The snap as she removed her gloves resonated in the room, and it almost sounded eerily quiet now that the machine was no longer buzzing.
Straightening, my leg stiff and achy, I grabbed hold of the chair to steady myself. Ink rushed to my side like a fucking knight in shining armor. “You good?”
“Yeah. Leg’s just a bit stiff, that’s all.”
“Okay, lovebirds,” Red chirped, and I immediately objected.
“No, we’re not, like, together. No lovebirds here.”
“Not yet.” The smirk on her face was complemented with a teasing wink right before she turned and sauntered out of the room.
Ink shot me one of his trademark cocky grins, and oddly, I didn’t feel like wiping it off his face like I usually did in the past.
“Thanks,” I started, “for doing this.”
“You never have to thank me for anything, Neon.”
“Yes. I do.”
One step, and he came within inches of me, the air around me gone as I sucked in a breath. The large slopes of his shoulders crowded me, the exotic and earthy scent of sandalwood surrounded me, cloaking me with his heavy yet welcomed presence. I never thought it would be possible for me to ever want another man’s touch again, but here I was thinking about feeling his lips against mine once more.
He lowered his head while I craned my neck as our gazes collided. With a gentle finger, he touched my chin. “I want to kiss you again.”
My gaze dropped to his mouth, a slight trace of a cupid’s bow on his top lip.
“I want to kiss you again, Neon.”
I looked back up to his eyes.
“But I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop, and I’m not sure if you’re ready yet.”
The way my insides fluttered and my skin burned for his touch, I wanted to say I was ready. I wanted to tell him it was okay if he kissed me and never stopped. But I wasn’t sure myself. Right here, right now, I liked having him so close, having him touch my face so softly. I liked the idea of him kissing me again, feeling his tongue dance with mine. But what if the memories came crashing down on me, obliterating a moment that should be cherished and enjoyed between a man and a woman? What if I freaked out, and the two steps I managed to take with him ended up being three steps I’d take farther away from him?
“Ink,” I placed my hand on his arm, his skin warm under my touch, “I want you to kiss me. I liked it when you kissed me before. But what if they come back, Slither and his men? The memories of what they did to me?”
He cursed, his jaw ticking. Just by looking in his brandy eyes, I could see the anger he felt. “I should have been there,” he said through clenched teeth. “I should have stopped them. If I—”
“Don’t. Don’t start with the what-ifs. We’ll be here all day if we have to start going down that road.”
His body went rigid, the muscles in his arm pulling taut.
“Ink, what I’m trying to say is, right now, I…eh…I”—biting my bottom lip, I struggled to say the words—“right now, I need you, and it scares me thinking I need someone as much as I need you. But what scares me more is that the monsters in my head will take control while I’m with you.”
He placed a palm against the side of my neck, his thumb tracing circles below my jaw. “I get it, Neon. I do.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” Tears welled up, and I had to swallow to stop them from escaping. “I’ll hurt you. I’ll end up ruining what we have here, and I don’t want to do that, because the truth is…I don’t know what I’ll do without you.” With my last word, a single tear trickled down the side of my face. For so long, I kept fighting him, kept turning him down, never seeing the man with the scars. But now that I had, now that I caught a glimpse of the man he was inside, I realized how much I needed him.
A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to say that?”
I scoffed. “What? That I’ll hurt you?’
He shook his head, sucking his bottom lip. “That you need me, and that you don’t know what you’d do without me.” That smart-ass grin of his appeared along with a slight glint of mischief in his eyes. “Just…just let me soak that up for a few seconds.”
“Oh, my God.” I shoved a hand at his chest. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“Coming from you, I’d take that as a term of endearment.”
I had to laugh. It was clear what he was doing, playing down the heavy so I could breathe again. No one knew me as well as this man, and he knew talking about my feelings was about as hard as gnawing through wood.