Page 498 of Dark Love

“Then I won’t ask. I know the important parts of who you are.” Maybe if I tell him that enough, he’ll believe me.

“What do you know?”

“That you’d never hurt an innocent person and you’re not out there swindling grannies out of their life savings. Past that, there’s a wide range of morally gray choices that I might not agree with, but if you eventually tell me, I’d understand.”

“Swindling grannies?”

I shrug. “People do it all the time.”

“But I never would.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” I should tell him the truth. Or a little of it, at least. “Um.” How do I say this? “The reason I hesitated to tell you was because you can’t come with me.”

His face morphs from confusion to irritation back to confusion. “You aren’t traveling without me. That’s not an option. Where am I telling the pilot to schedule a flight plan for?”

It would be wrong to sigh in his face, even though that’s what I desperately want to do. “You can’t come… No, that’s wrong. I don’t want you to come.”

Vex’s face falls.

Why can’t say this right? “It’s not that I don’t want you. It’s… I made these plans last year. My group gets together every year. We do silly stuff together. And Vex… you’re the opposite of silly. I don’t want to be the one to make the group awkward by bringing her super sexy boyfriend.”

“How will you sleep?” He brushes a finger across my cheek.

“I won’t, but we never do. It’s a week of unlimited caffeine, junk food, and giggling.”

Vex’s brow wrinkles.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” And for once I mean that. “Before I met you, this one week a year was the best time of my life.”

“Before you met me?” A smile spreads across his face. “Say it again.”

“Vex.”

“Say it again.”

The grin on his face makes me want to more than anything, but he still hasn’t said the words back. “We haven’t even kissed.”

He leans forward. His hands shift from the bar to my waist, sending shivers up and down my spine.

“You didn’t promise not to kiss me this weekend.”

“No, I didn’t.”

We’re so close our breath must be mingling.

Is he going to kiss me now? My heart starts beating like a hummingbird’s wings. We waited so long for this kiss to be right. Ending a fight with our first kiss doesn’t seem right. I lean back a little bit to give us space. “Why don’t I make you some brownies?”

Vex takes a long breath. “Bed now. Brownies tomorrow.”

“Fine, but that’s going to take time away from me raiding your library. Maybe we should take a little peek now.”

“Nice try.” Vex scoops me up into his arms. “You need sleep, woman.”

I yawn. “If I didn’t love you so much, I’d complain about all of this neanderthal behavior.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

He’s right, I probably wouldn’t. But I should at least pretend to.

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