The lines of determination etched into his face made her inwardly curse. He wasn’t going to back down, and she was too disheartened to argue with him. She wanted to get the whole thing over with so she could go lick her emotional wounds in privacy. “Fine.” She folded her arms, her clipped tone indicating that she was merely humoring him.
His hand still palming her face, he brushed his thumb over her mouth. “I propose we stop fighting ourselves on what we want. It’s pointless. It’s maddening. And it’s hurting us both. I say we agree to accept that we’ll never be platonic anchors and go ahead and fucking embrace it.”
“Yeah? For how long?”
He gave her a look of amused affection, as if the answer should be obvious and he found it cute that she was clueless. He dipped his head so their mouths were mere inches apart. “Indefinitely, baby,” he replied, his voice low and soft.
Her world stopped. Her heart sped up. Her thoughts scattered.
She wasn’t sure how long she stared at him, completely lost for words, but she eventually asked, “You … you mean that?”
“I mean it.” He danced his fingertips down one side of her face. “I’ll do what I can to ease my workload. I know you wouldn’t ask that of me, but I’ll be doing it anyway. Not only for you, but for me too. I want to free up time so I can be where I most want to be—with you.”
It was hard to grasp what he was saying. To process it. To believe it. To allow herself to believe it. But Levi was telling the truth—she saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. So did her demon. The entity relaxed, satisfied. “You really are serious about this.”
“Deadly.”
“And you’re not high or anything?”
His lips quirked. “No, not high.” He smoothed his hands up her arms. “I know my past history with relationships isn’t great. The truth is I was pretty blasé about them. They were more like a diversion. I didn’t think I’d ever want to claim a mate, but then you came into my world and made yourself the most important thing in it. That would have been the case even if you weren’t my anchor, because you’re quite simply you.” He brushed her hair away from her face. “There’s no going back for me. Even if you turn me down, I’ll still always want everything from you. There’ll never be any changing that. But I don’t think you want that to change. I think you want all that I want. Am I wrong?”
She swallowed. “No.”
His gaze flared with warmth. “Then let’s not make this more complicated than it has to be. We’ve already hemmed and hawed rather than taking the jump we should have took well before now. Let’s not do that anymore.”
She licked her lips. “I’m good with not wasting more time.”
He palmed her neck with both hands. “Then this is how things are going to be from now on. You’re mine. I’m yours. Not merely as anchors, but as mates. This is permanent, exclusive, and as serious as serious can get.” His eyes bore into hers, searching. “Can we agree on that?”
“Yes. I prefer this agreement over the last one you came up with.” She’d expected to see triumph in his eyes. Instead, it was relief.
“Thank Christ.” He drew her close and curled his arms around her. His mouth quickly found hers. The kiss wasn’t hard or wild. It also wasn’t sweet or slow. It was hot, deep, and filled with promise … like they were sealing a deal. “I thought I might have to spend hours convincing you to give us a shot at making it work.”
“Like you, I don’t see the point in hemming and hawing any longer. I’ve already learned that only being your friend sucks. I wasn’t happy. And I missed you. It felt like there was this … hole in our dynamic, in what we’d built.”
“I know what you mean. For me, something was missing. And you’d slammed that wall up between us, and I didn’t know how to get it down.”
She winced. “I had to put the wall there. I only meant to do it for a little while. Just until I could think of you without wanting to ride you like a pony.” She smiled at his snort. “Hell, I was so desperate to turn off all I felt for you that I even clung to some of the bullshit Celeste spouted at the studio.”
He raised a brow. “Are you going to finally tell me about it? People do that in relationships, you know,” he said, oh so reasonable. “Share important things.”
“Is that so?” She had a feeling he’d throw those words at her whenever she had even the smallest secret.