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I know damn well it’s not what he’s really asking, but it’s all I’ve got.
“Why do you care?” he asks after a moment, making no move to stop me.
I’ve got no answer at all to that one, so I just push his sleeves back and keep removing the blood, then go on to his other hand.
“Fucking Payton,” he whispers, his hand spasming in mine, like it wants to make a fist.
I smooth it back out, straightening his fingers and gently wiping the blood off his palm. “It wasn’t your fault, Maddoc.”
“Everything that happens with my people is my fault.”
His tone is harsh, hurting, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.
I look up at him. There’s blood on his chin too. I wipe it away. “Thiswasn’t your fault.”
Those mesmerizing eyes of his blaze down at me, the gray at the edges of his irises so dark it almost looks black. Then he blinks and looks away, his hand—the one I’m still holding—tightening around mine.
“I’m the leader. The one in charge. They rely on me. Follow me.”
“They do,” I agree, smoothing his hand open again and running the warm towel over it.
Maddoc swallows. “She fucked up, they both did, but she thought she was doing it for me. Even at the end…”
“I saw the way she looked at you. That’s not your fault, either.”
His hands are clean, but I don’t stop running the towel over them. I can’t.
“I knew she had a crush on me,” he says in a low voice, staring down like he’s mesmerized by the slow, gentle circles I’m rubbing on his skin too. “I should have shut that shit down, but I figured it was harmless and I was fucking wrong. She was trying to impress me.”
I don’t know what to say. At least, not anything I haven’t already tried to tell him. He’s right about all of it. But it’s still not his fault.
“You were there for her,” I remind him. “You were with her at the end. She wasn’t alone. That means something.”
Maddoc barks out a harsh laugh, his hands tightening on mine again. “Does it? Because I never wanted her like that. The only one I want is—”
He breaks off, and when our eyes meet, my heart lurches, all the raw emotion I’ve been fighting, denying, right there in his eyes too. He’s laid bare to me, letting me see what I know down to my soul no one else does, and it means everything.
We’ve both made mistakes, but life is too short, and right now, for this small moment at least, there’s nothing but truth between us. I drop the towel and go up on my toes.
And then I kiss him.
21
RILEY
I half expectMaddoc to shove me away. After all, I shot him just a few days ago, and the only other time I’ve voluntarily been in his arms was tainted by lies and betrayal. But he doesn’t. He does the opposite, banding his arms around me and locking me against him with a groan that sounds like it claws its way up from the center of his soul.
Like hecan’tlet go.
Like I’m his anchor.
“Riley,” he mutters against my lips, his hands roaming my body and leaving a trail of pure heat in their wake.
“Yes,” I say, even though it wasn’t really a question.
He tugs my hair, tipping my head back, and I press even closer, moaning into his mouth. Flattening my breasts against his hard chest so I can feel his heart beating against mine, proving we’re both alive.
The intoxicating flavor of desperation in his kisses tells me he needs this too. We stumble backward, but I only realize we’ve careened into the living room when we bump into the couch Dante fucked me on once.
