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Yet.
“I refuse to lie to you,” I repeated and realized just how deep this girl had gotten under my skin and into my heart when I almost started choking on my fear of losing her. My head shifted in a mixture of subtle nods and shakes as I struggled to continue. “So, tell me if you really want me to answer that.”
“You just did,” she said on a disheartened breath, her body sagging against mine.
But she didn’t move away. She didn’t rush for the door and her car.
She stayed there, weight fully resting against me and hand splayed over my chest, just above the chaotic pounding of my heart.
“Do you enjoy it?”
“That’s complicated.” I cleared my throat and wondered if you could die from the absolute fear of losing someone. Because that’s what it felt like. I was sure my heart was going to escape the confines of my ribs as I watched Tree’s reactions while I stumbled over my next answers.
“I don’t enjoy watching the light leave their eyes. I don’t enjoy knowing I took someone’s life. But I do take pride in protecting my family and other people, in whatever way.” Just as she began nodding, I added, “I also have to focus.”
“Focus...” Tree’s head tilted and her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
My fingers trembled against her back as I explained, “I’ve always been the easygoing one—the one who turned life into one big joke. It was easier that way growing up because I always felt like I was failing my parents, and then it just stuck.”
“Diggs,” she said under her breath, her other hand reaching for my face, but I grabbed her hand before she could get there and placed it on top of her other one.
“Turning bad situations into a joke is how I focus. Turning threats into a joke is how I focus.”
Felt like she took a knife to my heart when a whisper of disgust wove through those eyes that had been tormenting me for nearly two months. “Turning murder into a joke is how you focus?”
“It’s how I keep my family and myself alive,” I corrected gently. “But I’ve never enjoyed it. I can’t promise I one day won’t though.” At her blatant horror, I clutched her tightly so she would feel the depth of my feelings for her and the meaning in my words when I said, “The day I come face-to-face with the KSGs that tried to kill you, I promise you, I’ll enjoy it.”
At my confession, the swarm of questions vanished from her eyes. The emotions faded. All that remained was a worrying mask of nothing as minutes passed in excruciating silence.
DIGGS
“Your keys are in my pocket if you wanna leave,” I finally said when the silence became too much. “You won’t ever be alone. You’ll be safe.”
Her brow had furrowed as soon as I’d started speaking, and when she began nodding, I struggled to stop myself from begging her to stay. “Your life terrifies me, and I don’t know how to begin to understand everything you’ve said tonight,” she breathed, then leaned closer until her mouth was inches from mine. “But I can handle you.”
God damn.
I crushed my mouth to hers, drinking from her in a punishing kiss as I sat up and twisted until we were back where we’d begun when we first entered the room: Tree’s spine kissing the bed as I once again settled between her legs.
Only this time, the hard questions were done. This time, I planned on reminding her exactly why she thought she could handle me.
“You’re in my head. You’re in every breath,” I said against her lips, the words a rough confession as I grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled it over my head. “For so many reasons, I wanna keep you far from my life, but I can’t stay away from you.”
“Then stop trying,” she whispered as she pulled me back to her. The tips of her fingers sliding from my jaw to grip my hair as she let me deepen the kiss.
Take control of it.
But I took my time with it and with her as I finished undressing us both. Following the same path as her clothes with licks and bites and kisses that had her gasping and trembling and arching toward me as I slowly stripped her bare. Until her chest was heaving and her skin was lined with chills in anticipation of what was to come, and all we’d done was kiss.
I stood on the side of the bed, my stare raking over her beautifully curved body and taking in this moment as I rolled a condom on. The way she didn’t shy away from me or try to cover herself. The way she watched me beneath hooded eyelids. The way her body subtly moved, silently begging mine to return to her. All wrapped up in the energy that had always pulsed between us, even from that first night. Charged and powerful and intoxicating, making the anticipation that much sweeter.
I gripped her hips tightly, feeling them beneath my palms and watching as her eyes flared before I flipped her onto her stomach without warning. Her shocked gasp faded into a laugh that had my chest warming and doing all kinds of crazy things, but then I pulled her onto her knees so her ass was in the air and she was bared to me, and the air in the room shifted. Thickened.
The silence as she waited for what I would do next made me want to draw this out until she was begging me for something, but I needed her.
It’d been a long fucking week of keeping myself from her.
I leaned forward to get the smallest taste of where she was already wet and nearly groaned when she shuddered against me. But it was the sound of my name leaving her on a whispered prayer that had me curling my hands around her thighs and setting my mouth on her. Long, slow licks from her clit to entrance that turned into hard flicks against that bundle of nerves before I drew it into my mouth until she was crying out, only to repeat it all again.
