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He turned his back to me as he started putting my new dresses in my closet. His movements were rough, but other than that, there was no sign of his anger.
I bit my lip anyway, wishing he would just yell at me and get it over with.
His shoulders did seem fractionally more relaxed when he turned back to me after everything in one of the bags had been hung up.
Lifting his hands, he signed, “It scared the hell out of me to wake up alone here.” He gestured toward the bed, then continued. “I didn’t know where you were, or if something had happened to you.”
Oh.
I released my lip from between my teeth, lifting my hands to sign too.
He gave me a sharp “No,” followed by, “Speak to me, Cier.”
“Okay. I didn’t think about it scaring you, so I’m sorry it did. That wasn’t my intention.” I wrapped my arms around my abdomen. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, though. We hadn’t talked about like, the process of waking up together. Was I supposed to wake you up? Make breakfast, even though it was nearly lunchtime? Sit quietly until you woke up? I didn’t know what to do, so I panicked and left. It honestly didn’t occur to me that it would bother you, since you didn’t mind spending multiple months away from me.”
His jaw clenched, and he signed back, “I understand not knowing how it was supposed to go, but how can you think it was easy for me to stay away from you? Was it easy for you?”
I scowled. “Of course not! I was here all alone, day after day, and your people hate me.”
“Yet you didn’t hunt me down,” he countered.
My argument died in my throat.
“I thought I was protecting you, but that didn’t make it easy. I ached for you, constantly. I reminded myself over and over that protecting you was worth the pain of your absence. I would do anything to make your life easier, and I thought I was doing exactly that.”
He continued, “If I thought I could control myself enough, I would’ve been camped out on the floor of your bedroom the same night we got here. I missed you, Cier. I missed you like I’ve never missed anything or anyone before. And then I woke up alone today, like you’d never curled up next to me to sleep in my arms. I heard you say that we’re not together, that I’m not possessive...”
I shrunk in on myself, feeling like the shittiest person on the planet.
He crossed the room and kneeled in front of me, capturing my face in his hands and growling, “Don’t, Cier. Don’t feel bad. Just talk to me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes burning. “I’m just confused. I’ve never been in a relationship before—I’ve never even kissed anyone before. I don’t do well when things aren’t written in black and white. If there’s not enough evidence, if I don’t have a clear understanding and expectation of exactly how things work, I just—it either excites me or stresses me out endlessly. There’s no in-between.”
I went on, “And with us, I feel like nothing’s set in stone. I don’t know what you really want, because your actions from before don’t match the words you’re saying now. I don’t know what I want, and apparently my actions don’t match my words either.”
He leaned his forehead against mine, and my eyes closed.
My voice was quiet when I continued. “I don’t know what being mates even means for us. And when people say things are supposed to be a certain way, but then things don’t always happen that way, and it freaks me out. I just needed to talk to someone, and Lya was there, so I talked to her. I’m sorry.”
“Now, you talk tome,” he said in that gorgeous, low voice of his. “Always.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“No more apologies.” He pressed his lips to my cheek, lightly.
I let out a shaky breath. “Alright.”
After a long moment, he finally released my face and stepped back, signing, “I’ve never been in a relationship before either, so we’re going to have to figure it out along the way. I need you to be patient, to tell me when you have doubts instead of hiding them from me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I want you. All of you. You in my bed. In my castle. In my arms. On my cock. Laughing with me. Telling me your hopes and dreams. Loving me, the way I love you. I can’t fix the past, but I can promise that nothing like that will ever happen again.”
I swear, my heart stumbled and nearly stopped.
“I can’t tell you what you want. You have to figure that out yourself. But I can tell you that I don’t just want you as a friend, Cier. I want you as my mate, in every way there is. No one else gets to decide what that means for us.”
“And for you, it means you have a meltdown when I wear skimpy clothes?”
