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Stupid pussy. Della ground her back teeth. “That’s my point. Whatever you’re doing, you’re not thinking about this logically. What I said that first night is still true: I can’t give you what you want. Or need.”
He wet his lips and quietly challenged, “How do you know what I need? I don’t recall you ever asking me.” Big, warm, Alpha-sized hands slid up her arms to her neck and into her hair. With a gentle fist, he angled her chin up to capture her full attention. The lines of his face softened and shone with a sincerity that plucked a deep chord in Della’s chest. “Della,” he began, voice gritty and raw, “you’re a gift I’d never dared to hope for and a blessing I don’t deserve.”
Against all her inclinations and arguments, Della’s heart cracked open like an egg, oozing a mess of affection all over her knotted-up insides. He couldn’t possibly mean any of that, a part of her protested, yet the earnest devotion on his face argued the point more than words ever could. No question, he believed the words he said, and—her stomach somersaulted into a free fall—she believed he meant them, too. Sound rushed in her ears like she’d plunged to the bottom of a deep pool. Love. He was talking aboutlove.
“And,” he continued, oblivious to her emotional chaos, “since you didn’t ask, I’ll tell you. There’s nothing I want or need that you can’t give me.” Inclining his head, he pressed a kiss to her brow.
Dizzy with feeling, Della groped for a line of logic to follow through this madness. “What about what I need?”
“You need to be safe, cared for, and protected,” he explained, “and that’s what I intend to do. That’s what Iamdoing.”
Della’s mouth turned to sand. “You can’t protect me from everything.”
Case in point: he couldn’t protect her from all these inconvenient feelings rampaging through her chest. He couldn’t protect her affections from blooming in the lazy Sunday warmth of his appeal. He couldn’t save her from the heartbreak she risked by surrendering to this relationship, not as a biological need but as an emotional one. He couldn’t stop her from falling in love with him.
“Yes,I can.” Sudden vehemence ignited behind his eyes. “Maybe I messed it up once, but I’m not making that mistake again. Not with you.” As if proving a point, he smashed his lips to hers, sealing the declaration with a kiss that weakened her knees. Reeling, she gave herself over to it, running her hands up his strong back, mashing her breasts to his bare chest, moaning into his mouth.
How easy it would be to totally succumb. To disappear inside this insane romance and ride it till the end, wherever that took her. She felt like a helium balloon, weightless and bouncing in the breeze, striving to detach and ascend and touch the blue, blue sky. Only a thin but tenacious ribbon of anxiety tethered her to the earth, and for the love of everything, she couldn’t cut the string.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Cal
Heart still thundering in his chest, Cal set Della back on her rock perch and took a few slow, gliding steps backward, curving his lips in a smile. “As much as I enjoy refuting these points you’re trying to make, I gotta get our lunch figured out before you start trying to climb me like a tree again.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight to her body, curling into an adorable little ball. Worry creased her face, despite her best effort to wipe her expression clean. “So, are you going to tell me where you learned a word like specious?”
He waded into the water up to his knees, biting back a curse at the chill. “Pa had some very particular ideas about his children and their education. Very big on vocabulary.”
“Yeah?” The worry disappeared from Della’s face, replaced by intrigue.
Cal nodded, relieved she showed interest in a topic other than Why I’m Not Your Mate. She’d abandoned the I’m-not-an-Omega argument—the onset of her Heat putthatissue to rest—but seamlessly pivoted to this equally exasperating one. Although, compared with talking about Pa and what happened in his Pack, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.
“He was a lawyer but left it to become a rancher, even before TheEnd. He schooled us through most of his university and law textbooks.” He shot her a bitter glance. “He liked a lively debate.”
“You didn’t care for it?” Della gnawed on her bottom lip, now totally engrossed in his reminiscences about Pa.Shit, he really didn’t want to talk about this.
“Pa was a stubborn man,” he said evenly. “Had a great deal of... expectations.”
“Of you?”
“Uh-huh.” Cal grunted and bent to wrangle a fish caught in the net, coming up with a flopping trout. He tossed it on the shore. Two or three more and they could get back to the cave. He didn’t like being out here longer than necessary.
“My dad had a lot of expectations for my brother,” Della mused, sliding off the rock to pick up a stone. “Wanted him to follow his footsteps into politics. But Anthony enlisted in the navy, instead.”
Cal snatched another small trout from the net, debating whether to set it free or eat it and decided on freedom for the little guy. “Put his hopes in the wrong kid, did he?”
Della laughed. “He got over it.” She whipped a flat rock and snorted when it dropped into the water instead of hopping along the top. With a stern look, she tried another and managed a few paltry skips. “Unlike Ant, Dad was happy with everything I did. Maybe he didn’t expect anything, so everything was a delight. Maybe it was because I was a girl. I don’t really know, but when I showed interest in politics, he supported me any way he could.” She dusted the dirt off her palms and faced him. “Do you miss your Pa?”
All the old, haunting guilt flamed up his throat like acid indigestion. He swallowed and swallowed again, the sour taste coating his mouth. “If I do,” he said quietly, “I got no one to blame but myself.”
Della took a step toward him, riveted. “How do you mean?”
His eyes pinged from landmark to landmark: rock, stump, moss, fern, anywhere but meeting Della’s earnest gaze. Why had he mentioned it? Why tell her his darkest secret? Why were these memories crying out for attention now when she teetered on the verge of actually accepting him, acceptingthem? He carried the burden of shame and learned to live with it, but in this moment, he knew Della’s condemnation was the one thing he couldn’t handle.
Thickness gathered in his throat. “I killed my Pa... and some others.” Cal couldn’t feel his feet. The numbness burned and throbbed like an open wound, but compared to the pain and fear gouged in his chest, it barely registered. “Got banished from the Pack I was born into, from the Pack I was meant to inherit, to lead. I can never return or I’ll be put to death.”
Movement flickered at the corner of his vision, Della’s hand flying up to brace against her chest. “What happened?”
