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He flashed her a hot-boy grin and looked away, then back at her. There he was—the man who could pull them from a serious moment and guide them to happy.
“You can call me your man.”
Butterflies swarmed in her stomach. “And you want to call me your lady?”
The smile faded from his handsome face as he searched her eyes. “I’ll call you whatever you want. I just don’t want a night like tonight again. I didn’t like you considering other men.”
“Admission, I wasn’t considering anyone. I was too busy watching you.”
“I understood your need to explore, Cadence.” He shook his head. “That’s enough now.”
Her cheeks heated and she pressed her forehead against his chest to hide her smile. “I have a crush on you.”
“Hey,” he said, seriousness tainting his tone again. He hooked a finger under her chin and drew her gaze back up to his. “I like you, too.”
She didn’t know why she did it. She didn’t know why the tears burned her eyes out of nowhere. She didn’t know why her breath suddenly trembled, or that she felt such a bone-deep sense of relief. Her face crumpled and she apologized as she dropped her forehead to his chest again to hide.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Hey.” Kru rubbed her back in the most comforting gesture she’d ever felt. “You can tell me anything.”
And she knew he was right. She could tell him anything, just like he’d told her earlier about being systematically destroyed by a woman, and being betrayed and used by the Crew that was supposed to protect him. She could tell him anything.
“When Lucas left…fuck,” she squeaked out. “I’m sorry. This isn’t the time to talk about this.”
“Hey,” he murmured, rolling over with her. He eased out of her and left his arm under her cheek as she lay on her side facing him. He stroked a strand of hair out of her face. “I don’t mind being the one you own your past with. No one is going to cheer you on like me.”
Oh, beautiful man. A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and slid to the floor by her ear. “When Lucas left, I thought my life was over. It felt like me, you know? Like I wasn’t enough. And I was blind with hurt. Just couldn’t get out of my head. So I leaned too hard on Gunner and it was an escape, but I knew he wasn’t as big as Lucas. Not to my animal. When I left him, and I hurt him, and I watched him spin out…I knew it was my fault. All I knew how to do was hurt.”
“Have you tried with anyone since?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not enough.”
His eyebrows arched up, and he stroked her cheek. “Your biggest enemy is that beautiful brain of yours, Cadence. That’s not true. You just weren’t enough for those relationships. That doesn’t apply to life. And that’s coming from a man who never thought he would feel like enough again. You’re good. Fuck, I’m getting a boner again and you’re just looking at me all fucking cute with tears in your eyes, and I know that says I’m a monster but I don’t care. Give me ten minutes and I’ll give it a go again if you still think you aren’t enough.”
She laughed thickly when he pulled her hand to his dick, and sure enough, he was already half-mast again.
That was a power, making a woman swallow those words—I am not enough. Kru could take the power away from those words like it was nothing at all.
He pulled her closer into a hug and she could feel his heart beating against her cheek.
“Out there,” he said, “Be Cadence, daughter of the Alpha of the Boarlanders. Be the right hand of Willa Barns. Be the tiger. But in here, you can be softer. You can be you. No one will punish you for that. You’re safe. I’ll only like you even more. But you know…” He said the last words with a smile. “You do what you want.”
A smile confiscated her face and she nuzzled against his chest and let off a sigh. “Krueger Kannon, you have surprised me down to my bones.”
“You’ve surprised me down to my boner.”
She giggled, and inhaled deeply. She brushed her fingertip thoughtfully down the length of one of the claw marks across Kru’s back. “I think that’s what I want. I think I like being enough with you.”
Kru eased back and drew her wrist to his lips, placed a kiss there and held for five breaths. “Let’s put them in the past. Your ghosts and mine. Let’s put them behind us.”
A slow smile stretched her face at the beauty of that offer. Finally, finally, she could let go of the frustration, the guilt, the what-ifs. He was giving her permission to do just that. All these years, she hadn’t figured out how to allow herself to get past it.
Kru could do it in a night.
Beaston had once told her that the knife to cut the ties of her past was hidden in the Warlanders.
