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She stayed the night again. She was doing that now. And lying in the dark with his arm heavy over her and his breath slow against her neck, warm and wrung out and home, Lara had no idea — neither of them did — that they were already standing in the last good days, that the bill for the wall he'd drawn was nearly due, and that she was closer than she knew to the morning she'd stop being able to do this.

For now there was just the dark, and his heartbeat under her ear, and the good tired weight of a man who saw exactly who she was and wanted her anyway, right up to the line he'd swore he'd never cross.

She slept.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was good that night.

That was the part he'd think about afterward. Not the ending of it. Not what came after. Just this.

Her under him in the dark of his room, breathless and soft and coming apart around him while he held her through it. His forehead against her shoulder when he followed her over. The two of them afterward tangled in the sheets with her head on his chest and his hand moving slowly up and down her bare back while the house settled quiet around them.

For a little while, he let himself have it.

Peace. Happiness. Whatever this thing was that sat warm and heavy in his chest when she was in his arms.

He felt her shift beside him.

She came up onto one elbow in the dark. Then both her hands were on his face, gentle at first, her thumbs resting against his cheekbones as she turned him toward her.

Something in the care of it made his stomach tighten before she even spoke.

"I'm in love with you," Lara said softly.

Not dramatic. Not tearful. Almost the opposite. Like she'd been carrying it quietly for a long time and had finally decided he deserved to know.

Her hands stayed on his face. In the dark he could just make out her eyes on his.

"I need you to hear it the way I mean it," she said. "Not as pressure. Not as me asking for an answer tonight. I just..." She let out a small breath. "I've been holding it in for weeks and I'm tired of pretending I don't feel it."

Dean said nothing. His heart had started going too hard.

"You should get to know you're loved," she said quietly. "You completely. All the way."

Her thumb moved once against his cheek.

"I'm in love with you, Dean. And I'm in love with those two kids down the hall like they were always going to belong to me somehow." Her voice caught a little there, then steadied. "And I think maybe you love me too. I think it's there even if you won't touch it. I feel it every time you hold onto me after. Like tonight. Like you can't quite make yourself let go."

He shut his eyes briefly. Not because she was wrong. Because she wasn't.

"So I'm going to ask you something." Still gentle. Still looking at him like she wasn't trying to hurt him. "Not an ultimatum. Not tonight. I'm just asking you to trust me with it."

His chest felt tight suddenly.

"With your heart," she said softly. "The whole thing. The part you've got locked away where nobody can reach it." A pause. "And with theirs too. Giana's and Levi's. I know that's the scarier part."

Dean looked away.

Lara touched his face lightly until he looked back at her again.

"I know you'd burn the world down before you'd let somebody hurt those kids," she whispered. "But I would never hurt them. I want to stay with you. I would stay."

The word stay went through him like a blade.

"Let yourself want the whole thing," she said. "Me. The kids. The life. Stop stopping yourself before you even get to it." Her voice shook now despite how carefully she was holding it together. "I want you to marry me someday. In front of your family. The town. The whole world. I want you to love me properly… out loud, where I can hear it." A tiny breath. "Just be brave with me once, Dean. That's all I'm asking."

It was the bravest thing he'd ever seen anybody do.