Page 176 of Letters From A Stalker

His expression shifts, but I continue before he can mistake where I’m going.

“I don’t want letters from somebody hiding outside my house, and I don’t want Dr. Blackwood back either. I already paid far too much money for that version of you.”

The corner of his mouth moves despite himself.

“I want Kai.”

He doesn’t breathe.

“I want the man who rides when his head gets too loud and gets bullied into Sunday dinner by Mara. The one Connor makes watch superhero movies. The man who inherited an entire property and turned it into this without ever thinking it was something worth bragging about.” I glance toward the house before looking back at him. “I want the parts of Ghost that were actually you, too. Just without the stalking, preferably.”

A broken laugh leaves him. “That seems reasonable.”

“I thought so.”

His eyes stay fixed on mine. “What does wanting Kai mean?”

There is no assumption in the question. No attempt to fill in the answer before I give it and maybe that is why the answer comes so easily.

“It means I want to find out.”

Something shifts in his face, almost too much emotion to name.

“Dinner. Coffee. Your actual phone number. Things normal people apparently do before having sex against walls.”

That earns me the first real laugh I’ve heard from him, and God, I have missed it.

“I can try normal.”

“I’m not asking for miracles.”

His smile fades slowly as he looks at me, and the yearning beneath it is so unmistakable that my pulse trips. He still hasn’t touched me and I take the last step myself. My fingers slide into his hand. Kai exhales sharply, his gaze dropping to where our hands meet before returning to my face.

After everything those hands have done to me, holding one feels almost unbearably intimate. His fingers close around mine carefully.

“Are you sure?”

I think about the letters, the lamp, the open door and every yes I gave without knowing the entire truth behind the man asking for it.

This one belongs to me completely. “Yes.”

The word changes him. His fingers tighten around mine, not enough to hurt, but enough that I feel the restraint he has been holding onto since he walked out of that house begin to strain.

I look up at him. “Do you still love me?”

Something flashes across his face, fierce enough that for the first time today he doesn’t even try to hide it.

“Julia, I have loved you every fucking day you’ve been gone.”

My breath catches.

He steps closer, our joined hands caught between us. “I stayed away because you told me to. I would have kept staying away if that was what you needed. But don’t mistake that for me getting over you. I didn’t. I missed you every day. I missed your mouth, your laugh, the way you argue with me when you know damn well I’m right. I missed sleeping next to you so badly there were nights I couldn’t stand my own bed.”

The ache in my chest becomes almost unbearable. “I love you too.”

Kai goes completely still. Then his free hand comes to my face, warm fingers sliding along my jaw.

“Say it again.” There is Ghost in the roughness of his voice, but no mask and no lie left between us.