He resisted the urge to grind his teeth. “I don’t need to hear this. I know it already. And it’s not your gratitude I’m angling for.”
Her brow dipped. “If you’re not being duplicitous with me, as you’ve stated, then what are you angling for, Damen?”
“The same level of transparency as I’ve given you,” he very seamlessly announced. Without a moment’s hesitation.
Her jaw slackened.
But she quickly collected herself.
“I’m not sure any of my rationale can be trusted at present,” she told him. “I’m dog-tired and my mind is whirling and… I don’t like to make hasty decisions or admissions.”
She gazed at him for endless seconds.
He finally said, “You know that’s not what I did. Nor am I pressuring you to return the sentiment.”
Didn’t that always drive a wedge between two people—when one was there, mentally, and the other was not?
He sank into the corner of the sofa, propping himself against the mound of pillows. He raked a hand through his hair. And told her, “Take the bed. We both need some sleep.”
Though Damen knew he wouldn’t catch even a wink, not with all that lingered between them. And with Nikki in his bed, while he was here on the couch. While she was so close, and yet…so far away.
She took a few steps toward the California king. Stopped. Glanced over her shoulder at him and boldly asked, “Why, do you suppose, you’ve never been in love before? I am the first woman you’ve said those words to, right?”
“You are.” He inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. And told her, “I don’t believe in arbitrarily saying them and I don’t believe they should be said lightly, without one-hundred percent conviction.”
He gave her a few moments to let that sink in.
Then he continued, more simply saying, “When it’s right, it’s right. You feel it in your bones. At least, that’s what my mother always told me. To tell you the truth, I previously never felt any raw and real emotion, beyond a hint of superficiality. Certainly never in my bones and certainly not in my soul. Until now. With you.”
Tears rimmed her eyes again, the drops glistening in the firelight.
She turned and slowly retraced her steps, coming back toward him. Her fingers grazed the fur throw covering the armrest at the opposite end of the sofa from where he was settled.
She snatched the blanket and brought it to him.
“Thank you,” he said with a tight grin.
She surprised him further as she joined him, curled up between his parted legs and rested her head on his shoulder.
More emotion washed over him, but Damen didn’t say a word.
He merely draped the fur over them both, wrapped his arms around her…and hoped for a brighter day when they woke.
25
Nikki still walked a tightrope.
And so maybe cozying up to Damen wasn’t the most sensible thing for her to do, but she’d already resolved in her heart, earlier, to sleep with him in his bed. She wanted to be this close to him, wanted to be this intimate with him.
She was wholly mindful of his feelings and, as she’d told him, was not discounting them in any way. Nikki’s own emotions were tangled around him. There was a magnetic pull she couldn’t deny—physically and viscerally.
She was inexplicably and fully drawn to him. So much so, she hadn’t been able to simply walk away, climb into that big bed, alone now, and grant herself a little extra time to reconcile all of this in her brain, in her soul.
It would have been cowardly, she thought. And unfair. Because she’d already committed to being this intimate with the man. To take it all back, to imply she hadn’t really meant it, wasn’t interested in or capable of following through would be hypocritical and unjust.
Damen did not deserve that from her.
True, it would be hugely helpful if Nikki could slip into the bathroom with her phone and call Kate for a consult.