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"I'm not grumpy."
She crossed her eyes at me. "I think that's your grumpy face."
And of course, just like that, she could make me laugh.
"You're being a brat,” I said.
"Yes, I am. I feel like you made bold pronouncements this afternoon,” she reminded me.
Fuck me. My cock was like a steel bar in my trousers, and I cleared my throat. "Are we going to talk about it?"
She sighed and closed her laptop, tucking the blanket even tighter around herself, like a cocoon of protection.
I joined her on the settee, lifting her feet up onto my lap to massage them.
She released a low groan that immediately made me want to suck on her toe to see what would happen, but I behaved. Because before I could bend her over the end of the settee and fuck her the way I was dying to, we did need to talk.
"Are you mad about this afternoon?" she asked.
I watched her closely. She’d forced me to see I was an idiot. How could she think I was mad? "I'm not mad, Gwen. Why do you think so?"
"Because I can't read you. I used to be able to. Hell, a few weeks ago, I could tell everything you were thinking just by looking at you. And it's not like you'd give a lot away because, well, you're Atticus. You give nothing away. Literally. I'm consulting runes half the time, and I haven't been able to read you over the last several days. It feels weird. You’ve gotten really good at shutting me out, and I don't like it."
"I'm not trying to shut you out, Gwen. It’s just like I said; I'm scared to death of losing you. Everything that happened…" I shook my head, trying to find the right words to make her understand that this had nothing to do with her, but more about who she was to me.
"I miss you, Atticus." She watched me, waiting for me to continue and say something else.
"I needed you, and I just…” I sighed. “You're right. You're always right, which is annoying, but I needed you and I pushed you away. I've been trying to reconcile and figure this out on my own. And yes, I thought you'd be better, safer, if I just didn't touch you." Her brows furrowed and I could see her gearing up for an argument. "I think that was wrong now."
"You think that was wrong?"
I sighed. "I know that was wrong. And after what happened in the office…" I narrowed my gaze at her, trying to assess if there was something I could do to make it happen again. "It was like, I don't know, freedom?"
Her brows furrowed, and Christ, all I wanted to do was kiss her. Just wrap her in my arms and do nothing but kiss her for hours on end. She looked so damn cute. But instead, I continued explaining. "All I’ve wanted to do for the past several days is to hold you and kiss your fears away, and well, very selfishly, sink into you until I could be certain that you were real. That you were okay. But today, it felt like maybe you were okay, and I was caught up in my own bullshit."
She reached a hand out for one of mine, and I gave it to her. "I've needed you, Atticus. Just you. Not my billionaire husband. Not the solver of all my problems. Not the man who would burn the whole world down for me. I need the man who insists that I can't eat gummy bears for dinner. The man who, every morning, won't wake me up until I'm waking up on my own just because he likes to watch me sleep. Which is creepy, but you know, we all have weird things. I want the man who wrote me letters even though he knew I was angry with him. I want the man who sends me smoothies to make sure that I eat something other than the aforementioned gummy bears. Not having you felt like I was abandoned, adrift and alone. I don't like feeling like that, Atticus. That's how I felt most of my life before I met you."
I cursed under my breath. "Gwen."
She held up a hand. "I'm serious. I love you. I think I will always love you. I can't be without you. I don't know how to do that, nor in fact, do I want to even try. Just having you not with me, pushing me away, that sucked. I hated it. It felt like I was unwanted, that I was secondary."
I winced hearing it. That wasn't how I wanted her to feel. It wasn't what I wanted her to think. How could she not know how much I loved her?
"I fucked up, huh?"
She shrugged. "Only a little. And there are ways to make it up to me."
I grinned at her. "Of course, whatever my queen desires, I shall endeavor to rectify my own stupidity because of my terror and fear of losing you."
Her smile was soft. "Well, I mean, this is a pretty easy solution, I think."
"Oh yeah? Let me guess; it starts with this foot massage and ends with you coming around my tongue?"
"The foot massage is a good start, but I'm actually working on something, so the orgasms are going to have to wait."
"You're serious?"
"Yes. I see that my favorite soldier is ready, willing, and available for service. And as much as I want to make use of him, because I have missed you like you would not believe, I'm onto something right now."
