The cocktail of emotions in his eyes was enough for me to battle against the prickle of tears at the backs of mine. I wanted to throw myself into his arms, tell him I was his, now and forever. To give in to the fairy tale. To believe him. I almost did; my arm actually twitched. But I held stock-still because this wasn’t a fairy tale. This was life. This was my life. The one I’d only just got back. The only one I had. And I couldn’t lose myself in another addiction just as I’d kicked the last one.
“I get it,” he said finally. “Fuckin’ kills me, but I get it. You’ve got the keys to the kingdom, baby, and I’ll wait for them ’cause it’s prime real estate. Mine. And you can have your kingdom as long as you reside in my house.”
I frowned at him. “I don’t think you get me.”
“Oh, I get you. But I’m havin’ you under my roof. You’ll get your own room. No funny business, I promise. I can keep my hands to myself, you know. I’m not an animal. Though I can’t say the same for you, having my manly deliciousness within licking distance.” He waggled his eyebrows and I couldn’t help but surrender to the grin that tickled the corner of my mouth.
He was tempting me. With his stupid grin, with the fact he didn’t blink at giving me what I wanted, even if it was ice cream. He wanted me. Me. After everything.
And I wanted him. After everything. I wanted nothing more than to move in with him. To be normal. Free from my nightmares.
But I was scared.
Terrified.
Not for me, for the grinning biker in front of me who apparently was willing to steal Golden Globes for me. To sell his soul for me.
“I’m never going to be free,” I whispered. I didn’t let the hardness of his jaw penetrate, and I straightened my back so I didn’t look like I was hunched over feeling sorry for myself. I wasn’t. Self-pity was an ugly emotion that I had no room for. “I’m okay with that. I’m at peace with that. I was born captured by a shitty childhood, and from then onwards I would live in captivity. I chose to chain myself to the needle. That’s for life. I’ll always be an addict, never be free of that label. It was a choice. It was on me, and I accept it.” I sucked in a breath. “What they… did, I’ll never be free of that either. It’s something I’ve survived but I’ll never be free from. I’ve accepted that too.” I found the courage to meet his hazel eyes. “But you can be. You can be free from all of that. I have to live in captivity because I’ve got no choice. It’s my life and I’ll live with it, but I won’t chain you down too. I won’t. I care far too much about you to do that.” I didn’t say how much because admitting it to myself was another set of chains I couldn’t accept. Because those didn’t scratch at my psyche and jar me with discomfort. They felt nice. Right.
I swallowed. “I care too much about you to let you be captured by all of that shit. You deserve freedom.”
My words floated into the air and hung there as his eyes never left mine, his gaze heavy on my face. That gaze said more than the mouthful I’d just uttered. It captured me in a way that I’d give away my freedom in a second to stay in it forever. Then he was in front of me, yanking me out of my chair so every inch of his body imprinted onto mine and his mouth covered mine, working against it with a ferocity I had no choice but to surrender to.
Just before my knees buckled, he let my mouth go, and I restrained a groan of protest. His forehead rested against mine.
“I care far too fuckin’ much about you to let you live in captivity alone. I’d gladly take a cage with you than an open world without you. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, and baby, I’ve got a fuck of a lot to lose.”
I blinked rapidly at his words, my heart thundering in my chest. Then my brows knitted and I squinted up at him. “Did you just quote Janis Joplin?”
A shadow of a grin tickled the edge of the intensity on his face. “The woman’s a wordsmith. I may have borrowed a line to get my point across,” he murmured, cupping my chin. “You want to chain me up to you, baby? It’s already been done. I’m yours. Only chains I’ll ever want are the ones connecting me to you. So just fuckin’ agree to move in with me.”