Page 168 of Coveted

I inch closer. “When I’m with you, I feel safe and alive and excited and awake and so myself. I—” My throat tightens. “I’m falling for you, Lucan. I think I have been for longer than I could admit to myself.”

Hot tears spring to my eyes and I don’t even know why.

Maybe because it feels good to express myself freely for once. My true self, in true words, without fear. That’s what Lucan Hale has done for me.

The tears spill, tracking down my cheeks and neck. Lucan crouches in front of me to cradle my face in his hands.

“You’re okay,” he says. “Everything’s okay.”

“I don’t want time,” I say, hiccuping. “I don’t want space. Not anymore.”

He moans my name, climbing into my armchair and pulling me onto his lap.

I bury my face in his neck, inhaling his intoxicating masculine scent between sobs. His arms close around me, while I let long-buried emotions pour out of me.

I cry for my mom and my absent dad and the damage Russell did, and for Hannah and Parker and Chuck. I cry for the version of me who always thought I’d have less, be less, expect less.

I cry because I have a future, and it’s anything I want it to be. I’m alive.

Lucan holds me tightly, running his fingertips over my back. I melt into him as though I’m home, because that’s exactly what he feels like now.

When my tears run dry and my hiccups subside, I look up at him, the back of my head resting on his shoulder.

He’s gazing at me like I’m the most valuable thing in the world instead of a blotchy, crying wreck.

“You’re always safe with me.” He caresses my chin. “I’ll murder as many men as it takes to keep it that way. I swear it.”

“Is that your version of romance?”

“Yes. Isn’t it yours?”

“Maybe it’s a little romantic.”

Lucan puts his hand in the center of my chest, like the feeling of my heartbeat is essential to him.

“I want you to get used to having everything you deserve,” he says. “And I dearly fucking want to be the one to give it to you. Every day for the rest of our lives.”

He peppers gentle kisses onto my forehead, temples, eyelids, cheeks, and nose.

“That okay with you?” he asks.

I smile faintly. “More than okay.”

“Good. Because I already told my family you’re spending Thanksgiving with us, and Christmas at Aspen too. This year and every year. My mom’s dying to meet you.”

My chest glows. “I’d like to meet her too.”

“We’ll have our own space, don’t worry. And speaking of privacy, I barred my father from entering my penthouse uninvited. He has to ring the bell and wait, like anyone else.”

“Wow, that’s progress.”

He squeezes me. “I have a girlfriend now. Times have changed.”

“They have.” I think back over the past months. “Everything has changed. I can hardly believe how much.”

“There’s something else I need to tell you, Sadie.”

“Yes?” I ask.