(Blood and Bone, #2) Sin and Swoon(12)

“You wanted to be the hero?” The words leave my lips in a breathless tone that mocks him, even though his words are sort of sweet.

“I did.” He glances down, folding his arms. “I hate that I’m always the bad guy. I’ve read through the files, the other seven mind runs you did. I am always the bad guy.”

I bite my lips, completely scared of what I am about to say. In a moment of clarity and possibly hand-of-God action, I pause and stare at the wall of mirrors before us. “Can we take a quick walk?”

He sighs and makes for the door. I can see he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. He saunters through, sulking almost. It’s the strangest experience for me, but I honestly fear the things he thinks of me. Not that I haven’t spent my entire life wondering and worrying what people think, but with him it’s everything. He does normal things like reads the paper while he eats or sorts the contents of our house, which I notice are rapidly growing since he moved in with me. Everything is expanding, creating clutter in our house as we become a couple—a thing—an entity. I try to look busy like he does, wiping counters and sorting papers, but I don’t know how to look busy and yet still watch him for his reactions to things. Every move he makes is natural. Where my movements are deliberate. I copy him and others like a sociopath might. Because regardless of always making him the bad guy, I am the one most likely to be a psycho, I am the one who is detached and damaged. He is the epitome of normal.

Following him out into the hall feels natural, as does the annoyance in his meddling in my run through her mind. But the part that feels forced is wanting to talk about why he can’t interfere with my mind run.

I don’t want to talk about it, but I have to. Even if it will embarrass me.

He folds his arms, cocks an eyebrow, and clenches his jaw. He has no idea how hot I think his annoyed face is. It brings a girlish smile to my lips, making me immediately feel like a schoolgirl. “Why do you always make me be the bad guy? Are you unhappy?”

And there it is. The difference between us. He can just ask, but I can’t just answer.

“Do you want me to be a bad guy? Do you want us to fight more?”

I grimace, wishing the words would just fall out. I’m not the simpering mess he makes me. “No.” How do I explain without sounding like a sissy?

“What then? Why can’t you just use a random guy as the bad guy?” His tone is impatient, which somehow always makes me feel like a child.

“I need to be safe when I’m in there.” It’s the best I have for an explanation. “The people in their heads are what nightmares are made of, but it is impossible for me to have a nightmare with you as the bad person.”

He pauses, stopping himself from saying whatever he was about to. The answer pleases him. I can see the look on his face. “Safe?”

“You are the safe bad guy. If you’re him, I’m not scared, not truly. Not in my heart. You could do anything, and I would never be scared. Except maybe leave, I suppose. If you left me I would be scared.”

“Leave? Are you crazy?” He melts as every one of his muscles loses its tension. “So you want me to be the bad guy to keep you safe in there?”

I nod, hating that I’ve shown him this piece of it all, but loving the smile that’s spreading across his lips. “So you want us to be the way we are? We don’t have to change it up? You aren’t bored? You don’t want me to be a bad guy?”

“Of course not.” I shake my head slowly, unsure of the reaction. Is he mocking me? Or is he high? Clearly he hasn’t ever thought about what it’s like for a girl to meet a guy like him. I could never be bored, except when I take the job with the profiling section, but that won’t ever be about him.

He scoops me up, pressing my lips against his. I sigh into the kiss, wishing we could stay here, but knowing I have to have the answer. I need the happy ending. I need to know why and who and where. His tongue lazily slips into my mouth as his hand lowers, gripping my butt cheek. “Tell me.”

I have to close my eyes to say it, because it’s like wishing when you blow out a candle; if you peek, the wish is broken. “I love you.”

Dash smiles, changing the way his lips sit against mine. “I love you more.”

I smile back, scared of the thing I’m about to say. “Except I made you the safe guy way before we ever dated. So clearly, I love you more, Benjamin Dash.”

He shakes his head. “See you after?”

“Yup.” We kiss once more before he puts me down. I turn, waving backward and stalking back into the room where the small girl is slumbering after being brought in with severe hypothermia and more broken bones than anyone would think they had in their body. What a way to spend Thanksgiving weekend, dying in a medical lab while being experimented on.