Chapter Twenty-Two
This isn’t the article I asked for.” John studies me over the rims of his readers, and I’m too exhausted to feel scolded.
I stayed up until midnight piecing together yesterday’s interviews in order to hit my deadline.
What little sleep I did get was fraught with nightmares of this meeting, of it going exactly like this.
It’s not what he asked for. It’s not what Robb asked for, either, and I only hope me going rogue doesn’t reflect poorly on her.
To her credit, she tried. She tried so fucking hard to wring the article out of me, but it refused to come together until this iteration.
I just hope John never looks at my original transcripts, all the stories that I redacted because the guys got a little too comfortable with me and forgot they were “on the record.”
John leans forward, folding his forearms on the edge of the desk. I wait for him to scream or be quietly disappointed. Instead, he beams. “It’s better.”
I’m already sitting down but I feel like I need to sit down harder. “Sir?”
He gestures at the screen. “This is incredible, Sloane. It takes a lot of maturity to put your own ego aside and remove yourself from the equation entirely to let the subject shine. An impartial article is exactly the right call, given their history.”
I bite down on my tongue to keep from crying I’m so relieved. “Thank you.”
“I’ll get you my notes in the next few days, but I don’t think I’ll have many.”
I’m sinking and floating at the same time, unsure what to do without the weight of the article looming over me.
“In the meantime,” he says, leaning back and gesturing with his readers, “do me a favor?”
I raise my brows in question.
“When this publishes and all the big names start trying to poach you, don’t make any decisions without talking to me first.”
I blink in surprise. Even in my most indulgent of daydreams, I’d never considered the idea of a bunch of publications fighting over me, but now that he’s planted the idea…
I don’t hate it. Like a zombie rising from a grave, my buried dream of Rolling Stone twitches back to life.
“Okay,” I say around a disbelieving laugh.
He smiles, gesturing toward the door. “Go celebrate. You did good, kid.”
I loop my bag over my shoulder, pausing when he calls my name as I’m halfway out the door.
“But Sloane—don’t ever lie to me again about your relationship to a source.”
I meet his gaze, nodding once. “Yes, sir.”
I keep my head down the rest of the way out of the building, waiting until I’m safely tucked into my Jeep to flail happily. Hugging the steering wheel, I take a few steadying breaths, placing a kiss to the scar on my ring finger. I’m fucking doing it. Finally.
I send off a few half-incoherent texts in all caps with too many exclamation marks to my group chats for Final Revelations and Buncha Punks, letting them know John accepted the piece. I leave Robb a voicemail that perhaps only a dog could hear.
I don’t know what to do with myself, my workload empty for the first time in weeks.
I drive home with a dopey smile on my face, soaking in that it’s done.
By the time I hit the highway, my phone is buzzing around my cupholder with incoming texts from my friends—both from afar and the community I’m starting to build here, too.
For the first time, I feel like I’m really, truly, finally settling in here.
I park, and I’m a hundred feet away from my apartment when I see him. Everything in me sighs contentedly, my grin stretching more broadly, my strides lengthening.
He hasn’t spotted me yet. He’s staring down at his phone, one foot propped against the wall outside the gated entrance to my apartment stairs.
Through the rip in his jeans, I can see the demon inked on his knee.
The dragon on the back of his hand comes alive as he types, only its face visible, the rest of it hidden beneath his hoodie.
As if sensing my gaze, he glances up, septum piercing glinting in the light.
His default stony expression softens when he spots me, and I pick up my pace.
The way he puts his phone away, I know he’s gonna do the thing.
Two paces away, he opens up his arms, and I’m bounding into them.
With one arm, he picks me up, my legs wrapping around his waist as his other hand cups my face.
“Hi,” I breathe, resting my forehead against his.
“Hi, baby.”
It’s a chilly November day, but I feel the sunshine for the first time. “I did it,” I murmur, squeezing my eyelids against the tears prickling the backs of my eyes.
“Yeah, you fucking did.”
Looping my arms around his neck, I pull him closer.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that—probably longer than we should, making a bit of a scene—but I can’t bring myself to let go for a long while, needing to revel in it a moment longer.
When I finally tap his shoulder, letting him know he can put me down, I keep one arm around him as I buzz us into the dark corridor, taking him by the hand up the stairs.
Unlike my friends, he doesn’t complain once about the hike.
When we reach my door, he leans a shoulder against the doorframe, blocking me from unlocking it. “So,” he says meaningfully.
I raise my brows. “So?”
He ducks his head, a blush tinging his cheeks. “If John’s read the article and accepted it…?”
I know what he’s asking, but it’s still cute to watch this man who commands crowds of hundreds squirm for me. I mimic his posture, propping myself against the door, facing him. “Yeah?”
He laughs on an exhale, knowing I’m fucking with him. I follow the path his tongue traces on the inside of his cheek as he feigns being exasperated by me. “Are we still pretending we’re not doing this?”
Heat pools in my stomach as he snags my gaze and refuses to let go. My heart is in my throat and it’s difficult to breathe around. If I open my mouth, it may float out and leave me for him, as if it hasn’t been his ever since the first time he said my name.
He raises his eyebrows at me, not letting me off the hook for an answer, as if it’s even a question. He crowds me, not touching me, caging me by bracing his forearm against the top of the doorframe, his other hand cupping my cheek.
I toss my hair back as if his proximity doesn’t send my pulse racing. “Why? You wanna call me your girlfriend or something?”
He glances away, fighting a smile and losing, only turning back to me once he’s wrestled it under control. “I want to call you a lot of things, Sloane Donavan, but sure, we can start there.”
Looping my fingers through his belt loops, I pull him closer, arching onto my tiptoes so I can brush my mouth against his.
He inhales sharply before angling away, placing a kiss at the corner of my mouth instead.
“I’m asking,” he whispers against my cheek, “because I need to know”—he places a kiss at the hinge of my jaw—“if I should check some of my filthier thoughts at the door.”
“They’re more than welcome,” I rush out, overeager, already fumbling with my keys.
I only have two and I somehow manage to grab the wrong one twice, my vision lust darkened and unable to focus on anything but the way Dax brushes my hair off to the side, placing lazy kisses along my neck as I complete the arduous task of focusing long enough to unlock my door.
Thankfully, I don’t have to focus on much once I do manage to get us through the door.
I barely get my shoes toed off before Dax’s hands are at my hips, pulling me back into him.
He pushes my hair to the other side, busying himself with the side of my neck he hasn’t yet claimed.
All the while, his hand trails down my arm, easing my keys from my hands and tossing them blindly toward my foyer table, where they skitter across the top before dropping to the floor.
If he notices, he doesn’t show it, attention focused on my neck as he clumsily kicks his shoes off and into a haphazard pile in the corner, so unlike his usual neat self.
I don’t know why, but Dax losing his careful grip on his self-control is what does it for me more than anything else. I suck in a shaky breath, swallowing thickly, which he clocks instantly. Circling around in front of me, he holds my face in my hands. “Are you okay? We can slow down.”
A watery laugh escapes me, and I shake my head adamantly.
“No. Fuck, no. I just—” I place my hand on his shoulder, my thumb dipping beneath the collar of his shirt to trace the divot of his collarbone.
“I’ve had to be impartial about you—or try to be, at least.” I laugh because the notion is ridiculous.
“But it’s all hitting me. I finished the article, yeah, but so did you.
” My brows draw together as I meet his gaze. “I’m really proud of you.”
He averts his gaze because despite his ego, he cannot take a compliment.
“You’re really fucking special. And I don’t know what you saw in me three years ago or last month when you asked me to do this, but I’m really grateful you did. I’m glad we got to do this together. Thank you for trusting me with it.”
His gaze is fierce when it meets mine again. “It never could’ve been anyone else. Only you.”
When he kisses me again, it’s not the fevered, sloppy kisses from when we stumbled through the door. It’s slow, intentional. Our hands grasp at each other, as if now that there’s nothing keeping us apart, even a whisper of space between us is unbearable.
“This,” he whispers against my mouth. “I’ve gotten a lot of things wrong in my life, but this? Us. This I got right. I’m going to get it right this time.”