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"All I wanted was to keep you safe and to keep you all to myself. I swore my job wouldn't touch you. I swore I'd protect you. And look at you." His eyes flicker across my face. A bitter laugh chokes him. "You've been hurt over and over because of me. That son of a bitch almost killed you twice. All you wanted—the only thing you've ever asked of me—was to let him live. I wanted to give you that, but I don't regret killing the motherfucker, Mila. I wish I'd put a bullet in his head before you asked me not to do it, so that I wouldn't have to live with the fact that I fucking failed you again." He swallows hard, seemingly running out of steam. "I'm always failing you."
God, he's killing me, breaking my heart one painful word at a time. I've never seen him so defeated before.
"Let me fix it," he pleads quietly before I even find the words to respond to him. "Just don't leave me, and I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you, baby. I'll make you so fucking happy. Please don't leave me."
I gasp, my gaze flying back to his as understanding dawns. He isn't trying to talk me out of his life. He thinks I'm going to leave him. His eyes are closed like he's afraid to open them and face me. Like…like he's afraid if he does, it'll be to watch me walk away from him. That cracks me wide open.
"Look at me, Roman."
He shakes his head, another tormented groan exploding from his lips.
"Please, look at me," I plead with him. "Please."
He cracks his eyes open slowly. The emotion contained in those hazel depths knocks me breathless. In all the time I've known him, I've never seen him look so fucking afraid before.
"I'm not leaving you, Roman. Not now and not ever, baby. I'm yours," I tell him, the same thing he told me when I was ready to run, afraid to put my heart in his hands. But I didn't run, and I don't regret a single second of the time we've spent together since that day in Santa Cruz. No one will ever love me as perfectly or defend me as fiercely as this beautiful man. I gave him the power to break me, and he taught me how to fly instead.
"You should," he whispers back, his voice shaking. "I wouldn't blame you."
"I'm not fucking leaving you," I growl at him. He's starting to piss me off and scare me a little bit. I can deal with him being bossy and overprotective and a pain in the ass. I don't know how to deal with the fact that he thinks I should leave him, not when he's always fought like hell to keep me. "And he didn't shoot me because of you. He shot me because I opened my mouth and told him how?"
"How what?" he demands when I suddenly think better of telling him exactly what I said to Guerrero, not so sure he'd appreciate knowing that I taunted a crazy man with nothing left to lose. "How what, Mila?"
Damn him and that commanding, bossy voice.
"How he didn't beat you," I mumble the words I never intended for him to hear. The ones that made Guerrero shoot me in some last-ditch effort to prove me wrong. "How he's a monster, and people like him will never beat you because you're one of the best people in this world."
Roman is completely silent for a long moment. "You really think that?" he asks then.
I nod.
"Jesus," he mutters, sounding like maybe he's a little speechless this time.
"It's true," I whisper, deciding to forge ahead before he can decide to be pissed off at me about provoking Guerrero. "You may not like the person you have to be to deal with people like him, but I love that person, Roman. I love that you care enough to want to protect the world from people like him. You think you failed me, but you're wrong. I'm alive because of you, because you moved heaven and hell to keep your promise to me. You came for me and Tahani, just like you said you would. You fought for me, just like you promised." I press my forehead to his and take a shaky breath. "No one has ever fought for me before."
"Christ, baby. You're killing me," he groans.
"I'm yours, Roman. I'll always be yours."
"Yeah, you are." His sweet breath washes across my face. "I'm yours too, you know."
"I know." I haven't doubted that, not once since he claimed me. "Stop trying to convince me to leave you, okay? I'm not going anywhere, and I don't like hearing you talk about yourself like that. If I'm not allowed to let anyone make me doubt myself, you aren't either."
"I think I can live with that," he agrees quietly. "God, baby. You have no idea how much you mean to me, do you?"
"I do. I feel the same way about you, Roman. I love you."
He kisses me sweetly, his mouth working gently with mine until we're both breathing heavily. And that leaves me a little speechless too. I'll never understand how, even when I'm in a hospital room with my life more or less in shambles, he still manages to send desire striking through me like lightning.
"I need you to let me put my ring on your finger," he whispers, putting his forehead to mine again and looking into my eyes. His expression is somber and so fucking sweet at the same time. "Tell me you'll say yes when I ask you to marry me."
"Promise me something first."
"Anything."
"Promise me that you won't quit being a cop."
"Mila–"
