Page 67 of For Real

“Because…because—” For a moment, I couldn’t remember the answer. “Because I’m not…anyone to you.”

“But you are. And I want to be someone to you.”

“I don’t think that’s wise.”

“Fuck wise.” He stepped close to me, this bundle of bones and nerves, skin and ferocity, reached up, and slid a hand round the back of my neck. It was as sure as a collar, as undeniable as steel and leather. He could so easily have brought me to my knees, but all he did was draw our mouths together. “You promised you wouldn’t do this again, but you’re still doing it. You’re just doing it a different way. So stop pretending I could just walk away and it wouldn’t mean anything to you. Stop pretending it’s all about me and what I want. Stop pretending this isn’t real. Just stop fucking pretending. Because you’re here too.” His eyes burned into mine. “You’re here too.”

I stared at him, held by nothing but the lightest of touches and the brush of his breath, captive, as I’d been all along. “I’m here too,” I whispered.

“And I love you, okay? So you’d better get used to it.”

“Toby, you can’t—”

“Nonnegotiable.” He curled his fingers, his nails pressing star-bright crescents into my skin. “You don’t have to say it back, but it’s how I feel, and I’m not going to lie about it or pretend it isn’t there. I love you.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. I couldn’t tell if what I felt was pleasure or pain. Or if the difference mattered. Only that he wanted to say it, and that it unpeeled me. Left me naked and shuddering.

“I love you.” He glared. “I love you.”

If I didn’t do something, he might never stop saying it. “All right, all right. You love me. Point taken. Messaged received.”

I’d meant to be gentler, but to my surprise, he let me go and laughed. “Well. Okay. Better than last time. It’ll do for now.”

For now? Oh God. I should have been managing his expectations, but I wasn’t sure how to do that anymore or why I had ever wanted to.

My legs were strangely shaky, so I sank onto the sofa. “I thought you were about to break up with me,” I said pitifully, then recoiled from myself. Why had I told him that?

Toby flew across the room and practically jumped into my lap, flinging his arms around me. And I clutched him helplessly because…because I wanted him, and this brush with the reality of losing him had stripped all my justifications and consolations from me. It had left me afraid. Defenceless.

“God,” he cried. “No way. Never. I love—”

“I know, you’ve told me. But please stop saying it.”

He rested his forehead against mine. This close he was a blur of blue eyes and a grin. “It’s your own fault for not listening the first time. You’ve built up a love debt. Like a sleep debt. You’ve got to pay it off.”

“Can’t I pay it off some other way?”

“You mean”—he drew back a little and raised eyebrows in what I was sure he believed to be a lascivious fashion—“in a sex way.”

“Yes. In a sex way.”

“Totally. But Laurie?”

Oh no, he was serious again. “Yes?”

“I love the sex, I really do. I spend like literally all week thinking about all the things I want to do to you. But I want other stuff too. That’s what I came here to say. I’m sorry if this sounds all blackmaily or something, but it honestly kind of hurts when you use something that’s special to put me in a box.”

It’s just sex was the answer that hovered on the tip of my tongue, but it would have been a lie, and I was tired of lying. To him and to myself. With Toby there was no just anything, however hard I tried. “I never want to hurt you, darling.”

“Then trust me. Not just with your body.” His hand settled over my chest, missing my heart at usual, because he was both sentimental and hopelessly inaccurate, and for some inexplicable reason that…moved me.

I leaned into him, into his touch, and just breathed him in, the heat and the traces of his day, cooking oil and washing up liquid and Toby. Oh, Toby. Yearning unfurled into a vast and fathomless swell, swept me against him, and I broke.

I broke, and it felt like peace or hope or love, and I didn’t care. “Anything. Anything you want.”

“Everything.”

Sweet, greedy, impossible princeling, he could have me.

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