Page 66 of Reckoning

Moving as little as possible to keep the lights from turning on again, I spun her in my arms to face me. “I’ve never needed anything in my entire life. Until you came along.” I could barely see her face in the darkness.

“You’re supposed to hate me.”

“I wanted to; I really did. You showed me what I was missing. I hate you because it reminds me that my world isn’t as complete as I thought it was. I can’t even do that right.” I lowered my forehead to hers, letting her breath warm my skin. “Do you hate me?”

Her voice was quieter than the wings of the owl. “Not right now.”

I sighed and nudged her hair with my nose, breathing in that vanilla scent once more. I’d have to buy as much of that shampoo as I could to ensure she never ran out. I wanted to bathe myself in her essence and carry her with me all the time. “It really could. Be like this all the time, I mean.”

“You said that before, and what I said is still true. Only if we stayed here. Only if we never saw your family again. Only if we forgot everything you’ve spent your life building.”

Couldn’t she pretend just for a minute? “We could leave.”

Her laugh was mirthless. “You’d never quit the business.”

“I would. We could disappear.” Why was I so intent on making her believe this?

“I’d never quit my business.” She put her hands on my chest, curled her fingers, and grabbed handfuls of my shirt. Her breath was shaky. She bit her lip as she stared at my chest, tears shining in her eyes. She wiped them away before looking up at me. “Would we go with my parents?”

I touched our foreheads together again. Our skin rubbed together as I shook my head. “He’d find us.”

“What does he have on you? Why wouldn’t he let you go?”

My heartbeat picked up. “He doesn’t have anything on me.” My voice cut through the cold air like ice, shattering this illusion of camaraderie we’d built.

“Then why are you so afraid of him?”

We were not going to have this conversation. I tried to push away, but she held tight to my shirt.

“Maybe it could be like this if you really wanted it.” She sounded pleading now. Our roles reversed—her intent on finding a way for us to make this work against all odds, and me convinced it would never happen no matter how far or how fast we ran.

“You don’t think I’ve tried to get out?” I didn’t want to touch her anymore. I tried to push away, but she pulled me back against her.

“I don’t know, Meyer. I’ve yet to see you fight back. But when you get a few days’ distance, you’re different. You make me happy, no matter how hard I try to hate you.” The sound that came from my mouth wasn’t really a laugh, just a harsh exhalation. “And you bought me a horse.”

“You bought the horse.”

“Stop it, Meyer.” I was aware of how she kept saying my name. Each syllable made my stomach roil. “I don’t remember a ton about that night, but there was only one horse in that auction. And you specifically told me that you had crossed it out. You tried to mock me when I thought you were actually trying to do something nice for me. But I think you were—even though a second later, you tore me away from my mother.”

My stomach clenched at the memory. “She was trying to take you.”

“I belonged to her before I belonged to you.”

“You belong to me now?” My hand cupped her cheek as my heart leaped.

She frowned as she placed her hand over mine. “I belong to myself.”

We stood in the quiet cold, our breath warming the space between us. Behind me, I could hear drunk partygoers yelling, but they stayed far from where we were.

She licked her lips. “You’re not going to argue with me?”

“I don’t want to argue anymore.”

She sighed. “That’s the other thing that goes when you get your distance. You stop fighting to own me.”

“I want to own you all the time.”

“Not in the same way. You stop being all angry alpha male and go soft on me. Indulgent. Sweet.”

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