My gaze found his. “Yes?”
“I know you’re hurting. It’s killing me.”
I let myself be weak. Just for one moment. My head fell to Calder’s chest, and I fisted my hands in his shirt. “I’ll never be good enough for her.”
Calder wrapped his arms around me again. “That’s only because she can’t see.”
A few more tears slipped free, my hands twisting the shirt tighter.
“It’s her loss. She’s missing out on truly knowing the most incredible person I’ve ever met.”
I tipped my head back so I could see Calder’s face and maybe I could understand the words that were coming out of his mouth.
His eyes bored into mine. “Trust me. I know the devastation of not truly having you in my life. Of looking away from the truth of who you are. It’s bleak. And every second I blinded myself to that truth, there was a hole inside me.”
“Calder…What is this?”
“I’ve missed you, Hads. So damned much. It was destroying me from the inside out.”
“Why now?”
One of his hands slipped under my fall of hair, fingers tangling in the strands. “Something woke me up the day you went into that car at the ravine. Scared me straight. If I’d have lost you…I don’t think I would’ve survived it.”
His fingers tightened on my hair, tipping my head back even farther. “I’m sorry. You’ll never know how much. I was scared out of my mind and trying to keep my head above water. It was all lies. I’ve wanted you for longer than I should’ve. But it’s more than that. You’ve always been more. You own my fucking soul, and I don’t ever want it back.”
Tears slid down my cheeks. “You can’t do this. It’s not fair. What if you walk away again? What if you decide I’m too much and shut me out?”
He pulled me tighter against him. “Never. Not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Let me prove it to you.”
I pulled in a breath, but it was painful. As if the air itself were made of tiny shards of glass. The thing I’d always wanted most was right in front of me, within reach. But if I lost my balance? The fall would kill me.
I pushed up onto my tiptoes and whispered two words against his lips. “Prove it.”
Calder lifted me in one fluid move, and my legs wrapped around his waist. He took the stairs two at a time, and I couldn’t help the giggle that sprang from my lips.
“Are you in a hurry?”
“Damn straight,” he said, pushing open the door to my bedroom. “You give me even a hint of a shot, I’m taking it. Every time.”
The ferocity of his words had everything inside me tightening. Slowly, so painfully slow, Calder lowered me to the floor. Sparks of heat danced across my skin as my center passed over the hard ridge in his jeans.
His hands came to my face again as my bare feet touched the floor. He found that spot on my jaw and neck that felt like his. “I want this with you. But I also want to know that you’re ready.”
My hands fisted in his shirt. “I’ve been ready for years.”
It was all Calder needed. In a flash, he was kissing me, and there was nothing hesitant about it. The feral edge was a comfort. A reassurance that Calder was sure about this with me, that he wanted me as badly as I wanted him.
His lips left mine, trailing down my jaw to my neck and then my shoulder. “Your skin is so damn soft. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to feel it against my tongue.”
A pleasant shiver cascaded across my skin. “I’m pretty sure I have an idea.”
Calder tugged the strap of my tank top down as my fingers went for the button on his jeans. Calder sucked in a sharp breath as my breasts sprang free. “No bra?”
I shot him a grin. “I’m in pajamas. I don’t sleep in a bra.”