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“I don’t actually think it’s me,” I admitted.
“How do you figure that?”
“He keeps talking about wanting you to be happy. I’d put more money on the fact that you’ve been smelling like me for a while, and that I made you smile, than on him actually enjoying being around me. I mean, I do think he likes me. But if I made your life worse and you never smelled like me, I don’t think he’d stay in his human form for me. Because he’s not doing it for me; he’s doing it for you.”
I smelled salt in the air, and when I lifted my gaze, noticed him blinking a bit faster.
If any piece of my heart wasn’t already melted, that damn shard was a goner too.
His voice was rough when he said, “I feel like I’ve screwed up everything with him.”
“My dad told me the same thing after my first high school dance concert. He and his mate decided not to stay together after the mating process, and he knocked up some other vampire chick he wasn’t mated to. She wasn’t interested in motherhood, and him and his mate only met up to feed each other every two days or so. I never met either woman. Anyway, after the concert, we were driving home. And he told me that when I was younger, he thought he was screwing everything up. That he was doing everything wrong. And that he was proud of me for thriving despite his shortcomings. But he never had any shortcomings to me; in my eyes, he was perfect.”
My voice was just as rough as Kai’s when I finished speaking, my eyes burning and blinking fast too.
“You were raised by a single dad?”
“I was. That’s why I understood how cautious you were about letting me into Lucas’s life.”
“Damn. Once again, you prove to me how perfect you are.” His hand slowly stroked my hair.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m nowhere near perfect.”
He chuckled. “Whatever you say, Spitfire.”
My eyes closed as I focused on the sensations of his hand on my hair, over my skin. I hadn’t changed into one of my sleep shirts, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Not when it was still early, and I was so comfortable.
“Can you get Lucas switched into a different pack?” I asked him. “Is that a thing?”
Kai was quiet for a moment. He finally admitted, “I don’t know. I’ve heard of it happening two or three times—but that’s only ever been with the kids of people who rank high in the main alpha’s pack, who have connections. And most of the town hates me.”
“They actually don’t. Even if they did, would it hurt anything to ask? I could do it, if you don’t want to. I’m not afraid of pissing off the main alpha.”
“I’m not afraid of pissing that bastard off. I just don’t want to make things worse for Lucas,” Kai admitted.
“If he knows you’re on his side, that you’re fighting for him, how could that make anything worse?”
He didn’t reply to that, but I didn’t really expect him to. He just kept stroking my hair, holding me against him. There was nothing sexual about the moment, and honestly, that made it perfect.
“I’ll think about it,” he finally said.
I nodded a little, and was content to sit in silence.
He spoke softly again a few minutes later. “Lucas told me to ask you to move in with us, or to let us move into that townhouse with you. He doesn’t know about the house I bought—I was waiting to tell him until it was almost time to move in.”
I bit my lip, waiting for him to tell me how he felt about that.
“I know you wanted space. That you want your own place. So I didn’t tell him yes—or that I’d try to talk you into it or anything. I don’t want to push you for something you don’t want, or you’re not ready for. But I’m not walking away from you again. This is it for me; you’re it.”
“Whether I like it or not?” I teased him.
He laughed roughly, dragging me a bit closer. “Exactly.”
“Well, I can’t promise to be good at living together. Or at being mates. Or anything except drinking blood, really. But I’m up for trying it, if you are.”
“Waking up with you every day would make me really damn happy,” Kai admitted.
And as much as it surprised me to admit, I thought it would make me really damn happy too.
