“Yes,” he murmured, running a thumb along her jawline. “You do. About everyone. Strangers, friends. You care more than you should. Why?”
“Is that your question?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
Chloe gazed up at him, knowing she was too close. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of the way I grew up. I had no one. I was nothing. I grew up during a war, watching people waste away in front of my eyes. Everyone matters, Kieran. No matter how insignificant they might seem.”
“So you fight to bring people together,” he mused. “And you keep a record of your successes. Because every match matters.”
She nodded, unable to speak.
Both hands cupped her face. “How did you survive?” he whispered. “So naive, so hopeful. How did the world not crush you?”
“It tried.” Again, and again.
“But you fought back. Just as a wolf would.”
“I’m not a wolf.”
“No,” he agreed. “Just as strong as one.”
The words brought a real smile to her face. “I think,” she said, “that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Really? Then I’ve been remiss.”
Her breath caught as his gaze dropped to her lips. It’d be so easy to give in and close the space between them. Too easy.
“You need to take a shot,” she whispered. “I answered your question.”
He leaned back. “And I answered yours.” Pouring two glasses, he passed one to her. “Cheers.”
Their glasses clinked in the quiet room, then she choked down the alcohol. Already she feared she was in trouble. Never one to hold her liquor at the best of times, a couple drinks of hard liquor on top of wine would push her past her usual boundaries.
And nothing good would come of losing control around her tempting wolf.
“Why the models?” she asked as her next question. “Why pick the women who don’t bother you?” It was an answer she thought she knew but wanted to hear from his lips.
“Because I don’t care,” he replied. “Actively. I do everything I can think of not to care about those around me. I would die for my pack, but when it comes to my personal life, I want to take the easiest way out I can find.”
“Sex with no strings,” she said. “Companionship without conflict.”
“I’ve been alive far longer than you, sweetheart. I’ve seen centuries of indifference and brutality. I was born to be a warrior. Raised to do battle to protect my kin. After all the years I’ve lived, an easy out is…calming.”
“I don’t believe you,” she whispered with a courage she wouldn’t have had sober. “My friend is mated to a vampire twice your age, and the years never weighed on him until he lost someone he cared for. Just as you did. It’s not your immortality that makes you shy away from relationships. It’s Lisette.”
He set a shot in front of her before saying, “You know this because of your expert insight? Tell me, Chloe, in all your decades have you ever been in love?”
Her gut response was to say no. The word even started to form on her lips before she silenced it. Had she ever been in love? Not with any of the men who had come before Kieran, certainly. They’d never managed to be exactly what she needed.
Yet in the past two weeks, this werewolf had. He’d seen when she was sad and done his best to correct it. He’d known when she needed something and went out of his way to provide it. They’d laughed as she’d never done with another. Depended on each other in ways she’d never known, even if necessity dictated it. When something happened during her day, Kieran was the one she wanted to call. He was the man she thought of every night before she slept. The one who crossed her mind as soon as she woke.
Had she ever been in love?
“I don’t know,” she answered before tossing back her shot. “Probably not.”
“Probably?”
She shrugged. “It seems coldhearted to look back over the men of my past and say I never loved any of them. I’ve lived more than a lifetime without forging such a deep connection. Surely there’s something wrong with that picture.”
“For humans, perhaps. For immortals that’s very normal.”
She shook her head. “I want to know what it means to think about one person. To want them, worry for them, trust them. I want to know what’s it’s like to be bound to another person.”
“Because it’s something you’ve never known,” he finished for her.
She smiled, knowing it was probably not a happy expression. “It’s a foundling’s dream, I suppose.”