CHAPTER EIGHT
RENA
M y heart galloped with such intensity as Ty carried me out of the club that I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had taken up residence outside my chest. I had sensed him when I was singing. Tiny hairs on my neck and arms sprang up with awareness. And when our eyes locked, I could’ve sworn he was communicating some telepathic desire to me. Until he disappeared.
He was gone so long that I convinced myself it was my imagination, either him in general or, at the very least, his wanting me. But that peach-fuzz cognizance shot a chill up my spine and down my arms once again, which has me presently wondering if I possess some sort of superpower because it was freaking right. He was precisely where my newfound clairvoyance indicated.
I’m not exactly sure how useful this sixth sense will be since it’s only attributed to the gorgeous, delectable, sometimes-happy, sometimes-broody, conflicted man driving me to my hotel. But it’s something. Definitely something .
And the way those cognac beauties raked over me, drinking me in, was also something. An out-of-body experience. His thirsty perusal might as well have been a freaking blowtorch. Everywhere his eyes trailed, my body was set ablaze, yet by some miracle, I didn’t disintegrate.
But now, he’s obviously wrestling with this again, tamping down whatever he was feeling. He’s quiet and distraught, chewing the inside of his cheek while a lump clogs my throat. If he shuts this down before it starts, denies that there’s something worth exploring here, he’ll shatter me. Losing any chance with him after these fleeting electrifying exchanges will be a worse fate than never having had his attention at all.
That’s why I haven’t spoken a word for our entire drive. Paralysis. Fear—yet another one rears its ugly head. He’s not himself. And in full transparency, I’ve been at a loss for years as to how to garner his interest when he was easygoing Ty. This intense version is far more penetrable. But while a part of him is unmistakably harboring some salacious cravings where I am concerned, the other part is tortured. Like our encounters wound him. I don’t know what to do with that.
He finally breaks the silence as he pulls off the Strip and onto the ramp leading to the Bellagio parking garage. “Did he touch you?”
“Who? Fender?” A stilted laugh jumps from my lips as I hand him my room key to swipe so we can be granted entrance. “Of course not.”
Is that what he’s been sulking about? I guess I prefer that, but I can’t see how he’d glean a vibe like that from Fender.
After the gate arm rises, he wordlessly follows the lane all the way up to the top deck to find a spot. But when he finally shifts the car into Park, he huffs and glares at me. “The guy who gave you that fucking bruise.”
“Oh.” I puff a heavy exhale and peer out the windshield, watching the rollicking rainbow lights of the city. In the thrill of Ty arriving, I forgot about last night. We both removed our masks when we got in the car, so my bruise must be on full display now. “No. I mean, he tried. I told you I handled it, and we have more important things to talk about.”
“I should’ve been here.” His hands grip the steering wheel so tight that it’s shocking he doesn’t crush it.
Reaching for him, I smooth my fingers over his, trying to transfer some serenity through the simple touch. “That doesn’t even make any sense, Ty. I took off and didn’t contact you until after I was … That’s not on you.”
His thumb sweeps across my skin as he chokes down an arduous swallow, the stickiness of it crackling into the hushed evening. “I knew you were upset that day in the hall. I could’ve done more, intervened, but I—”
“You couldn’t have kept me there.” That answer flies out of my mouth so fast that I realize I didn’t think it through and it’s a partial lie. “Or maybe you could have. But it would’ve required a grand gesture, and I don’t think … Why did you come here?”
He’s silent for so long that I release his hand and flop back against my seat, assuming he won’t answer.
His teeth grind, and he gnaws the inside of his cheek some more. “I came because … your family is important to me. Your brothers and you.”
“Okay.” I nod, realizing it’s always going to come back to that, but still wanting to push him. Why not at this point? “And that’s it? You hopped on a plane in the middle of the night and came all the way here without telling anyone because my family is important to you. So anything else I’m reading into it is—”
“Rena, I know I’m fucking this up with … everyone involved, in so many ways, but I’m trying to protect you.”
The desperation in his voice is so unlike Ty. He sounds broken. This can’t just be about us because he was untethered that day at home. But there’s no sense in leaping to another issue before I gain clarity on this one.
“I get that. I’m sure that protecting me was a huge part of why you came out here. And I’m so grateful that you cared enough to do that.” My courage nearly wanes there. The piercing lights from the towering resorts frown at me, imploring me to leave it alone and retreat to the sanctity of my room. But it feels like he’s waiting, expecting me to continue, so I do. “I can understand the piece about my brothers—how messy that is—but I don’t know what protecting me has to do with what you clearly wanted back there.”
“Everything,” he rasps. “It has everything to do with it.”
At least he didn’t deny it. Call me loony tunes or maybe just plain unhinged, but that sings out like a love ballad. At a minimum, it’s not a rejection. It’s a barrier we need to knock down, so I kick at the bricks, barking out a dubious laugh.
“That sounds like a lame-ass excuse to go right back to acting like I don’t exist. You’d think if your priority was to protect me, being closer to me would make that easier.”
He twists in his seat, curling his fingers around my jaw so I look at him. “Unless the danger comes from me. From my life. From who I am .” When he lets go, his eyes close in what appears to be exasperation. “And trust me when I tell you that I’ve always been hyperaware of your existence.”
He’s always been hyperaware of my existence?
Oh fuck , I need to know more about that. My mind is suddenly a jumbled mess. I mean, I wanted him to admit to whatever this is between us. I just didn’t expect him to actually do it. And while that wasn’t a confession per se, it was a hell of an opening act. But the danger he mentioned must be the foundation of the barrier. Maybe more so than the fiasco we’d confront with my brothers.
I keep my voice light and melodic, hoping he’ll latch on to the tranquility of it. “Who do you think I am, Ty? I’m not some sheltered wallflower.” Pausing there, I wait until his eyes connect with mine. “I may have been heavily shielded from the outside world my entire life, but I was raised by gangsters, essentially, who do business with other gangsters. And unspeakable things to those who cross them. My name is more perilous than anything you could throw at me. ”
He scrubs his hands over his face. “I wish that were true. It is to a degree, so it makes sense that you’d see it that way. There’s so much you don’t know—”
“Then tell me,” I snap, my eyes stinging with indignation as I smack my palms against my bare thighs. “Please, for God’s sake, be the one person who isn’t too much of a coward to tell me what the hell is going on. Because all the people protecting me have been lying to me. And safeguards shouldn’t hurt.”
His head tilts, regret clearly written on his features, but the excuse he proffers infuriates me. “It’s not that simple. I won’t lie to you, but I also can’t disclose certain information.”
I traveled halfway across the country for a modicum of freedom, and I’m stuck in a car full of stagnant air. My fingers curl over the door handle, jaw clenching. “Fine. It’s been a long night. I’m going to my room. Are you coming in?”
When he doesn’t answer, I swing up the door of his Maserati MC20, grab my backpack purse, and step into the cool night air. It doesn’t infiltrate my lungs the way I crave. The dryness here is something to contend with. I’ve blown through half a tube of lip balm already. The racket of the bustling city coils around me. It’s alive with mischief and debauchery, not so unlike where I’m from. And yet entirely different.
La Lune Noire is top-shelf whiskey and exclusive invitations. Depravity and decadence entwined. Secrets and scandals.
Vegas is the same in some respects. The city as a whole nails that vibe, probably better than New Orleans. And everything is newer and grander here. But I don’t like it. The people feel inaccessible, distant. Boiled down to simplicity, it’s that they aren’t mine. I love my home, and I don’t want to keep running. I hoped Ty would be a companion to journey with, but it turns out, I am utterly isolated. Standing in this parking lot, a hair’s breadth from exuberant living, I’m wondering if I should bolt for a new destination, go home without the truth, or risk everything and look up this Balzano guy.
Whatever it is, I’ll be alone .
Without a sound, Ty emerges from the darkness and is looming beside me. “You want the truth, Rena? Your brothers tried to warn you. I am trying to warn you. My family and I aren’t shackles. We’re cinder blocks in the ocean. If I fill you in, it’s a death sentence. And I can’t—”
I raise my palm to him in a plea to stop, more defeated by all of this than I realized. “I think that’s par for the course where I’m concerned anyway, but okay.”
“What does that mean?” His face is so pained with that question, compassion crinkling his eyes—proof that his gentler persona is still in there.
There’s no point in sharing that I overheard Axel say I was as good as dead if I traced my lineage. Those are fragments of a shaky truth that I’m not sure I want solidified. Some of my knowledge is classified, too, I suppose.
“Nothing.” I swat his inquiry away and stroke my forehead. “Death-sentence information is sufficiently ominous, so I won’t ask for anything more. But if we’re reiterating warnings, then I need to revisit the text where I said that maybe I wasn’t being fair to you. I’m not sure because everything is so damn foggy right now.”
I pause there, sliding my fingers over his cheek. It’s not something I was ever entitled to do before. Maybe it isn’t now either, but I steal the liberty either way. And to my surprise, he leans into my touch, as lost to the freedom as I seem to be.
“You’re not yourself,” I observe, my lungs growing unbearably heavy because none of this is how I want it to be. “I hate that you’re hurting over anything. I wish I could fix it or be someone you let in. And on the other side of this shit with me, I can be. I can do the supportive-friend role like nobody’s business. But I’m falling apart, Ty. I’m lost, and you felt like a compass. So, if you came all this way to tell me how complicated this is or that you don’t want me, I can’t do it.”
As the final word falls from my lips, he captures my wrist and curls his other hand on my hip, thrusting me into the car. My lower back connects to the metal and his palms move to cradle my jaw, his smoldering brown eyes capering over my face with so much vehemence that it seeps into my bones.
“Is that what you think? That I don’t want you?” He exhales, his breath fanning over my skin to mix deliciously with that dry evening air—the humid blanket I crave—washing my chest and arms and cheeks with celebratory bumps. “That’s not possible. The issue is that I want you too much, Little Moon. I’ve been relegated to an eternal nightmare, and you are the one source of fucking light.”
God, he knows how to pack a punch, doesn’t he? I can barely breathe. Maybe I’m hallucinating. This certainly has that surreal quality to it, and I have been stressed.
His fingers thread into my hair. “You shouldn’t be worrying about being there for me. You’re hurting, going through something, which is why I wanted to be here. But the right thing for me to do is to walk away, to encourage you to work this out with your brothers and leave the rest alone.”
That was one way to sober me. Whiplash. I resist expelling the huff that is ballooning inside my lungs and flourish my most saccharine smile. “Well, I don’t want to get in the way of you doing the right thing. Sleep well on the plane.”
He laughs, full and husky, before he leans in, pressing himself against me, his lips wetting my ear. “Don’t be a brat. I need you to be patient and let me sort through this.”
I lift my chin, relishing the bristle of his scruff against my cheek and envisioning what it would feel like in other places . “Then stop being a broody tyrant who thinks he gets to decide what’s best for me.”
His hand splays across my throat, thumb and index tilting my head to him. And his smile—a million stars of celestial awe glimmer in his smile. There are flagrant demons grappling their way to the surface, too, but none of them scare me. Anyone who can shine such heavenly beauty while being haunted is a spirit I want in my corner .
“No promises,” he rasps as his cock jerks against my hip. “One step at a time. Now we eat and sleep.”
I mirror his amusement, biting my lip to contain it from exploding, but the boast is there. “ No promises goes both ways. So, brat it is. But we’ll worry more about that after we’re refueled. C’mon.”
The loss of his warmth is nearly disarming as I duck out from under him. Ty grabs his bag from the trunk, and I guide us toward the entrance. The only way to reach the rooms is to traipse through the grand casino and droves of wandering vacationers.
After a few paces through the crowded lobby, he tucks me into his side, and my stomach erupts into a stampede of flurries. A taste of what could be—one that has me parched for more. Patience is harder to come by than it used to be. I’ve waited seven years for this man, but the thought of seven more minutes without his lips on mine feels cruel.
He ensures we load the elevator alone but maintains his silent, broody demeanor.
So, seconds before it deposits us on my floor, I strike a flirty, troublemaking-angel pose and bat my lashes. “You know, there are other methods of taming a brat—”
“Rena,” he growls.
Fuck , I love the way he says my name. I’ll gladly exasperate him any chance I get.
As the doors ding, I giggle and saunter toward my room, a corner unit at the end of a long hallway.
Once inside, he glances around and chuckles. “You’re kind of a slob, huh?”
There’s a handful of garments tossed on the wingback chair, a few on the unmade bed, and my makeup is scattered across the dresser. I shopped and filled a suitcase full of new outfits upon arrival here. Trying everything on was a must. Slob is a bit slanderous in my opinion.
“I won’t deny that I’m a tad messy. And I didn’t want housekeeping in here. ”
“Good,” he commends me, his tone far more serious as he sets his stuff neatly in the corner. “Never give anyone permission to be in your room. When you’re hiding out like this, you shouldn’t leave anything behind either. One bag that stays with you, on your person, at all times.”
I throw the key card on the round dining table in the corner and begin unlacing my boots. “That would’ve made strumming guitar challenging, but I’ll keep it in mind.” Tossing one of the boots aside, I move to the other. “I didn’t expect anyone platonic to be joining me, so there’s only one bed.”
The room is beautiful and not lacking in amenities, but suited more for a couple than whatever the hell we are. In my defense, I flippantly decided to summon Ty to me last night, days after I chose where to stay. But, yes, I knew precisely what I was doing by throwing the word platonic in there.
“I noticed.” No emotion carries those words, so I’m not sure how he feels about it, but he doesn’t dwell there. “Why don’t you get a shower, and I’ll order us some food?”
“Sounds good.” I pluck some nightclothes from my suitcase and scurry to the bathroom. I’m in desperate need of freshening up, and maybe some time alone will help Ty settle in.
It takes me a while because I wash and dry my hair, and as I’m finishing up, it occurs to me that my pajamas might be too skimpy for a one-bed, nonsexual night of sleep. As much as I want to accelerate whatever this is between us, I’d like him to be comfortable with me. They aren’t horrible, I guess. A fitted, ribbed tank, which isn’t shy about flaunting my nipple piercings, and tiny silk shorts. In no other situation would I fret about this, but my former sassy confidence is instantly eclipsed by nerves.
That anxiety worsens when my hand slips on to the knob to open the door. What if he left? What if I pushed too much, and he freaked out and took off? He wouldn’t do that. No way.
It is quiet when I muster the strength to amble out, but he didn’t vanish .
He’s at the dining table with his back to me but peers over his shoulder before I say a word. “Hey. Come eat. The food just got here.”
I suck in a deep breath and casually stroll to the table, the Bellagio fountains lit and dancing in full view from the open balcony doors. But he diminishes any laid-back notions I had when he rises to meet me, pausing for the briefest of milliseconds to covertly survey every inch of my body. His chest heaves with what reads as blatant desire before he glides his hand across the small of my back and pulls out my chair.
Plopping down into the seat, I make a valiant yet poor effort to mask the full-body shiver that trickles over me from the slight touch. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” He slides a disposable plate toward me and manages one more perusal of my frame—barely discernible—as he sits, his chair facing mine . “All your piercings are back.”
My fingertips brush over the various stones and hoops littering my ears to confirm what I obviously know while also convincing myself that he was referring to those and not the lower ones, even though I watched his eyes trail to them. “Yeah. I replaced them when I got here. Except my facial chain. I bought one, but couldn’t wear it with the mask.”
Nodding, he sets two wrapped tacos on the plate, along with some chips and guacamole and a California roll.
My heart thumps in my chest, but I try to squelch the leap it’s intent on making. “You ordered sushi and tacos. That’s a weird combination, Reynolds.”
The corner of his mouth hitches upward, as though he’s privy to a high-clearance secret. “It’s your favorite.”
Any war I was battling to contain my swelling heart is lost with those words. Unless he’s here to make me his forever, he came to decimate me. I don’t think there’s an in-between. No middle ground.
Gulping back my urge to throw my arms around him, I try to gather a morsel of composure. “It is. How do you know that? ”
He cocks his head, like my question is absurd. “I’ve been around you for years. I pay attention.”
“Makes sense,” I mutter, tearing open a soy sauce packet to douse the roll. As I glance at the wingback chair and the now-made bed, I notice neither has clothes strewn on them. “Did you clean up? I would’ve straightened my things. You shouldn’t have done that.”
How mortifying.
“I hung them in the closet. Sorry.” He cracks open a Diet Coke and passes it to me. “Old habits die hard. The Navy really drilled it in, and I’ve never—”
“You were in the Navy?” I guess I can see that, but I had no idea.
“Yeah,” he says nonchalantly before taking a bite of his taco, and I’m frozen, studying him.
Hello, sexy sailor.
“So, you know that my favorite meal is sushi and tacos and that my beverage of choice while eating is Diet Coke, but I didn’t know that Tytan Reynolds was a Navy man.That’s a big detail to miss.”
He abandons his taco and steals a piece of my sushi. “You know my drink of choice. And more importantly, you know the people who mean the world to me and who I am with them.”
“Right,” I agree. It probably isn’t a big deal.
“And Tytan Reynolds wasn’t in the Navy,” he adds as lax as when he admitted to being in the Navy seconds ago, so now, I’m officially flabbergasted.
I swallow my mouthful, wash it down with a sip of soda, and set a bewildered leer on him. “What?”
He wipes his hands as a lopsided smirk curls his lips, crinkling one of his mischievous eyes. “This is one thing I can tell you. It’s still not something you can share, but I trust you.”
“Good,” I breathe with rapt fascination. “You can.”
“The name I was born with was Andrew Michaels. Wells, Liam, Gage, and Ty are all new names for new lives.”
It takes a few seconds for that to sink in, but even when it does, I’m confused. “But Axel knew Wells when they were kids. He was the teen sports trainer for a summer program in Oklahoma, where my mom grew up, and Wells was in it.”
He holds my gaze, clearly gauging my reaction as he continues to astonish me. “Gavin Wells wasn’t. Chad Folsom was though. He lived two towns over from the one your mom grew up in. So, Axel is the one civilian who knows Wells’s true identity.”
“Ryker doesn’t even know?” I ask.
“Not that I’m aware.” He’s still surveying me, but there’s an amused glint to his features.
“And Liam and Gage, who were they resurrected from?”
“Jason Petrovsky and Joshua Ricci,” he supplies plainly, but I know that’s far more than a gold coin in Ty’s treasure chest.
My nervous stomach settles as I resume my meal. Maybe we’re getting somewhere if he’s trusting me like this, including me in secrets.
Stopping there might be wise, but I can’t. “I don’t see how that’s a death-sentence kind of revelation.It must be more about why you don’t have those names anymore.”
“Smart,” he says, and heat flushes my cheeks. Impressing Ty could quickly rise to the top of my goals chart. After a swig of his soda, he continues, “We were all Navy SEALs. But the government erased us—made it look like we’d died in combat—so we could be contract erasers and identity miners for them.”
“Okay.” I bob my head to show I’m following. Based on what they did for Ryker, erasing Mercy, that aligns.
He chews the inside of his cheek, which is evidently his nervous tell. Everything about his body grows rigid and serious. “That’s what we did for years. Until we fell into something bigger. It makes being owned by the government seem like a day at a playground. There is no room for mistakes, no getting out, no second chances.”
He sighs and licks his lips—if he wasn’t so gloom and doom, that would be sexy. But the air is thick with tension. “That’s all I can tell you without compromising your safety. Because once you know more, that’s it. Any association, and you’re theirs until death. ”
That’s enough to have my intestines entwining my spinal cord, but the same could be said about the Noires. And while hearing about his affiliation rings alarm bells, I think it’s the foreboding delivery. I’m sure there are bone-chilling tales about La Lune Noire. But people who work for us and abide by our rules are afforded an amazing life. We pay better than any other resort and casino, and, yes, Axel is a master at roping people in, hitching them to him for eternity. Most people wouldn’t complain though. I mean, those who rob us don’t get a chance to. Although I’d argue that’s fair.
But Ty’s next words slice through me harsher than the rest. “It would mean no more blueberry fields and rain, Little Moon.”
That isn’t my depiction of freedom, but the somber tune resounds all the same.
We eat in silence for the next few minutes before I transition us to idle chitchat. Ty somehow morphs that into a third degree about my bruise until I excuse myself to brush my teeth, flick off the lights, and crawl into bed. He showers and emerges in a T-shirt and boxers, dumbfounding me by climbing in beside me. Arms crossed beneath his head and focus on the ceiling.
All righty then. No argument. No insisting he’ll sleep on the floor. A deluge of thrill floods me, our conversation long forgotten.
Tytan Reynolds is in my freaking bed.
But that internal rejoicing equates to me being incapable of not blurting something out, so I go with the first question that enters my mind. “When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
He hums. “Career-wise, a pro baseball player. But my main goal was to be a good man, like my dad.”
“Well, accomplishing fifty percent of your dreams isn’t bad.”
“I’m not a pro baseball player, Rena. And whether you want to face it or not, you know I didn’t become a good man.”
I flip onto my side, bending my elbow to prop my temple on my elevated fist. “What does being a good person even look like? Aren’t we all just flailing and flawed? ”
He doesn’t answer, but his head rolls toward me, our eyes colliding in the glimmer of city life twinkling through the cracked drapes. The way he’s staring at me is daunting because it’s unclear what he’s searching for, so I forge ahead with my chaotic thoughts.
“I mean, objectively speaking, if you listed who my brothers are—what they’ve done—on paper, they’d all look like the Devil. But Ryker loves Mercy so much that when she broke his heart and chose someone else, he kept being her friend even though it killed him—like physically wrecked him. And when she was harmed by that same person, he did everything he could to handle it the way she wanted, even though that wasn’t at all how he worked. And now, he’s biding his time, loving her from afar, even though it’s excruciating.”
Tears prick my eyes because Mercy and Ryker’s story is as far from a fairy tale as it gets, but he still grasps at the strands of fraying possibilities that, someday, she’ll be his. It’s been painful for our whole family to watch.
“And Axel,” I continue, “he gave up everything to become my father figure at twenty-one years old. He had been destined to become a debauchery king, but chose to be a doting guardian. He played board games and hide-and-seek, encouraged our passions, hired special teachers and coaches for anything we wanted to learn, and built Jax and me little hideaways so the resort felt like ours. Like home. Sometimes, Ryker, Cash, and Maddox would complain about him making us all play together—especially Maddox, who was a grumpy teen—but they actually loved it. We were all so close—still are. It’s why I’ve never pushed back, beyond irritating him with my piercings, even though Axel has absurd rules and I’m a grown woman. Because I owe him so much. He taught me what it meant to be cherished.”
Ty blows out a breath, and it floats over me like a silk scarf, tickling my skin with a foolish promise of more, so I keep going, “Ryker, too, in his brash way. He’s hard on me because the idea I could be hurt torments him. And Maddox, Cash, and Jax might have black-soul moments, but their hearts of gold are unwavering. How could anyone label men like that wicked or evil?”
His fingers string through my hair, and that fiery gaze of his sears me from head to toe. “You deserve better.”
I know he doesn’t mean my brothers, but if one thing is clear in this dark room, it’s that I need him to spell everything out. “Better than what?” I probe.
“Than me,” he answers as he palms the back of my head.
“And there you go, Ty, dishing out these nonsensical statements. I’ve been exposed to a lot of people in my life. You’re a good egg.”
You’re a good egg? I have never uttered that phrase in my life.
Ignoring my rambling, he adds to his. “Now that I’m here, I don’t know how to walk away from you. I know I should but—”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not a compass, Rena. I’ll drown you in darkness.” He’s doling out an argument, even as he shimmies toward me, snaking an arm around my lower back, our lips so close that his minty breath cools my chin and cheeks.
Gliding my hand beneath his T-shirt, I let my fingertips explore his sculpted abs, my volleyed retort strained. “Or maybe I’ll keep you afloat. I’m an excellent swimmer.”
“That’s not enough. No one can swim when they’re anchored to the sea floor. Did you listen to what I told you?” He’s so serious, so conflicted, that I’m afraid he’ll pull away.
“Yes,” I avow with all the pensive consideration his foreboding deterrent requires. “So, here’s the plan. If you’re sinking, I don’t have a lot of curves to grab on to, but I do have porn-star nipples with bars through them, so if you—”
“Fuck.” His whole body shakes with a fit of laughter, the deep, buoyant tenor slicing through the quiet—it’s a sound I’ve wanted to author for years, the one Ty howls with his favorite people. “I love that I never know what’s going to come out of that beautiful mouth.”
Seeing as how this lighter angle is working, I commit to it. “You could get a leg up by deciding what goes into it. ”
He nips at my bottom lip, and I can feel his smile. But he’s still holding back, so I choose to be patient, as he requested earlier.
“I’m so fucking selfish for this,” he hisses.
“I’ve waited years for you, Ty. The only selfish thing you could do right now is make me keep waiting.”
And he doesn’t.
His lips crash into mine with an unexpected fervor. The first sweep of his tongue is gentle and coaxing, imploring me to relinquish control and let him in. But every other brush and touch is demanding and claiming.
His suede-and-spices-and-secret-desires fragrance isn’t a cologne. It oozes out of his pores as a cautionary tale. But for me, it’s a whiff of deliverance.
He tastes like cliff diving and felonies.
Menacing power and out-of-bounds freedom.
There might be some blueberries and rain mixed in, but it’s only because we’re escaping through those fields, dashing hand in hand as the angry sky pelts out anguish, to seize what someone said we couldn’t.
A whimper leaks out of my throat, and he growls in agreement.
While his palm dictates the angle of my head, his other hand hitches my knee up over his hip, directing me. For all his objections, there is nothing wishy-washy about this tethering. If he had any hope of me darting for the hills due to his warning, it’s smothered by his all-consuming devouring. I want to live inside his thick arms for the rest of my days.
He flips us so that his chest pins me to the bed and every hard inch of his body molds to mine. Shouting intentions far louder than any words he’s spoken. There’s no mistaking his desire. Or mine.
This is a lifetime of cravings in a single sloppy kiss. The kind that surpasses what your taste buds thought was achievable. A crippling, eyes-rolling-into-the-back-of-your-head delicacy.
Nectar of the freaking gods .
“Jesus, you’re perfect. So fucking perfect,” he murmurs with the slightest quaver to his smooth timbre.
His lips coast over my jaw and neck with panting breaths as I purr in encouragement, scratching my nails over the taut muscles of his back. But when his eyes latch on to mine, it’s evident he’s come to a decision.
“I can’t bear to hurt you, Rena, so I need you to keep being patient. You deserve to be savored. Worshipped. Protected. I shouldn’t be … Let me figure this out. Get my head straight.”
“Aye, aye, sailor. That kiss will tide me over,” I whisper as though I’m not wrecked by the thought of him retreating.
“Good,” he breathes, dusting some hair off my forehead and peering down at me in utter adoration. “I’m gonna hold you tonight, okay.”
He wants to hold me.
Even though it’s more of a statement than a question, I nod, my heart inflating dangerously for this man who is intent on playing tug-of-war with it. Not because he’s cruel, but because he’s haunted. Like his cautionary fragrance, I missed it all these years. Bits and pieces poked through, but he was so skilled at concealing them. Not so much here in the dark.
None of that frightens me though—not his confusion or his demons or his clandestine corruption or even the realization that he may still reject me. Somehow, I know he’s mine. Not because he claimed me with that bone-shattering kiss. But because Tytan Reynolds has always been mine. He just needs to accept it.