“That’s—”
“Easier said than done, I know. I think you can sense I’m no fucking calmer about this. But I don’t want him to have this power over you.”
“Neither do I, but I don’t know how to shelve it all. I don’t know how to build a wall between me and what I’m feeling. You’re good at that sort of stuff, which I envy you for. But I’m crap at it.”
His eyes flashed with … something. “Don’t envy me that, baby. I wouldn’t want you to be like me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“We both know I’m fucked up. I shut down parts of myself. Shattered other parts. Sectioned off others. And there were some I lost altogether, if I even had them to begin with.”
“All kids develop coping mechanisms. You did what you had to do to survive the things that were happening to and around you.”
“It doesn’t change that I’m not whole.”
“You judge yourself way too harshly, Camden.” Which she suspected came from having so many others do that when he was just a boy. That no doubt contributed to why he shut down parts of himself—it was the only way he could numb himself from the hurt those comments caused him. “We all have inner demons.”
“But mine are far too close to the surface, and they’re seriously fucking twisted. They prod me. Taunt me. Tempt me. I tread in dark water every day.”
“But you don’t swim in it. You don’t immerse yourself in it. You never let the current take you. Your demons might not be very far away, but you make a choice to ignore them. Maybe not every time, but the majority of the time. Plenty of people are messed up. Stop acting like it makes you special.”
His lips quirked, just as she’d hoped. “One minute you’re soothing my ego, the next minute you’re kicking it,” he said.
She snorted, settling her hands on his bare shoulders. “Your ego could give few fucks if someone kicks it. It’s remarkably unaffected by anyone else’s opinion.”
“As is yours, Queen of Indifference.”
She raised one shoulder. “At least I’m queen of something.”
He was quiet for a long moment, studying her face closely. “You never answered my question earlier.”
Knowing what he meant, she tensed. Hell.
“I need to know,” he said, his voice low.
She swallowed, panic welling up. “What if you don’t like what you hear?” He wouldn’t react well right then, while his mood was already foul and his control wasn’t at its best.
He gave her thighs a gentle squeeze. “I’m not going anywhere. No matter your answer, you’ll never be rid of me.”
Yeah, yeah, so he kept saying. She just hoped to the high heavens that he meant it, because there could be no blowing him off or delaying the conversation. He wouldn’t stand for it in this mood. Equally nervous of his answer, her bearcat went still, bracing herself for impact.
Aspen looked down at her lap as she forced herself to admit, “Well … well I like what we have. I’ll miss it when it’s gone. I don’t want it to be gone. To be over, I mean.” Not the most articulate of confessions, but it was succinct enough.
“Neither do I.”
She peeked up at him, hope sputtering to life in her chest. “You don’t?”
He shook his head, looking more serious than she’d ever seen him.
Her heart began to pound. “Could you be happy in a relationship, Camden? I mean, you’ve never given that much of yourself to any of your past partners.”
“They weren’t you. And I could ask you the same question. You were no more open with your past partners.”
“They weren’t you.” That had been the problem all along. How could she possibly have given anything of herself to someone else when she was all tangled up in him?
“A simple relationship won’t be enough for me. I want everything from you. Everything. Now here’s where you tell me what you want.”
Aspen blinked, taken aback by how calm and matter-of-fact his declaration was. She’d be both a fool and a bitch to not return that honesty. “I just want you. All of you. But—”
“You’re scared,” he finished in a whisper empty of judgement. “Scared we won’t form a mating bond. Scared that we will, because then you’d have someone’s mental wellbeing in your hands—you’ve seen how badly that can end. But here’s the thing, baby.” He threaded his fingers into her hair. “You’ve always anchored me that way. You always will, bond or no bond.”
She bit her lip. “So, to be clear … you want to claim me as your mate?” She had to be sure she wasn’t merely hearing what she wanted to hear. It all felt so surreal.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. You want that, too. Don’t you?”
Swallowing, she nodded.
A savage satisfaction set into every line of his face. “Then we take a chance, Aspen. Not a half-hearted one. We don’t go into this worrying it might go tits up. We don’t even allow ourselves to consider that it might. No, we fucking throw ourselves into this. We invest everything in it. Into us.”