She wanted him just as much as he wanted her and the thought made him feel as weak as a newborn and as strong as an ox. She was both his salvation and his destruction, his pleasure and his pain.
And he wanted her with all the ferocity of a winter’s storm.
But that didn’t mean that they should tumble into bed. They had a mountain to climb, a million words that they needed to exchange, issues to iron out. Their earlier fight was behind them and, now that he understood what fueled her anger, he found her humble and sincere apology easy to accept.
But he still had something to say. Tyce pulled back and stepped away from her, knowing that there was no way he’d get this out if he was touching her.
“Look, we’re going to be in each other’s lives for a long time—” he wanted to think forever and in every way possible but that wasn’t likely “—and we need to be each other’s best friends. That means being honest, about everything. If you feel sick or pissed off or overwhelmed, I want to know about it. And I’ll be as open as I can...” Tyce took a deep breath. “That being said, there is something I should tell you.”
“Okay. What?”
“This warehouse, it’s all I have. I don’t have that much money in the bank.”
Sage, genuinely, didn’t look like she cared. “Can I ask why?” she eventually asked. “You’re, like, the highest paid artist in the world.”
“Those Ballantyne shares are expensive, Sage. I haven’t had much cash for the last couple of years. I’ve been living a lie. The Chelsea apartment? It’s owned by one of my biggest clients who allowed me to crash there.”
“That explains the lack of art, the lack of anything personal,” Sage stated, looking remarkably sanguine. “I never liked that place. It wasn’t you.”
Tyce almost smiled at that; she’d hit the nail on the head. It really wasn’t him. The real him was this place, redbrick and steel, a punch bag and a mat in the corner, welding machines and chain saws. It was comfortable couches and worn rugs. It was industrial Brooklyn, hard, masculine, gritty.
Tyce thought of Sage’s girly loft. She was expensive gems and delicate designs. She was cream couches and soft beds, the wrought iron frame surrounding the bed dotted with tulle and fairy lights. She was expensive; he was functional.
“I’m working on a couple of pieces that I’ll be able to sell in a month or two. I want to pay for the baby, your medical expenses to have the baby, for whatever you or the baby needs.” He held up his hand. Tyce knew that he could never compete with her wealth. It was stupid to try but he wanted to be able to, at the very least, provide the best for her and his baby. “I know that you can pay for it without my help but...I just want to, okay?”
Sage nodded, her expression inscrutable. “Okay, we’ll work it out.” Sage sent him an uncertain smile. “So...are we good?”
They were, very good indeed. In fact, he was starting to feel more than good, he felt fan-friggin-tastic. Tyce felt like they’d ripped down a couple of barriers between them, that their fights had flattened some obstacles between them. Or he could be feeling light-headed because he couldn’t stop looking at her, drinking her in. Demanding, a little crazy, warm, generous, funny, she was everything he’d ever wanted.
Tyce battled to get his brain to function properly. He knew that he should say something. She was trying, very earnestly, to make amends but all he wanted to do was to blurt out that he thought that they’d turned a corner, they might, maybe, have a shot at...something. Something bigger and brighter than this, whatever this was.
Tyce felt the burn below his rib cage as that thought lodged in his brain. Terror, his childhood companion, drifted into his head, accompanied by doubt, another old ally.
Would he ever be able to fight off both long enough to be with her, to be the man she needed? Deepening his relationship with Sage meant losing his freedom but, at the same time, he couldn’t imagine a life without her in it.
He felt dizzy, confused, utterly at sea.
Too much, too soon, Tyce told himself. You’re tired and played out. Think about commitment and monogamy and forever and what you want from her when you aren’t punch-drunk with tiredness and overwhelmed by emotion. In the morning you might decide otherwise. This might be an overreaction, a figment of your imagination.