Our future may have been a little cloudy, dark even, but if we were together, I believed with all my heart and soul that we were going to be all right. Even if Megan didn’t have someone from her past chasing her that she’d likely pissed off, there was still the fact that my life was a fucking revolving door of mayhem just as hers was. Either way, she wasn’t ever going to outrun danger, so she may as well get used to facing it.
Besides, letting her go was not something I was willing to accept right now.
“Megan, there is nothing, absolutely nothing that I’d admit out loud to being afraid of, except, losing you. Don’t you understand that you’re the only thing that matters to me now? The only thing that makes sense among all these years of chaos that my life has been.”
Her gaze frantically searched mine before she found words.
“You remember what happened to me when you told me that you killed Beverly and Laura?”
A small smile crept across my lips before I placed a tender kiss on hers. “Yes, I remember, and I’m sorry I did that to you.”
She shook her head, seemingly forcing her words out.
“If something happened to you because of me, it would be worse than a mental blackout. I wouldn’t come back. I wouldn’t want to. It would permanently break me. That’s why I left Aaron. I’d rather leave knowing you’re okay, than face…than face…”
My death.
She couldn’t even say the words.
Her fingers tightened around my arms driving her words in deeper. “It would be worse than what Carlos did to me.”
She’d literally ripped my heart out with those words. No one had ever cared that much about me. I swallowed the fucking lump of emotion that was choking me and preventing me from talking. I stood, dumbstruck for a moment, wondering what I’d ever done to deserve this level of affection. I understood what Megan was saying better than she thought I did. This deep connection we shared, it baffled my mind, but I couldn’t help embracing it even though it scared the shit out of me.
“I can’t do it, Megan,” I said, shaking my head.
“Can’t do what?” she questioned. Her forehead creased as she glared into my eyes. I was sure I looked like some sort of fucked up mad-man to her. I sure as shit felt like one.
“I can’t let you go. If something happened to you, and I hadn’t done everything in my power to help you or save you, I wouldn’t just break, Megan. I’d break the fucking world until there was nothing left of it or me.”
Her mouth parted and closed a few times, but she was too stunned to say anything. I tilted her head up, ensuring she looked clearly into my eyes and understood the meaning of every word I spoke. I was about to be the corniest motherfucker on the planet, but I didn’t care. Megan deserved to know how I felt.
“Megan. I love you. I’m fucking insanely in love with you, and I don’t give a damn if there’s a fucking army after you. I promise that I’ll protect you as long as there is life inside my body.”
My words had left her stunned. She stood staring at me, lips moving without words passing across them. She blinked away the tears that had pooled in her eyes before placing her palms against my stubbled chin.
“I love you too,” she husked out as her anxious fingers left my face and dug into my neck and shoulders. “So much, it scares me.”
No other words were necessary. Her lips went rushing up to mine this time. And we didn’t stop fondling each other until we were butt-ass naked in room 129. Three doors down from 123, in the same cheap ass motel she’d left me in hours ago.