s in your mind, what you want. All I know is who I am, and what I want. You’ve seen that I’m … let’s go with complicated. If you have questions about what or why or how I am, I’ll answer them, as long as it doesn’t get into secrets I have to keep.”
The confusion began to ease from her face, giving way to the seedling of a smile. “Okay …”
His gut clenched at the idea of what he was about to do, but that was as familiar as a hunger pang, so he ignored it and told Kelsey the truth. “I’m in love with you, Kelsey.”
The impulse to keep talking, to bury that huge truth under a rush of inanity, to swaddle it in blather, shot through him, but he held firm and let her process its naked power.
Maybe there was no more obvious indication that he was not right in the head than this: after a single night with her, after never having allowed a woman into his life before, despite all the very good reasons they weren’t a good match, he was already in love with her. They’d known each other for years, sure, and she kept saying they were basically family, but he knew feeling this way, and saying it out loud, was unreasonably fast.
Still needed to say it, though.
She was quiet, simply gazing at him, her smile still only a seedling. When it went on longer than he could stand, he said, “So … uh … if you want me—”
