Page 83 of While You Sleep

She flashed me a smile. “Not only that.”

My gaze moved over her arms, seeing the dark bruises there. I’d been worried that without me there to stop her, she’d injure herself while she slept. “You hurt yourself.”

“I’ve been having a lot of nightmares since you sent me away.” She shook her head. “And you aren’t there to hold me down.”

Fuck. The pull toward her was intense. I’d been in the same room as her a matter of minutes and I was already close to snapping, to snatching her up and not letting her leave. “You need to be more careful.” I hadn’t meant my voice to come out harsh, but it did. Seeing her hurt was fucking with me.

“Until you, I got hurt all the time, Cillian.”

I flinched, the action taking me by surprise. “It’s not wise for you to be here.”

“No?” She took another step closer. “Why is that?”

“You know the kind of man I am, pet,” I said, and my voice shook in a way it never had before. “You shouldn’t have come back here.”

“Why?” she whispered.

I wasn’t sure what to say. I just knew I couldn’t force her to be here against her will a moment longer. “Say what you came to, quickly, then you need to leave. I told you, Sophia, what happens when I make something mine. It’s…it’s dangerous for you to be here.”

“You said you don’t let go of what’s yours.” Her head tilted to the side. “So why did you let me go?” she asked again, not letting me off the hook.

I studied her face, the look in her eyes. There was something like triumph there, and I wasn’t sure why. “Because I…I didn’t want to…” What?

“You didn’t want to force me to be here against my will,” she said as if she’d read my mind.

“No.”

“Why do you think that is?”

I was breathing harder, and my fucking hands shook. “Sophia,” I growled. I didn’t know what she was saying, what she wanted from me, but the longer she was here, the harder this was.

She took another step, so she was standing right in front of me. “You let me go because you wanted me to be with you of my own free will. You wanted me to be here with you because I wanted to be, not because you forced me.” She tilted her head back and stared up at me. “And the reason you wanted that, Cillian, is because you’re in love with me.”

I blinked down at her, fighting the urge to snatch her off her feet and crush her to me, while every muscle in my body seized at what she’d just said. Was that what I was feeling? Was this tangled knot in my gut and this fist in the center of my chest love? I hadn’t been able to think of anything but her since I sent her away. I walked around the house fucking lost. Found myself in her office, or her closet, or fuck, sniffing her shampoo that had been left in my bathroom or the vanilla-and-cinnamon lotion I couldn’t bring myself to throw away. I hadn’t even changed the sheets and woke gripping her fucking pillow every morning.

I still wore my wedding ring. I looked at her hand, and she still wore hers.

“Have you ever heard that saying ‘if you love something, set it free, if it comes backs it’s yours, if it doesn’t, it never was’ or something like that?” She placed her hands on my chest. “I came back, Cillian, because despite how we came together, I’m in love with you too.”

I actually rocked back. “You still love me?”

“I never stopped.”

I slid my hand up the side of her throat and curled my fingers, holding her in place. “You ran at Seamus. You tried to protect me.”

“That’s what you do when you love someone,” she whispered.

She’d walked back into the lion’s den and now there was no escape. “I let you go, and you came back to me,” I said.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Because you knew I was in love with you,” I said roughly. “Even though I didn’t realize it myself?”

“Yes,” she said again, a small, gorgeous fucking smile curling her lips.

“You know what that means, don’t you, pet?”

“What does that mean, Cillian?”

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