Chapter Nine #2
He frowned. The thing about Lyric that he always needed to keep uppermost in his mind was that she was quick.
Her mind worked fast, running through possibilities and discarding answers that didn’t quite fit.
She would go quiet and thoughtful when they were discussing an important subject, and then she would say the most thought-provoking things and he knew she saw right through him.
That was the Lyric he could never lose sight of.
That was the Lyric who intrigued and fascinated him.
He replayed her tone. Tone with Lyric was a dead giveaway when it came to what she was thinking. Her tone said volumes. She was tired. Scared. He got that. There was an underlying sadness he could hear clearly.
She didn’t stiffen up or try to get away. If anything, she relaxed into him, her head back, her eyes closed. Almost as if she had given up.
“What is me being me?”
“You’ve said it a hundred times, and I know you mean it.
You don’t let anyone in, but you let me in.
We don’t wear masks with each other, and there’s freedom in that.
I did my best to protect that relationship because, for me, you’re my only.
I accepted the fact that there wasn’t going to be another person, not just man but person, I could ever be as real with.
I honestly believe you feel the same way. Or I did.”
Something inside him went very quiet. The revelation was there if he could just figure out what exactly she was thinking. “You don’t think I protected our relationship?”
“I think you believe you’re protecting me.”
She rubbed her temples as if she had a headache, and immediately his body had a visceral reaction.
As far as he was concerned, she could never have a headache again.
He’d nearly lost her, and it wasn’t ever going to happen again.
She’d made the mistake of showing him he couldn’t exist without her.
She was going to have to live with the consequences.
That meant he wasn’t going to let her put herself in danger of any kind.
She could walk around with a helmet on her head for the rest of her life.
“Um, Keys, you’re going to break all my ribs. What’s wrong?”
He was holding her too tight at just the thought of her getting hurt again. So what did it mean when she said she believed he protected her? She didn’t think that was the same as protecting their relationship.
“You are one fucked-up woman,” he said and slid out from behind her so he could stand. “Protecting you and our relationship is the same.”
He caught up a towel and began to dry himself off, narrowing his gaze at her. It should have intimidated her, but she was Lyric and seemed immune when he was on the verge of losing his temper.
“It isn’t, Keys, although I can tell you think it is.”
She drew up her knees, put her chin on top of them and then turned her head to one side to regard him soberly.
Her eyes had gone a darker green. He could look into her eyes all day.
She had a gorgeous face. Those high cheekbones and that straight little nose dusted with freckles.
He was very, very partial to her freckles.
Most of the swelling and bruising had faded away, leaving only a faint smudge of yellow here and there.
“All right, Wildfire, I’ll bite. Why isn’t it the same?”
“You’re going to tire of me, whether you want to admit it or not. I’m a boring person. I cut and color hair for a living. I have routines I have to follow. I fixate on things.”
“These are all things I’m very aware of about you, Lyric.
I don’t think you’re boring. I prefer your company to anyone else I know, and that’s saying something, because I like being around my Torpedo Ink brothers and sisters.
I especially like that you fixate on things because that means you’ll fixate on me.
I want to be your entire focus because I’m greedy like that. ”
He crouched down beside the tub and cupped the side of her face in his palm.
“Seeing you nearly die after finally realizing you were the only one I would ever be able to be with made me see I wasn’t going to let you go.
Knowing you gave me something that allowed me to be human, that brought me back to life, and then watching you almost die, is too fuckin’ much for me to handle.
So, okay, I’ve gotten overprotective. You may have to put up with that for a century or two until I don’t wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe, terrified I’m going to have to live without you. ”
Her green eyes searched his, looking for a single sign of dishonesty, but Keys was confident she wouldn’t find one because he’d never been more honest in his life.
She sat up slowly. “You really believe what you’re saying.” There was pure astonishment in her voice.
“I wish you’d pay attention, Lyric. I’ve been trying to get across to you that everything has changed between us.
Everything. I meant what I said about your choices.
You can do pretty much anything you damn well want, with the exception of leaving me.
That’s the one rule we’re both going to hold sacred.
And yes, I’m protective of you as my woman, my best friend and my lover.
I’m also very protective of our relationship.
I’m fully aware I’ll never find anything like this again, so I’m going to be extremely careful of it. ”
“But, Keys…” She broke off, her lashes doing that fluttering thing that sent heat to his cock. Her signal she had no idea what to say.
“I need you to get on board with this. Stop fighting it. It’s going to take both of us to figure out how this is going to work.”
She rubbed her chin on her knees. “You’re so certain?”
“More than I’ve ever been certain of anything in my life. I need to know you think I’m worth the risk.”
That brought her head up, and her eyes met his. “Keys. Of course I think you’re worth any risk.”
“Even if your heart is shattered in the end? Because if we don’t make it, that’s what’s going to happen to me, and I’m standing here telling you, you’re worth that risk. I want you to believe with every cell in your body, your heart, hell, baby, your soul, that I’m worth that to you.”
“Keys.” Just his name. An ache in her voice. “You’ve always been the one for me.”
He took a deep breath. “In my life, Lyric, I’ve never been anyone’s one. Not my mother, not my aunts, not the women in the hellhole where I was raised. I have two sisters I grew up with who I love and respect, but when they look at me, they don’t see what you see. They see the monster.”
She gave a quick shake of her head. “You aren’t a monster.”
“I do monstrous things. I can’t look at myself too closely, Lyric, or I see nothing but that killer.
It had come to that point with me. I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer when I first laid eyes on you.
You were so incredibly beautiful standing in the doorway of your salon, and you smiled at me.
For the first time ever, I felt alive. I felt seen.
That was you giving that to me, and I wasted six months fighting it.
Hell”—he shoved his hand through his hair—“maybe I didn’t recognize it for what it was because I’ve never had anything remotely close to what I feel from you or for you. ”
“You say you’re protective of me and then you’re angry because I am of you,” she said. “A relationship goes both ways. I see you in trouble, I have no choice but to help you survive. My need to keep you alive is every bit as strong as yours is.”
He had a visceral reaction to that statement, but he was wise enough to keep it to himself.
There were two very strong emotions at war.
He liked hearing he meant that much to her, but no way in hell was she going to put herself in harm’s way again.
Now, though, wasn’t the time to keep laying down the law.
She was on the verge of capitulating, and he was going to hold her to whatever concessions she gave him because he knew she would have doubts and try to resort to her usual way of dealing with fears.
She would try to run from him. He knew her far better than she realized.
“I’m listening. Don’t say I agree, but I’m listening.”
She looked around and he immediately held out a towel. It gave him far too much satisfaction to see that her body had his marks all over it. Everywhere. Fingerprints, thumbprints, bite marks, even juvenile hickeys. There wasn’t a place on her he hadn’t claimed.
“The prisoner you took so you could ask questions…”
He kept his expression the same, but it took effort. That prisoner was the last thing he wanted to discuss with her.
“You didn’t want to tell me about him or what you found out because it was bad news for me, wasn’t it? He wasn’t a biker out for your blood. Declan and his crew found me, didn’t they? They paid a fortune for those men to kill me. It wasn’t you they were after. I was the one who got you hurt.”
He shrugged. He was damn proud of her, even though he wished she weren’t quite so smart. “Too bad for them. We got the information we needed, and Code is on it. It won’t take long to find them. Miles is in prison. Easy pickings.”
She had dried off her body and was looking around for her clothes. Her head jerked up alertly. “What does that mean?”
“You’re my woman, Lyric, can we at least agree on that?”
She bit her lip and gave the slightest nod, but he could tell she didn’t really believe him.
“Out loud. Say it out loud. I need the words.”
Lyric gave him that little moue with her lips that always made him crazy. “Yes. We can agree on that, but—”
“You can stop there and just for a few minutes, let me take that in. If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that once you give your word, you’ll do everything in your power to keep it.”