“Catalina.” I pull her into my arms again and shift so I’m lying on my back with her sprawled on my chest. “You are a gift beyond measure.”
16
CATALINA
My first instinct is to ask Thane if he’s drunk.A gift beyond measure?Don’t make me laugh. My whole life has proved otherwise. People don’t toss away priceless gifts. They cherish them. They hold them close... kind of like he’s doing right now.
I almost push away. I actually press my hands to his broad chest and tense to do it. But I’m so incredibly tired. Tired of running from the disappointment that flavors the air of every room I walk into. Tired of trying and failing. Even tired of the hopelessness that comes with no longer trying at all.
My throat goes tight, and I swallow several times. I willnotcry all over him as if he didn’t just give me the best sex of my life. My body still sings with pleasure from how hard I came. I’ll have to check later, but I’m pretty sure his tentacle-sucker things left marks on my body. I can barely wait to lie alone in my bed and trace my fingertips over them, reliving every moment of this encounter in excruciating detail.
“Are you in any pain?” Thane runs a hand down my spine, a physical reminder that this encounter isn’t over yet. I start to sit up, and his hand splays across my back as if he might hold me to him, but he releases me almost as soon as he tenses.
“No, I’m good.” I’m sore, but it’s a delicious kind of soreness.
“There is a healing cream the bargainer demons use with their humans. I can look into getting some if you’d like.”
“I’m fine. Promise.” I look down to find him watching me with an expression I’ve never seen on his face before. It’s not cold or aloof. It’s not even hot with desire. He’s looking at me with something soft and almost tentative in his inky eyes.
It scares the shit out of me, but scrambling off him and diving into the water to put some distance between us is a dick move, and I don’t have it in me. Instead, I look away. “I know I said a lot in the mix, but it’s okay. I don’t need you do to any of those things.”
“Catalina.”
I don’t want to look at him. I’m afraid of what he’ll see on my face. Being with Thane feels so good and so bad at the same time, but at least it’s familiar. He’s cold and I’m needy, and that dynamic is one that I’ve played out again and again. If he changes the game on me, I don’t know how to adapt. If he’s nice to me, I may fall in love with him, and that’s a recipe for disaster.
Really, it’s practically my brand at this point.
“Catalina, look at me.” A pause. “Please.”
Damn it, why did he have to say “please”? I turn back to him, a puppet on a string. He’s still got that look on his face that I don’t understand, but he seems to be trying to mask it, his features falling into the familiar cold, forbidding lines. Relief pulls a shaky exhale from me. “What do you want, Thane?”
He seems to consider and discard several options before he says, “I would like to spend the night with you.”
My heart tries to leap right out of my chest. When it figures out that’s impossible, it dives right into my stomach. God, maybe Iamgoing to cry. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
He doesn’t move. “Are you saying that because you don’t want to sleep with me... or because you’re afraid I’m offering because I pity you?”
Howdarehe reach right into the very heart of me. I have spent so much time saying I don’t give a fuck what the motivation for something is as long as the result feels good. It’s the truth. It has to be.
But it feels like a lie right now.
“Catalina.” Thane doesn’t move, barely appears to breathe, but he feels closer all the same. “Let me hold you tonight.”
Something’s changed.
It can’t be the sex. No matter what the romance novels I consumed by the dozens as a teenager said, sex won’t make a partner fall in love with you. It won’t suddenly cause someone who’s saying all the wrong things—I can’t love you; I will never be with you; we can’t be together—to do a complete one-eighty.
My mother was right about that.
I don’t understand, and because I don’t understand, fear tries to take hold. Ironic that the fear caused by Thane’s words makes me inch toward him. Seek comfort he won’t give me...
Except he does.
The second I move toward him, he gathers me into his arms and pulls me close. It surprises a sound out of me that could be a sob. Instead of setting me away, disgusted by my endlessly messy emotions, Thane pulls me closer. He smooths my hair back and runs his hands over me, almost like he’s trying to calm a wild animal.
Like he’s not sure how to do this any more than I am.
“Thane,” I finally manage. “I don’t... I can’t.”