Page 42 of Sinful Mates

“I don’t need a thank you when I’d do anything for you, Dark Sorceress.”Give youanything but my heart, mine whispered.

She looked at me as if she felt it. That longing to give her every part of me kept on a leash by my reluctant side.

My throat burned with each word. “I know you’ve mated with Slade and Alaric, and you probably would be with Zethan if conditions were different.”

“I’m not in a hurry. I know your asses belong to me.” I smiled at her joke, regretful of what I had to say next. Her hand adjusted to rest over my heart, preempting what I had to tell her. “You’re not ready yet?”

Fuck. She read that from the bond? My heart? Her powers as a healer must give her an insight into a person's health and mind.

I settled my hand over hers. “No, I’m not there yet.”

She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. Not giving myself to her fully cut her deep. “You’ve already said the big L word anyway.”

Fuck. She thought my promise hollow and meaningless because I didn’t accept her one hundred percent.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Sorceress." The opposite. I loved her with everything I had. I just couldn’t relinquish control. Couldn’t give her that last part of me to crush in her palm the way my ex had. This way I had a semblance of command over my heart.

“I know.” She bent her head and blushed as if she felt silly. “It just means I don’t have all of you in here.” She rubbed at her chest and winced like she had heartburn.

I hated hurting her. It broke me. But she had to understand.

“I can’t give all of me. I might never be able to.” The words stung as if a knife carved through the center of my chest, baring my heart and soul to her.

Her eyes glistened and the bond thickened like a swamp. “Is it because I didn’t tell you about Mia?”

“Fuck… No…” Unbelievable. I was the avatar of words and couldn’t get them out.

This had nothing to do with Mia. It had everything to do with my past. Abandonment by my father. Secrets and lies told by my ex. Excuses where she was when I called her, and it went to voicemail. Strange aftershave scents on her clothes. Her disinclination to sleep with me for months and disinterest in our relationship. All that pushed me further into my work. Scarring my heart and leaving it broken. All the way to losing Liz. I didn’t deserve love in my life. I might be fucking up the best thing that ever happened to me, but I’d rather fuck it up than her fall out of love and walk away.

“I’m not her. I know she hurt you. I have, too.” Aaliyah couldn’t look at me and it stabbed me deep that she absorbed my pain and blamed herself for it when this was all me and my inability to completely trust her. “It won’t happen again.”

“This has nothing to do with that.” My efforts to comfort her only brought her more pain. Nothing I said would make her understand.

“We all have broken parts of ourselves.” Her palm came back to my heart and I felt her magick stir, scanning me, searching for the break, desperate to heal it. “You just hide yours well.”

Fuck. Talk about a fucking punch to the balls. Pain blinded me and I gasped for air. Aaliyah Heller’s abilities went beyond physical healing. She healed the broken parts of our souls, too.

When I recovered enough to talk, I wanted to move on from that topic, and compensate in the only way I knew how. Pathetic, really. I gifted her presents galore but not the one fucking thing she wanted. I couldn’t stand the fracture on the bond or the broken dip of her mouth.

I used my knee to shift her slightly to enable me to pluck out my wallet and slide Aaliyah my debit card. “Go and get your hair done, baby. Whatever you want. Go nuts.” I cupped her face, stroking her cheek with my thumb, my chest lighting up at the way her smile brightened, even though it masked her pain. “You’ve worked hard and deserve to treat yourself.”

This last month she put her heart and soul into healing Alaric from his demons and into opening the club’s medic office… the future of that endeavor uncertain at the moment.

“Really?” Her brows pinched together. “A decent cut and blow wave will cost you two hundred. I’ll pay with my club wages.”

Two hundred was nothing to me when I dropped five hundred for a pair of jeans. Mom struggled with finances as a single parent. Unlike my deadbeat father, who left us when I was too young to remember, I would make sure my woman was taken care of. Just not the way she needed. Fuck. I was an asshole.

“I trust you enough with my card.” I left it on the table for her.

Couldn’t say the same for my ex-wife. Goddamn gold digger went through my money like water. Left me with nothing. Took all the furniture but my reading chair. I would have sacrificed it all to keep the damn dog.

Aaliyah absently ran a hand through her hair. “I guess it’s getting long and needs a cut.” Her arms locked around my neck, her head on my chest, lips to my jaw. More than I deserved for what I just confessed. But this goddess was so forgiving. Had eternal capacity for empathy. “You always know what I need. I love it when you spoil me.”

My mate always fought for everything. To be validated by her father. To protect her child from the life she escaped. To do what was right. I wanted her to know how loved and valued she was.

Fuck. Look at me. Sad sack of shit compensating with gifts when I couldn’t give her the one thing I should. Our mating, completing our bond. Truly making her mine. I pushed my darkness aside and hid that thought from shooting across our connection.

I leaned in to rumble at her, “Get something sexy done. Mermaid colors or whatever shit they do on TikTok.” Her giggle shot a bolt of heat to my dick, feeding my semi. I fisted her hair, dragging her head back, eyes to mine. “If you cut that hair too short, I’ll wrap it around my fist and walk you around on a leash.”

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