Page 40 of Looking Grimm

“I likeyou.” The statement sounded so juvenile that I immediately regretted it.

Nash perked up, though, and dragged the backs of his fingers down my cheek. “But do youloveme?”

The whiskey I’d sipped on the way here swirled in my stomach like water circling a drain. “Nash…”

He shook his head against mine. “Okay, okay, that was too much. Don’t worry. You will.”

I wished I had half his confidence. I certainly didn’t want to dash it, so I offered what meager assurance I could come up with.

“I’m not sleeping around or anything.” My shoulders bounced in a shrug. “I haven’t been for a while.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Is that enough?”

Drawing back, he fixed me with a puzzled look. “This isn’t about sex, Fitch.”

I heaved a noisy breath. “What, then?”

“I want a relationship with you,” Nash said. “I thought I made that clear.”

The request was no less unnerving the second time around. It made my skin itch, and I squirmed like I could wriggle away from the uneasy feeling.

“Yeah, you did,” I replied. “Right before you said you would give me time. I thought you meant more than a coupleof days.”

He nodded slowly. “You’re right,” he said. “And it is enough.”

“What is?” I asked, needing to be sure.

“Not having to share you. Thank you for that.” His fingers feathered through the long top of my hair. Those soft touches made me weak. No one else was so gentle with me, not about anything.

I expelled another breath, this one full of relief. “So, we’re good then?”

He placed another peck of a kiss on my lips. “We weren’t ever bad.” Using the hand around my waist, he turned me toward the door. “Let’s go inside. I’ll make dinner, then you should get some rest.”

Despite his beckoning tug, I set my heels.

“Nash, I can’t stay.”

It killed me to do this again. To turn down what I wanted most in favor of something I didn’t want at all. I didn’t want a war, didn’t want prisoners, didn’t want to face Grimm because that was a battle I wasn’t sure I would survive.

Nash frowned, and I sensed his protest, so I headed it off.

“I want to come back to you, be with you…” I swallowed. “I just have to take care of a few things first.”

Two very specific things. But if recent events had proven anything, those things would lead to two more, and on and on until the end.

The end of what? Of me?

That was the other reason I couldn’t linger. If Nash loved me—if I let him—it would only hurt him more to lose me. And I’d caused enough pain for two lifetimes.

“You want me to drive you back to Ripley’s?” Nash stepped back and away from me.

“I’m gonna take the Bronco,” I replied.

“The cops know that car,” Nash protested. “They tied it to your kidnappings.”

The cops knew the Porsche, too. And my dumb fucking face. Going out in public was like setting off a signal flare at this point.

---