Wrong Bed Baby (Crescent Cove 10)

Damn near hysterically.

“You don’t love me. It’s too soon. But that was a convincing performance for Sister.” She wiped away the tears of mirth gathering on her cheeks. “You really had me going there, gotta say.”

I frowned. I couldn’t say I’d ever imagined telling a woman I loved her, but if I had, this would not have been the reaction I would’ve hoped for. “I wasn’t kidding.”

“No, no, seriously, you can stop now. She’s gone. Besides—”

“Luna.” My voice never wavered as I took hold of her arms and waited until she gazed at me. “I love you. For real.” I reached up to run my thumb over her lower lip as it quivered. “Realer than anything I’ve ever felt before.”

“Is realer an actual word?”

“Yes. Are you stalling so you don’t have to answer me?”

“Did you ask a question?”

She had a point. “No. Just usually when you say those words to someone, they say it back.”

Her pupils grew even larger, but she said nothing. Her silence landed a blow to my chest as acute as if she’d physically struck me.

But I still made myself smile, for my ego if nothing else. “I get that people feel stuff at different rates. Several women have been in love with me before and—”

“Oh, whoop ti do for you.”

I blinked. “I was just saying I’ve had women love me when I didn’t feel the same. So, maybe that’s the thing with you. And if so, we can still…” I trailed off and frowned as I stepped back.

What could we do if she wasn’t in love with me? Still hang out together? Still have sex? Still pretend we were building something, just as long as I ignored that pesky missing love thing?

I supposed I could wait. What choice did I have? It wasn’t as if I could turn off my feelings. Maybe she’d eventually develop some for me.

I rubbed the sudden throb in my forehead. “Karma is a bitch.”

“What?” she asked shakily.

For her part, she did not look or sound as euphoric as I would have had our positions in this conversation been reversed. But I already loved her, so hearing her say she loved me first would not send me into the throes of depression.

Which meant one thing.

She was an empathetic woman. She wouldn’t crow about having to let me down easy. But she clearly wasn’t bicycling down the same love lane I was riding in.

My tires were deflating more by the minute.

“You heard me. I just said I’ve been with women who claimed to love me, and I didn’t feel it back. Now I feel it and you don’t.”

“I never said that.”

“Do you?”

“I never said that,” she repeated.

“Now it’s so much clearer. I thought witches believed in harming none.”

She clutched her stomach. “Sorry, I’m just overwhelmed right now.”

“You’re overwhelmed? I just poured my heart out to you. I practically set my feelings to a Celine Dion ballad, and you basically said ‘that’s nice.’”

“I did nothing of the sort. Jesus, Goldilocks, stop being dramatic.”

“You have not seen drama yet.” I didn’t think I stomped my foot, but in the rush of emotions currently coursing through my bloodstream like a bad college LCD trip—not that I knew anything about those—I couldn’t be certain. “I have feelings too, Lu, and they can be crushed. I’m more than a sexual object.”