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“Soaked clothes and a cold?” she teases, amusement in her voice.
“Cute, spontaneous couple things.” I swallow, tracing circles on her bare hip but still not daring to meet her eyes. “I will never be able to give you that. Because I’m not wired that way.”
Her fingers brush against my cheek. Taking my jaw in a gentle grip, she turns my head back so that I meet her gaze again.
“I don’t want that.” Her eyes are serious as she holds my gaze. “I want you.”
I give her a look. “I’m a cold and ruthless sadist with psychopath traits who is barely capable of feeling emotions the way normal people do.”
“I know.”
Holding her gaze, I shake my head slowly, trying to get her to understand what she’s getting herself into. “I don’t care about anyone else. The rest of the world could literally burn down outside my window and I wouldn’t care. The only people I love are my brothers and you.”
She blinks, and light pulses in her eyes. With her eyebrows raised, she pushes up on her elbows so that she can meet my gaze head on as she hesitantly asks, “You love me?”
A laugh full of exasperation and disbelief rolls from my throat, and I raise my eyebrows at her. “I let your father put guns to both of my knees and pull the triggers rather than tell him that I would stay away from you. And you’re still wondering whether I love you or not?”
She slaps my chest with the back of her hand and then climbs up and swings a leg over my body so that she’s straddling me. I place my hands on her hips, looking up at her.
“Of course I love you, little doe,” I say, my voice becoming soft in a way that it only does with her. “I love you so much that it terrifies me.”
“I thought you didn’t get scared.”
“How could I not? When you’re the most dangerous person I’ve ever met.”
The brilliant smile that spreads across her beautiful face is enough to make my heart skip several beats.
Bracing her hands on my chest, she leans down and steals a kiss from my lips.
“I love you too,” she whispers against my mouth between kisses. “Not in spite of who you are. Because of who you are.”
That cold black heart in my chest pounds so hard that I’m sure she can hear it. I never thought it possible that I would feel this way about anyone. Or that anyone could possibly feel this way about me.
But Alina changed everything.
She sees all the cold, unfeeling psycho parts of me, and she loves me anyway.
Her words echo through my mind again.
No, not anyway. She loves me because of it. Because of who I am.
“I will never dance in the rain,” I say as one last attempt to make her understand what she’s getting herself into by choosing me.
But she just sits up straighter and flashes me a knowing smile. “I know. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t dance anyway.”
Rolling off me, she climbs out of bed and reaches for her clothes. I push myself up on one elbow and raise an eyebrow at her in silent question. She laughs and jerks her chin.
“Come on,” she says. Then a mischievous glint shines in her eyes. “And bring some knives.”
Surprise and confusion still pulse through me, but I do as she says. After getting dressed, I strap on my knife holsters and then follow her out the door.
My confusion only deepens when she leads me to the deserted ballroom on the other side of the mansion. I scan the large empty room, noting the golden candelabras and the frescos in the ceiling, before I shift my gaze back to Alina and once more raise my eyebrows in question.
“Teach me how to evade someone in a knife fight,” she says, and falls into a defense stance. “That will be our dancing.”
For a few seconds, I just stare at her in silence while surprise finishes ringing through my head. Then I say, “No.”
She draws back, looking stunned. And embarrassed. And a little hurt.
