Page 66 of Meet Me In The Dark

Her eyes were focused on the wall behind him. Her voice sounded dreamy, almost wistful. Would she never get the life she wanted? No matter what it was?

The thought shook him to his core.

Conor, the old Conor, wouldn’t have cared, because the old Conor didn’t give a fuck about what Kara needed, only what he wanted. Wasn’t that the whole point after all, that he’d been through hell and deserved one good thing, even if he had to steal it and lock it up to keep it by his side? But trying to be that old Conor was like trying to play an out of tune guitar. If he loved her, really, then what she needed mattered.

I think I was on my way to that reality…

It didn’t matter now, not when she might not get a life outside of this.

He worked to settle his face, kissing her again.

“Well, thank fuck you didn’t end up with anyone boring or stable,” he joked, and she laughed and kissed him.

“Thank fuck for that.”

She looked at him, then, but he couldn’t read the thoughts in her golden eyes.

“I don’t want to be that person,” she said. “Not anymore.”

It should have reassured him. He wanted it to reassure him. But knowing she might never get the chance to find out shook him.

We’re the same, you and I, the professor whispered in his head.

Not if Conor could help it.

“Kara, are you sure?”

Her eyes cleared, and she laughed in shock. “Conor, what about me—the woman you know, the woman you love—makes you think I want that life anymore? That I ever did? I don’t want to settle for a quiet life in the suburbs with kids and a dog and a nine to five. Well, that’s not true. I want the dog. And maybe kids. Someday. If, you know, we make it out of here alive.”

Micah chuckled.

“I want kids,” Conor said automatically. “If we make it.”

Doubtful.

She raised an eyebrow. They’d grown out a bit, in the past two months since they’d first kidnapped her—a little shaggy and thicker than usual, but he liked them, how natural she seemed, how comfortable.

“That explains the breeding kink,” she said, making Luke snort.

“He has a breeding kink with me too, sometimes. He thinks it’s hot.”

Conor nodded. “I like filling you all up with my come.”

His three lovers laughed again. He didn’t.

“Okay brave girl, then if you don’t want a quiet, regular, easy life, if we get out of here, what do you want?”

“You,” she said. “All three of you.”

And once again, Conor wanted to believe her.

And once again, he couldn’t.

Kara wasn’t sure what exactly they were asking her, or why. She wanted them, wasn’t it obvious? She could’ve escaped them, a dozen times. Left them behind, so many times. But she’d stayed and sacrificed so much to keep them safe. To try, anyway. How could they think she wanted anything else?

“But more than that,” Micah was pressing on. “What do you want our lives to look like, together? If we could live any life—if you could live any life—now. What would you want it to be?”

“Oh, that’s easy.” She snuggled against Conor, who absently played with her wet hair.

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