Page 56 of Vows of Blood

"Get out." There’s no heat in her words. She tries to hide it, but I hear the wobble in her voice, the emotion she’s refusing to acknowledge.

Fuck, her pain guts me.

"Sienna—"

"I said get out," she whispers, pulling her hair out from behind her ears so she can hide behind it. She lies down, curling onto her side, knees tucked up, giving me her back.

I should go, let her think about the offer I’ve made, allowing us both time to process how fucked up what my father did to keep us apart was, to mourn what could and should have been, but I can't make myself walk away. Not again. Not when I see her looking so lost.

As I crawl onto the bed, she tenses, feeling the mattress dip under my weight, but doesn’t look at me, refusing to let me see the tears she’s fighting back. "What are you doing?"

Smiling, I’m happy to hear her irritation again.

"Staying."

"I asked you to leave." She sighs, rubbing her temples. “This has been… a lot. Can’t I have some time alone to think?”

I stretch out behind her, not touching, but close enough that I can feel the heat of her body. Close enough that her scent fills my lungs with every breath.

"The idea that you’d changed your mind, that you didn’t want me the way I wanted you, devastated me.” Speaking to the back of her head is the only way I can get these words out.

She doesn't respond, holding her tension in her shoulders as she listens and waits.

Running a finger gently between her shoulder blades, along her spine to the middle of her back, over and over, the way I used to when she was worked up over exams and needed to calm down, the repetitive action soothing me as much as her.

"So, I made you the villain. Chose to believe him when I shouldn’t have and refused to get in touch, telling myself I wasn’t going to chase you when you rejected me, rejected us."

This time, I start a little higher, at the base of her neck, touching bare skin, and traveling all the way to the curve near the bottom of her spine.

"It was the only way I could survive, the only way I could make myself stay away, because I knew that if I defied him, he’d kill us both."

The silence stretches between us.

Then, barely a whisper, "We were so young."

I shift closer, my body pressing against her back, my arm sliding around her waist.

She lets out a shaky breath and melts into me.

"And we were good together," I murmur against her hair as a barrage of memories assaults me. Sienna in my arms, lying on the beach, watching the sunset. Waking up beside each other, naked, in a tangle of sheets.

"It’s a terrible idea." She turns in my arms, her face now inches from mine, those stunning eyes searching for something or someone I’m not sure is there anymore.

"It is." My fingers travel over her hips to rest on her waist, my thumb brushing across the tiny strip of creamy skin I see there.

"Messy. And complicated.”

There’s no denying that.

I nod. “Dangerous too.”

Finn O’Sullivan might use it as a reason to get rid of me. My father might go back on his deal to hand over the business. We could kill each other if the last two days are anything to go by.

“I’m so angry at you." She arches a little, closing the gap between us just a bit, but it’s enough.

"I know."

I kiss her, softer than in the kitchen, a question instead of a demand.