The quiet wonder in his voice makes my chest tight. My throat gets tight, too. “Thank you.”
He pulls me into his side, tucking me close. The arm he wraps around me feels possessive.
I whisper into his chest, “You said you’d promise me anything I asked. Was that true?”
“Aye.”
“I only have one thing.”
“Which is?”
“Please don’t hurt Stavros. No matter how this turns out, leave him out of it. He doesn’t deserve to get hurt because of me.”
His chest expands with his slow inhalation. His voice comes out rough. “You’re very protective of him.”
“He’s a friend.”
“He’s an ex-lover.”
“He needs someone to look out for him.”
“We’re talking about a wealthy, grown man, not a child.”
“Oh, please. You’ve met him. You know what I mean.”
After a pause, Declan says grudgingly, “Aye.”
“So do you promise?”
Though I can’t see his face, I feel his confusion. “If you care for him so much, why aren’t you still with him? He’s in love with you.”
“No, he’s in love with my shoes.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means he loves what I give him, not me. He doesn’t even know me. He’ll be head-over-heels for the next girl who meets his needs, trust me. My point is that I couldn’t live with myself if he were to get hurt because of something I did. Or didn’t do. Something related to us.”
When he doesn’t answer me, I say, “Please, Declan. It would mean a lot to me.”
“Are you this worried about all your exes?”
“No. Are you jealous?”
“Not of him.”
It sounds like he’s hedging the truth. “Of what, then?”
After a long moment, he answers reluctantly. “He didn’t have to force you. You chose him.”
I can tell he didn’t want to admit that, and it makes my heart ache that he did. I say gently, “You didn’t force me.”
“I kidnapped you. I took you against your will.”
“Let’s not get hung up on how this all started. Things could be worse. It’s not like we met in prison.”
He’s silent, thinking. When he doesn’t talk for too long, I say, “Spit it out.”
“The way your mind works continues to amaze me. Or maybe confuse is the right word. I’ve never known anyone so able to accept things as they are without a shred of denial.”
“I wasn’t always this pragmatic. Life kicked my ass pretty good when I was a kid. Lucky for me, too, because it brought out the fighter in me. If I was never knocked down, I’d never have discovered the strength it took to stand back up. And to keep getting up after every future kick, knowing that I could.”
He murmurs, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls.”
“And the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
His heavy exhalation sounds depressed. “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You know Khalil Gibran.”
“I love him. Have you read The Prophet?”
“It’s only my favorite book.”
“Why does that make you depressed?”
His voice gains a rough edge. “Because you’re a twenty-eight-year-old girl I fucking abducted, a girl who’s best friends with the girlfriend of my worst enemy, a girl who frets over her ex-lover—also my enemy—who was born more than a decade before me in a different country than me and has lived an entirely different life than me, and who somehow fucking knows obscure ancient Stoic philosophers and obscure twentieth-century Lebanese poets, and who wants to cook healthy meals for her kidnappers and teach them stress-reduction techniques. You don’t make sense.”
Into his angry silence, I say softly, “For you, you mean.”
A growling sound is my only answer.
“If it makes you feel any better, you don’t make any sense for me, either. You’re too old and too grouchy and way too bossy. Plus, you’re right. Kidnapping is a terrible way to start a relationship. It’s completely fucked up. We’re totally doomed, I get it. But you know what else?”
“No. What?”
“I don’t care about any of that, because the way you look at me makes me feel like I could fly.”
His entire body goes still. The breath he eventually releases is slow and ragged. “I thought you were scared of me. Of this.”
“I am. I hate that I am, too. I want to be that aloof, disinterested cat. But the reality is that I’m not. And it’s awful. It could also maybe be amazing, I don’t know. I also hope we don’t have to keep talking about it, because that’s pretty awful, too. But I don’t want to have one of those situations where some stupid misunderstanding could be cleared up with a simple conversation, because I hate that shit. It’s lame. Do you agree?”
“Aye.”
“Okay. So here’s the bottom line. We both think this is impossible but also awesome. We both think it’s fantastic and also sucks. We both have massive trust issues and friends who will hate this and really problematic personal histories that will most likely cause all kinds of issues going forward, but for right now, it’s on.”
“It?”
“Us.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah. I just decided. That ivory tower-dark roads speech you made really resonated. But you still have to promise me about Stavros. That’s nonnegotiable.”
He grasps my jaw and tilts my head up so I’m looking into his eyes. His beautiful, blue, shining eyes. His voice thick, he says, “I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“But I do have a question.”
“What’s that?”
“If you’re not my captive, then what are you?”
I think about it for a moment. “I don’t love labels, but if you need to call me something, you can just call me your queen.”
His kiss is rough and deep. He rolls on top of me, giving me his warmth and weight, and kisses me until I can hardly breathe anymore. He pulls away, panting, his stiff cock trapped between us.
“This is gonna be complicated, baby. You ready for that?”
Baby. Oh, what that does to me. How it makes everything inside me glow. I grin up at him. “The more complicated, the better. At least I know I won’t get bored.”
He growls, “You’re damn right you won’t,” and crushes his mouth to mine.
Then he fucks me with so much passion and possession, there can be no mistaking that when he said I was his, he meant it. I fall asleep sweaty and sated in his arms.
When I wake in the morning, I’m sore and starving. Declan is gone, but my period has arrived, staining the sheets beneath me red.
Oddly, the bloody stain is in the shape of a heart.
I hope that isn’t a bad omen.
27
Declan
“Are you insane?”
“No.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve lost your goddamn mind. She’s a fucking civilian!”