Page 134 of Hyperspeed
His voice softened, and his tail curled around my wrist. “You were the one calling after me. The one who showed up at my door every single day, like a very charming, obsessive stalker. Yet I ran away, and not for the first time. Because when it comes to you, Kai Mercer, I’m ridiculously smitten, and that scares the shit out of me.”
I slid my hand up his thigh to his hip and gave it a firm squeeze. My chest swelled with something fierce and warm when the markings along his skin lit up with a vibrant amethyst glow.
“At first, I convinced myself it was all your fault,” he continued. “That you’d disappointed me, like everyone else. But thanks to some wise words from a very old woman—don’t tell Grandma I said that, because I know you like to gossip—I realised I was wrong.”
He shrugged.
“Maybe it was trauma, maybe it was my own messed up way of protecting myself. I ran because I thought it would hurt less to leave than to be left behind. But the thing is, Kai . . .”
His hand moved from my jaw to the back of my neck, anchoring me there in his orbit.
“I’m so fucking in love with you it aches. Not just in my chest, but in my bones. In the breaths I can’t take when you’re not around. Every day without you feels like drifting through space without a tether. I never imagined I’d miss your relentless teasing, or that cocky smile. Stars, even your ridiculous ego that only just fits in the room.”
I laughed, my cheeks aching from the sheer force of my grin, even as his words washed over me, raw and real.
Rev leaned back, and I found myself lost in the twin galaxies of his eyes, captivated and willing to be held prisoner forever.
“You said I was like a comet,” he continued. “But you’re the fuckingsun. You burn brighter than anything else in my sky, and I’m done hiding in the shadows. I want you to drag me into the light.”
Rev took a deep breath and exhaled. “I love you, Kai, and if you’ll have me, I’m yours—fire, flaws, and everything in between.”
Heart Over Wheels
Kai
I stared in silence as shock held me in a tight fist.
“I love you, Kai, and if you’ll have me, I’m yours.”
Rev told me he loved me. No sarcasm, no jokes, no sharp edges. Just honesty, raw and real, and threaded with affection.
And I just stood there, staring at him like a complete pillock.
Rev’s touch vanished as he leaned back, the distance leaving me cold. I wanted to grab his hands and press them anywhere on my body, just to feel him, to be sure he was real.
But I didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Terror gripped me. Not at what he’d said, but at the chance this could all be a dream. That he wasn’t really here, hadn’t said he loved me. If I so much as shifted, the moment might crack apart and reveal itself as nothing more than a cruel, beautiful illusion.
“Um . . .”
He pulled away, uncertainty written all over his face. I saw it. The flicker of doubt. The quiet unravelling. He questioned himself, questioned whether he’d said too much, and whether I felt the same.
Regret settled over his features like a shadow creeping into sunlight, dimming what should have been a beautiful moment.
And when the light in his eyes faded, it jolted me back into motion.
“It’s okay if it’s not w-what you want . . . if I’m not what you—Kai!”
I lurched forward and grabbed his hips, pulling him into my lap.
He landed straddling my thighs, clutching my shoulders for balance. His wide eyes searched mine, uncertainty clinging to him like a foul smell. His tail thudded against the couch, and his skin shimmered with shifting colours—orange, blue, gold, pink. His knuckles were white as he clutched my shirt, terrified I would vanish.
He’d thrown himself at me before, and instead of giving him the safety he needed, I’d pushed him away.
I must have done something good in a past life, though.
Saved orphans from a fire. Pulled a star from the sky. Something.
