“I realized what you were doing. I knew you wouldn’t let me go for any other reason. I figured out what you were going to do.”
He smiled, the motion making him wince in pain. He rubbed his neck with one hand.
“Kitten, that doesn’t answer my question. Why did you come back?”
The real answer slipped from my tongue before I could stop it.
“I love you.”
He looked at me, his eyes softening.
“That’s why I let you go,” he whispered.
“Because…”
“Because I love you. It’s a weakness, isn’t it, kitten?”
He smiled. Oh, lord, he smiled.
I nodded slowly, my heart swelling in my chest.
“Yes. A good weakness.”
His breath came back to him. He reached for the rope and took it up in his hand, turning it over and over.
“I was almost there,” he murmured. “Almost dead.”
The thought sent ice through my veins. Just thinking about his body hanging from the ceiling made me want to scream again.
“Did you see anything?” I asked.
“Nothing to see,” he said, tossing the rope off to the side. “I suppose now we simply have to live.”
We.
The word was a fingernail plucking my nerves. Vibrating them. He coughed again.
“What happens now, kitten? Have you thought that far?”
I hadn’t thought that far, but apparently my subconscious had started to. The pieces clicked into place one by one as I thought about it.
I moved over to where he was sitting against the bed and sat with him, shoulder to shoulder. The explanation came to my lips mechanically. I ticked off the points one after another.
“I tell everyone I had a panic attack. I ran away to be alone for a while with my friend.”
“A friend?”
“A secret friend, one I’d never told anybody about. You get away scot-free. And…”
“Yes?”
“And you pay for me to go back to school in the fall.”
“Oh?” His eyebrow raised.
“It’s a fair trade.”
“A trade? What do I get in return?”
I paused. There was no hesitation in my heart, but I didn’t know how he would take it. His head turned to the side, and he stared into my eyes.
“Me.” My hands pressed into the floor, holding me still. “All of me.”
“All of you.”
His hand lifted. His knuckles grazed my elbow. He moved his hand down, brushing his fingertips along my arm.
“You would be mine?”
“Yes.” My voice was shaky. After all this, his rejection would be the thing that would hurt me the most. His hand glided down my lower arm and his fingers slipped loosely around my wrist. I could feel his thumb pressing against my pulse point. Where my scar was.
“You’ve spent a lot of time and effort trying not to be mine, kitten.”
“I—I didn’t know what I wanted before.”
“And now?”
“I want you. And I want to be yours.”
His hand tightened around my wrist and he lifted my hand to his mouth.
His lips kissed my palm at the heel. I didn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. I was balancing on the edge of something dangerous, I knew. But I didn’t care. All I wanted was to be his.
Finally he spoke, the whisper tickling my skin.
“Yes. That sounds nice, kitten.”
Gav
I pulled her to me, then. She, who had seen the shadow inside of me. She, who had been trapped for so long in my home, She had left… and come back.
She had saved me.
There was no trace of the shadow as I lifted her in my arms, lay her down on the bed. There was no trace of it when I kissed her hard, so hard that I lost my own breath in the whirlwind of passion. Hands, clothes flew everywhere.
I needed her so badly. Needed to know—
“It’s really you, isn’t it?” I asked, my hand splayed across her cheek. Dark soulful brown eyes gazed up at me.
“Of course.”
“This isn’t a hallucination? A dream? I’m not dead?”
“If you were dead, what would this be?” she asked, reaching down and grabbing my hip, pulling me against her body with a groan of desire that sent light exploding in my mind.
“Heaven,” I whispered.
“You really think you died and went to heaven?” She smirked, and the strangest thing happened. A bubbling inside that turned into laughter, pure laughter. I fell against her body, laughing uncontrollably. At last I wiped the tears from my eyes.
“Good point. I concede the argument.”
Her fingers were touching me now, pulling at my length. Already aroused, I growled in her ear and flipped her back, pinning her wrists back to the bed. She grinned at me and twisted, sending new flames of lust through my body as her soft curves moved under me.