Page 178 of Pucked Around and Found Out

“You have me! That’s what you have in Stormsend.”

I shake my head. “I’ve never had you, Xaden.” Pain laces each of my words. “I had pieces of you but never the version I truly wanted.”

He turns rigid in his seat. I can see the cogs in his mind working overtime. I’m waiting for him to finally drop this act and storm out of here like he’s always done. Xaden may be brutal at being the Don and eliminating his enemies, but when it comes to talking… he sucks! He’s a vault you can’t crack. For someone like him, actions speak volumes but not for me, I need to hear the words from his mouth just once.

“What version is that, Tink?” His tone is cold and angry. Good. This is the version of Xaden I’m used to dealing with. “You think I’m the type of guy to buy you flowers and fucking cuddle on the couch on a rainy day?” I fight not to flinch.

I fell in love with him the way he is. Do I wish he would show me and our baby a softer side of him? Yes!

I’ve seen that side and I’m content with him reserving that side of himself for me when we are in private. That's the version of Xaden only I get to see.

I hold his gaze, unflinching, and let him see the deep-rooted hurt and anger. “No, asshole,” I grit out. His eyes darken but I push on before he can chastise me for my insult. “I want the version of you that actually shows an ounce of care. The version of you that you let slip when we’re alone and you think I’m not looking. I want the version of you where you actually let me in and allow the world to see I fucking mean something to you. That’s what I want. We can work on you being cuddly later.” The snarky part slips out before I can stop it.

The silence that follows is worse than anything he could say back.

Xaden doesn't fill it. He never fills silence, he just occupies it, sits inside it like it belongs to him, and waits for you to crack first. I have cracked first every single time for months. I have handed him every leverage point he has ever used against me and I did it willingly, convinced that if I just gave him enough of myself he would eventually stop treating it like a weapon.

I'm not doing it again. I press my lips together and hold his gaze and wait. Not cracking costs me something I can feel in my back teeth.

“You finished?” he asks.

The audacity of him.

“Excuse me?”

“Your list.” He leans back in the chair, arms folding across his chest, and looks at me with the particular brand of infuriating calm he deploys when he wants me to know he isn't rattled. “Of everything you want from me. You finished?”

Heat floods my face. “My list⁠—”

“The version of me that lets you in. The version that lets the world see you mean something to me.” He ticks them off without breaking eye contact. “Anything else?”

My jaw tightens. He is unbearable. He is the single most infuriating person I have ever had the misfortune of falling in love with and I want to tip my coffee into his lap.

“Don't do that,” I snap. “Don't make it sound like I'm being unreasonable⁠—"

“I didn't say you were.”

“You implied⁠—"

“Toren.” He says my name, not Tink, and that stops me cold. He only uses my full name when there's no performance in it, and the absence of the nickname lands differently than I expect it to. “I didn't sleep last night. I couldn’t. I came straight here knowing this is where you would be.” A muscle works in his jaw. “I'm not here to argue with you.”

I think about that. Xaden behind the wheel in the dark, mile after mile of nothing, and he didn't have an address, didn't have a phone number, didn't have anything except the knowledge that I study between nine and ten, that I pick corners, that I always forget to drink my coffee when I'm reading. He drove to this city and he found me in a coffee shop because he knew me well enough to know where I'd be. He catalogued me. He learned me, all the small unremarkable things that add up to a person, even when the plan was to destroy me.

I hate that it matters. I hate that the not sleeping, the driving and the fact that he walked through that door without a single piece of information except how I think are doing exactly what he must know they're doing, chipping away at the wall I've spent three weeks building without him.

“That's not an answer,” I say.

“No,” he agrees. “It's not.”

He leans forward and the shift in him is sudden enough that I stop myself from moving back. Not because I'm afraid. Because when Xaden closes the distance between us my body still does that thing, that stupid, traitorous thing it has done since the beginning. The thing I've never been able to train out of it no matter how many times he's given me reason to.

“I'm not going to stand up in front of a room and make a declaration.” His voice drops, low enough now that it's only for me. “That's not who I am and you know it. You're not asking me to be someone I'm not, you just said so yourself.”

“That's not⁠—"

“But I'm here.” He cuts through it quietly, just certain. “I drove through the night to a state I've never been to, to a coffee shop I found because I know how you think. I know you pick corners. I know you forget to drink your coffee when you're reading. I know you study between nine and ten.” His eyes don't leave mine. “I know you, Toren. I came anyway. What more do you want me to say?”

What more does he—what more⁠—