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He watches me, his brows furrowed as he takes in my words. “Then what is it?” he questions, his eyes filled with wariness as if knowing exactly what’s about to come out of my mouth.
“I think you love me too.”
Pain flashes in that dark, bottomless gaze, and his stare turns hard, preparing to push me away, to tell me I’m wrong, but I won’t accept it. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Lamb,” he murmurs through the night, his hand lifting from my thigh and softly caressing my face. “Isn’t it enough that you have Dalton, Cross, and Sawyer falling for you?”
“Maybe,” I tell him honestly. “I’m content with loving them. They’re the most incredible men I’ve ever met, and you’re so lucky that you get to spend the rest of your life being able to call them your brothers. But there’s this hollow part inside my chest that is holding out for you, needing you to make it feel whole, and while I know I will be content if this never goes anywhere, I can’t help but need to know how it feels to love you.”
“Lamb—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off, seeing the refusal in his eyes. “You and I have come so far just to get to this point. You’ve done unspeakable things. You’ve lied, you’ve manipulated me, you’ve lost my trust over and over again, and I’m still here willing to give myself to you. So please, just this once, be honest with me. If I’m making this all up in my head then tell me now. Tell me that you’re not in love with me too.”
Zade sits up in bed, curling his arm around my waist and pulling me in closer, his eyes lingering heavily on mine. “I can’t do that,” he tells me, confirming what I already know to be true, only he’s not there yet, not ready to say the words out loud.
Warmth spreads through my chest, and I dip my head forward, my forehead resting against his as I breathe him in. His arms are so tight around me, squishing against my bruises, but I don’t dare say a word. I need to feel him like this.
The conflict within him flashes behind his eyes as he struggles against what he needs and what he believes to be right, but I know he feels this too. How could he possibly deny it now?
“Is it wrong for me to feel this way?” I murmur, my voice barely audible through the darkness.
“Yes,” he tells me, not bothering to sugarcoat it. “But there’s not been a damn thing right about any of this.”
I swallow over the lump in my throat, nervousness building within me, unsure how this is going to go. “I’m dying in two days, Zade,” I remind him, in case that message didn’t quite get across. “And I know that you know how desperately I want you to save me, and I know that you’ve looked through every bylaw Empire has trying to do that, so I don’t want you to think that I’m asking this of you as some kind of way to manipulate you. That’s the last thing I want, but I don’t want to die without knowing how it feels to be with you.”
He pulls back slightly, his heavy gaze resting on mine. “You want me to fuck you?” he questions, pushing my hair back to see my eyes.
“No,” I tell him, my stomach twisting in knots. “I want you to give me all of you. I don’t just want you to make me come, I want to feel you. I need that connection with you. I want to be your whole world.”
His stare lingers on mine, a rich need and craving flashing in his eyes as his hands fall to my waist, his fingers tightening as if trying to resist, but that simply won’t do. I need this too much. I thought I was fine resisting him, thought I was fine living in denial, but now that those words have slipped out of my mouth, I want to go the distance. I want to be his whole fucking world.
Leaning in, I close the distance and press my lips to his, the same way he kissed me in the trunk of his SUV, and the second his warm lips move against mine, the fireworks explode between us. His grip tightens on my body, pulling me in even closer, and goddamn, it feels just as good as I knew it would.
He’s kissed me before, but those times were out of pure desperation when the overwhelming desire became too much to control. This is different. Just like in the back of the SUV. This is controlled and thought through. Intentional. And damn, I could really get used to it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the spontaneity of the other kisses, the fierce desperation and hunger when he slammed me up against the wall of the tunnels in Empire’s underground cells. Nothing can compare to that kind of need, but there’s something different about this, something so cautious like we’re finally allowing ourselves to truly push the limits of our relationship and finally take this somewhere neither of us ever thought possible.
