Page 155

Kell looks at the painting. “That’s how I see you.”

The words go straight through me. My chest tightens, and heat rises behind my eyes so quickly I have to blink. I look at the woman on the canvas again. Soft. Unguarded. Safe enough to sleep beside him without holding anything back. He saw all of that in me when I couldn’t see it myself.

For one dangerous second, I want to fold myself into him and stay there.

“I was already trying not to feel too much by then.”

“Locke and I had talked about how he knew he loved Rachel,” Kell says.

“He told me it was wanting someone in the life you were making. Choosing them even when nothing important was happening.”

He looks back at the portrait. “That morning, you were half awake. Your hair was mussed, your face was relaxed, and there wasn’t anything I needed from you.” His fingers tighten gently around mine. “I just wanted you there.”

I look back at the woman in the painting because looking at Kell is suddenly too much.

“That was when I understood what Locke meant. By that afternoon, I knew I loved you.”

For a second, I can only stare at him.

“You’ve known since that day?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“You were having difficulty with me liking you.”

A laugh bursts out of me, loud and unsteady. “That’s annoyingly reasonable.”

“I can be reasonable.”

“Occasionally.”

“I’m improving.”

I study the portrait again. All this time, I’ve remembered the fear more than the morning itself. I turn toward him. “It was what you said the night before that terrified me.”

His brows draw together slightly. “I didn’t realize.”

“I didn’t want you to.” I glance back at the painting. “You were so tender with me afterward. And then you started saying all those things while you were holding me.”

“What scared you about them?”

“All the things you felt.” My voice comes out softer than I intend. “About us. About wanting me there. About what being with me meant to you.”

Recognition moves across his face.

“I kept thinking I’d asked for sex,” I say. “And somehow I ended up with intimacy.”

He’s quiet. “Was that bad?”

“No.” I move closer to him. “That was why it scared me.”

“I thought you just wanted to leave.” His voice is almost a whisper.

“I did. I wanted to get away before I had to think about why hearing those things from you mattered so much.” His fingers close around mine.

A laugh catches somewhere between my chest and my throat. “We were having two very different mornings.”