Page 47 of Yearning For Her

“I already told you what I really want, Kian. Love. I want the love of someone who will be there for me when I feel like the world is breaking apart around me. Someone who will share not just joy and laughter, but sorrow and pain. Someone who will fight with me but love me all the more for it.” Tears stung her eyes. “I want someone who will still want me when I’m wrinkled and old, who will love me until my final breath.”

His features softened, and his lips fell into a faint, contemplative frown. Willow’s heart thumped as he silently stared at her. She felt like her heart and soul lay bare to him, and she wasn’t sure why that vulnerability didn’t frighten her more.

As much as she wanted him to say something, anything, she was glad he didn’t. She didn’t want empty promises, couldn’t have stomached any lies. However difficult it could be to swallow, she only wanted the truth from now on.

If only she’d been able to determine the truth of her own heart when it came to Kian.

Finally, he pushed himself to his feet, rounded the table, and held a hand to her. “Come with me, Willow.”

“Where?”

“There’s a place I’d like to show you.”

She glanced at their food—her burger partially eaten, his untouched in its wrapper. “But we haven’t finished dinner.”

“Bring it with you.”

“What about yours?”

He huffed, rolling his eyes, and turned to the table. He snatched up his burger, tore off the wrapper, and in several quick, huge bites that had lettuce and globs of ketchup raining on the tray, devoured almost all of it.

“There,” he said through the food he was still chewing.

Willow blinked. “Ooooookay.” She shook her head and chuckled. “Was it good at least?”

“Great.” He furiously wiped his mouth and hands with a napkin, his silvery rings gleaming under the overhead lights as his fingers moved. “Ready to go now?”

She took another bite of her burger, unable to suppress a smile as she chewed. “You seemed very human for a moment there, messy eating and all.”

“Just wait, Violet. You’ll see some messy eating soon enough.”

“Well, I think you lasted longer than a minute that time.”

“There is a very obvious, innuendo-laced reply to what you just said, Willow, but I’ll refrain.”

Willow rolled her eyes. Standing, she gathered their trash and brought it to a nearby garbage can, keeping only her chocolate shake. “We can go.”

Kian took her free hand and led her back to his car.

They hopped in, he turned it on, and then they were on the road. The indecision and uncertainty he’d demonstrated at the start of the evening was gone. As he drove out of the suburbs and onto darker backroads, Willow found herself glancing at him more and more frequently. Without so many streetlights around, the gentle glow of the instrument panel gave an otherworldly cast to Kian’s face.

It was almost like seeing him without his glamour.

I should be alert. He’s taking me away from the city, away from help…

Stop it.

If Kian wanted to hurt her, he could have done it any time. He didn’t need to drive her somewhere secluded, where there’d be no witnesses. He could literally make them both invisible.

Willow forced herself to sip her shake.

Soon enough, they were winding along heavily wooded roads that climbed steadily higher, the car’s headlights serving as the only source of light. Any sense of direction she might’ve maintained was destroyed. But it was nice. It was peaceful. She’d always found something soothing about driving at night with no other cars on the road, secure in her own little bubble of warmth and safety.

He turned down a narrow side road and followed it deeper into the woods. It ended in a small parking lot, where he stopped the car. The headlights shone directly on a footpath ahead.

“Almost there,” he said as he killed the engine and opened his door.

Willow stepped out of the vehicle and closed the door. Cool wind blew around her, lifting her hair and sending a chill through her. She crossed her arms and looked around. With the headlights off, everything so was dark, and it felt like civilization was hundreds of miles away.

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