Page 43 of Lost Kingdom

“So this isn’t…” I bring my hand up and touch the glistening gems. “It’s secondhand?”

“No. No one else has worn it before you. But this is one of the first pieces he ever made, not so long after he opened his shop and had time to mess around. He couldn’t afford to experiment with diamonds, since those suckers cost a fortune. But he had a bunch of emeralds he’d bought off an auction site. Most of them were trash, made for lower end pieces. He saved a few of the better stones and made a necklace. He said he made it with you in mind.”

“You’re lying.”

He lowers his head and buries his nose in my hair. “I’m not. See how it kinda looks like a plant? Like a vine?”

Dammit! That’s what I thought already.

“He said you liked to be in the garden with your mom, so while he was creating this necklace, he thought of his baby sister while she was off learning how to be a doctor for the dead. But once he was done, it went into the safe and eventually, he forgot about it. He didn’t want to sell it to anyone else, and he hadn’t thought to gift it to you yet. Then this week, I came along and told him what I wanted. It needed to be old, and it needed to be special. Emeralds were a must, and it needed to beyou. All you, Aubree Grace. So, although this is not exactly Ronan and Maeve’s tradition, I consider it special enough to count. Besides, I gave you the hair clip already. So I have my bases covered on both ends.”

“This isn’t a game, you know?” Teary, I bring my focus up and search his eyes. “There are no bases. And there are no points to be scored.”

“I know.”

“There are human beings. There’s me. And I have feelings that are constantly being dinged, because sometimes I feel like the luckiest, most cherished woman in the world. And other times, I’m just a toy being argued over in a sandbox. I want stability,” I whimper. “I want honesty, no matter what. I want to wake up each morning and know what version of you and me we get to be. Idon’twant to feel cherished one day, and then brushed back the next. Because it’s the uncertainty that hurts the most.”

He nods, short, fast dips of his chin. “I know.”

“I understand your world is not normal, and that you carry trauma you’ll never fully share out loud. I know you care deeply, and that you’re a good person down at your core. I’m fully aware that all the things you’ve done to irritate me since we met have come with your best intentions. But I’m tired of your inability to be completely, achingly honest with me. And I’m especially exhausted of not knowing if today is the day you drag me in or toss me out. We can’t beusuntil you’re ready to be what I need.”

“So you’re asking for…?”

“A commitment?” I say it like a question, and reinforce it with a shrug of my shoulders. “Not the kind where you tell my parents we’re engaged when we’renot,in fact, engaged. But the kind where you say, ‘I’m in, Aubree’, and then I can believe every word that comes out of your mouth. I want the ‘I’m in’ that means I can leave for the day and come back tomorrow, secure in the knowledge that you haven’t changed your mind overnight.”

“I’m in, Aubree.”

“You say that! But you’ve said all sorts of things since we met. Sometimes they sounded kinda like this, and other times they sounded like, ‘My world isn’t for you, so I’m gonna keep you away even if it hurts your feelings.’ You tell lies, right to my face, and you think because they come with good intentions that I can’t be mad about them. How do I know today isn’t an ‘I’m in’ day, but then something happens that upsets your sense of control tomorrow? Maybe Felix calls you, or Cato says something that triggers a reminder of where you came from. Then your protective side will come out and you’ll decide for us again? I’m always the one on the outside, Tim. I’m on the shelf?—”

“I said I’m in. So now I’m gonna kiss you.”

“And you…” My heart spasms. “What?”

He grabs my face, his thumbs on my cheeks and his palms wrapping all the way around. Then he pulls me up, so I have nowhere to escape except straight into him. “I said I’m going to kiss you. Because it’s a romantic day. You’re wearing a beautiful gown and I’m in a suit. And I sort of fulfilled the Malone tradition, telling you the story that goes with it, and now I’m telling you my intentions withus. I’m ticking the boxes, Aubree, and I’m taking the steps so you get to be safe and I no longer have to put you on a shelf. Because that loneliness you feel up there, all on your own?” He drags me closer, probing the back of my neck with the tips of his fingers. “I feel that down here, too. I look up at you. This shiny, beautiful, unreachable fucking goddess I don’t get to touch, and the loneliness is crippling.”

“So you’re choosing us over safety?”

He shakes his head, the tip of his nose brushing over mine. “I’m choosingus, if you’ll have me, and making damn sure you stay safe while you’re with me. No one can hurt you now.” He rests his forehead against mine and inhales the air I breathe. “It’s law, Aubree. No one can touch you without starting a war. And there isn’t a single Malone who won’t fight alongside me. We’re too powerful, and no one would dare.”

“How does it become law?” I search his expression for the truth. For understanding. For his bravery, to say the things he works so hard to lock away. “Explain it to me. Please. I’m begging you to tell me the truth.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He tilts my head back, extending my neck and hovers, just a hair’s breadth from my lips. “All that matters is that it’s done. So now I’m gonna kiss you. If you let me.”

“Wait…” I choke out a nervous laugh. “I mean. I suppose, if you?—”

He slams his lips to mine and swallows down my cry of surprise aswarmth washes through my veins. Like a tidal wave of color and passion and emotion. Of desperation. His beard tickles my flesh, but his tongue duels with mine, so I’m left focusing only on that. On him. His lips move as though weaving magic, sucking my soul into his lungs and locking me away in a new prison.

But this one is so much better. Warmer. Safer. Compared to the shelf.

“Fuck.” He nips at my bottom lip and draws a whimper from the depths of my throat. But he growls when I wrap my arms around the back of his neck. I cinch myself closer and purr when he releases my face and grabs my ass instead.

His hands squeeze until it hurts. But it’s a good hurt. It’s a hurt that makes my blood sizzle hotter.

“Tim…”

“I’m in, Aubree.” He nips again and massages the globes of my ass. “I said I was in, so tomorrow, you can wake up and know what you’re gonna get.”

“Allin?” I press. “No take backs? And all of the truth?”

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