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“Are your parents still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Do you see them?”
“I see them enough not to engage.”
“They’re in a cult?”
“Don’t get it twisted. They’re not mindless sheep. Theycreatedthe cult. Other nutjobsfollowthem,” I mutter and then exhale my irritation. “They don’t bother me anymore.”
“Were they ever kind to you?” she asks, tiptoeing around what she really wants to know.
“No. Not once.”
Xenia’s tears surprise me. “I’m sorry.”
“Why do you care so much?”
“I told you,” she says and wipes her cheeks. “I’m shallow.”
This beautiful woman watches me with such affection that I can’t help pitying her. No way can I ever live up to the romance notions floating around in her pretty head.
“I think you might be setting yourself up for more disappointment,” I admit as she sits up and gets to her knees. “Like how you picked that bad location. I think you might hate yourself too much to choose what’s right, Xenia.”
“I know I must seem like a train wreck,” she whispers and brushes her fingers across my forehead, “I feel like one, most days. But when you’re in my head, I can almost feel myself becoming someone else.”
“I can’t make you happy.”
“I don’t think anyone can. I think I suffocated everything interesting and strong about myself long ago. I’m a shell of a person now. The only time I don’t feel like I’m going through the motions is when I’m with you. So even if you reject me, I’m planning to own that heartbreak.”
Xenia is handing her future over to me. I already felt responsible for this woman’s happiness without her doing a damn thing. Now, she’s flat-out expecting me to give her life meaning. I can help her out here or there, but saving her from myself is asking too much.
“What makes you think the worst I’ll do is reject you?” I ask in a hard voice as if I’m speaking to my enemy rather than the woman I’ve considered keeping. “I’m in a criminal motorcycle club. I could end you without anyone asking questions. I don’t suffer guilt like normal people. You’re in more danger than you think.”
Xenia’s gaze fills with worry. She’s wary of me now. For the first time, she sees me clearly.
I’m startled when warmth replaces her fear. “No, you won’t kill me. Though I’m not a particularly insightful person, I can tell how you have rules. Not the ones other people follow, but your own set. Hurting me like that would break your personal morals.”
Suddenly brazen, Xenia casually cups my face. I feel like the power somehow shifted between us.
“I do think you have it in you to grow bored of my neediness and walk away. To keep your sanity, you’ll choose to wreck mine. I sense you survived a painful childhood by making tough choices. If you feel like I’m suffocating you or ripping away what you need to be happy, you’ll discard me and never look back,” Xenia explains as her thumb strokes my lips. “For more time with you, I’ll endure the pain later.”
“Or you could choose not to suffocate me with your neediness.”
Xenia only smiles in response to my snarly words. “I wish I could promise that, but my shop will be closed soon. I live in a tiny guesthouse belonging to a woman whose grandson I don’t want. Nothing in my life makes sense.”
Allowing her grin to grow, she continues, “You’re what I think about when I wake up, and you’re what I wonder about when I go to sleep. That was just from your occasional visits. Now that I know more about you, I’m bound to get needier. There’s simply no avoiding it.”
“No, I suppose there isn’t.”
Xenia smiles at how I submit to our situation. Her relaxed expression is all the invitation I need to finally claim a taste of this woman.
