Comforting me in the best possible way she could. By sharing herself. Not just her body. Her. Every little thing that other people took for granted, I would hoard until my dying breath.
“When I first saw you, I knew you were different. I knew you were stronger, braver, more man than Alrik could ever be. When you first touched me, I hated you because you showed me I wasn’t as dead as I’d hoped. When you first saved me, I feared you because you placed me in a debt that I could never repay. When you first kissed me, I cursed you because I knew you’d be the one to destroy me. Not him. Not anyone. You.”
She shook as badly as I did; her fingernails digging into my back. “Elder, I know this is so hard for you. I know I push you. But I need you to know…I just need you. If we never have sex again, I’m fine with that. If you only want my friendship, I’m ecstatic with that. I just…need to be around you. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I’ll reveal every stupid fact about how I hate milk on cereal and how toast is the most boring food I can imagine. How some days I prefer rain to sun, and some nights, I prefer clouds to stars. I’ll share myself completely with you, not because I owe you for everything that you’ve done, but because I want to. You’re the only one I want to know all of me.”
I very nearly collapsed.
Tenderness threaded with the constant violence in my veins. Words flew into my head and were discarded. Thank yous and appreciations all faded in the beauty of what she’d just done.
Sentences could never do justice to what she’d just given me.
But she had to know. Had to understand how much I fucking loved her for trusting me to share. Pulling away just enough, I used my knuckle to tip up her chin.
Her eyes danced over mine, wary and wishful.
She was so beautiful.
I sucked in a breath just before my lips kissed hers.
This was totally different to anything else we’d shared.
This was soft and sweet and gentle.
This was everything I’d been wanting and everything I could never hope to find.
This was pure fucking love, and I sank to the bottom of it and didn’t care if I drowned.
Pim’s tongue flicked out to taste me. I met her with the tip of mine, sweetly, sedately. For once, the rush in my blood was absent. My brain was quiet…satisfied.
My arms wrapped tighter in gratitude, crushing her far too close. Her breasts pressed against my chest. Her hipbones dug into me, reminding me she was so much smaller and fragile than I was. Another wash of tenderness crippled me, and I gasped into the kiss. I was shocked by the beauty of it—the simplicity of it.
Her hand landed over my heart as if she wanted to make sure the beating muscle was hers, doing her best to tame it.
Pulling away, I nuzzled my nose against hers. “What you’re touching used to be my least vulnerable spot. I swore off feeling anything for anyone. I couldn’t stomach being hurt again.”
She kissed me fleetingly, stealing my voice. “El—”
“But then you came along. A better thief than I could ever be.”
Her eyes widened, the hazel and emerald breathtakingly pretty this close. She laughed softly. “But I was arrested. I suck as a thief.”
“You’re the best thief.” I kissed her nose, her eyelids, her cheeks, and finally her ear where I whispered, “You’ve done what no one else ever could.
“You’ve stolen my heart.”
Chapter Eighteen
______________________________
Pimlico
SITTING IN A submarine ought to have been the highlight of my day—no my life.
Having Elder sit beside me in a matching bucket seat with his dragon chest on display ought to have been something I imprinted for eternity. Watching him pull levers and press buttons to glide us backward out of the Phantom ought to have filled me with giddy excitement at the thought of sinking into the depths on an intrepid excursion.
Just him and me and a vastness of water that honestly terrified me a little.
Feeling the small submarine, with its pretty lights and large bubble, leaving the shallowness of its pool and revealing a blue-black void below us ought to turn me squirming with impatience to chase the dolphins.
But I wasn’t.
Because nothing, absolutely nothing—no matter how stupendous or extraordinary—could overshadow the words ringing in my head.
‘You stole my heart…’
He said it woundedly. Bruised and damaged and wary.
But he’d said it.
And, God, the overwhelming love in my chest…I couldn’t contain it.
Who cared about the crystal clarity of the water world below us? Who cared how the sea slowly crept higher up the bubble the more buttons he pressed to descend us?
The moment he’d told me I’d stolen his heart, he’d ruined me.