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I shook my head and took his hand. I could feel him struggling—but I could also feel exactly what he was trying to tell me.
We could only act when we were ready. But not being ready didn’t mean not caring. It didn’t mean not loving.
I leaned in and kissed him.
“Istil?” he murmured against my lips.
“I love you too,” I said.
He stared at me, stunned, with an expression like I’d just read his mind. “How did you know I was trying to…?”
“I’m learning that not everything needs to be said to be understood,” I told him. “I think I’ve always known how you feel about me, but I wasn’t able to trust those feelings.” I held Ari’s face in my hands. “You tell me when you’re ready. We have plenty of time.”
He smiled tenderly at me. “Yet again, you’ve shifted my world in the blink of an eye. That first moment I met you, and then when I watched you dancing on that beach and knew that I had to have you. When I learned you were pregnant with my child. And now this, Istil. Only you could have this kind of power over me. I don’t deserve the patience you’ve given me, nor the grace of your understanding. I love you. And I want you. I’ve only ever wanted you to be with me.”
Ari’s words were like the life-giving rain that drenched the canopy of my heart and made it blossom. And my words had been the sun, bringing light to the deeply hidden recesses of his heart, giving it strength to reach out for more. We each had what the other needed and had become partners without even realizing it.
“Will you be my mate?” Ari said, his voice a low rumble.
Even after everything that’d just happened, the question still took me by surprise, and I blinked at him like a startled owl.
“We have plenty of time to talk about it,” he added reassuringly. “You don’t need to give me an answer now.”
“I don’t need time to think about it,” I said. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that question for a while now, and the craziest part is that I didn’t even realize it until today. Yes, I’ll be your mate, Ari. Of course I will.”
We shared another kiss that wasn’t colored with the insane clench of need I was so accustomed to feeling with Ari. It was warm, it was calm, and there was a different kind of passion there between us that was stable and loving and felt likehome.
I laid my head onto Ari’s shoulder. He drew his arm around my neck and held me against him, and we watched the others by the fire. We were in our own world, and they were in theirs, oblivious to what had just happened with Ari and I.
“Should we say something?” he asked. “Or…”
“Not yet,” I said, hugging his arm. “Let’s enjoy it for a little while.”
“Our little secret, for now,” he said.
“Yeah. Just you, me and her.”
Chapter18
Ari
As I returned to my room down the hallway from the guest bedrooms, I realized that it no longer felt like my own. Home was that little house Istil and I had put together, with its sweet smell of flowers, plants, and rich soil that filled every corner, and Istil’s warm and reassuring scent. This place smelled like something that I’d left behind. It didn’t belong to me anymore.
I quietly closed the door behind us. The shadows of two moths fluttering around the floor lantern danced across the wall, and Istil grabbed me by the waist sash and pulled me to the bed. He sat, and I moved between his legs to kiss him as he craned his neck and met my lips.
“I love you,” I told him again.
The words felt strange. I meant them with all my heart, but I was still getting used to the vulnerability of speaking them, and I knew that complete comfort would take time. The fear of so many things was still with me, but unlike before, I wasn’t afraid to be afraid. I might not be able to always share my feelings as well as I would like, but I wouldn’t stop trying. I wouldn’t be the perfect father, because there was no such thing, but I wasn’t going to allow that to close myself off from Istil and my daughter. I refused to let those fears perpetuate the wounds I’d received.
The pain stopped with me.
“I love you too,” Istil said as he ran his palms across my abs, slowly teasing me. He paused and frowned slightly like he’d heard something strange.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“It just struck me that I used to be so worried about allowing myself to get too close to you,” he said. “I used sex as a secret hideaway. It's always been a place I could go to get away from my feelings.” He smiled apologetically. “Is this too much to know?”
“Of course it isn’t,” I said, lying beside him. “Tell me.”
