Dino has always been the one who knows what I’m thinking before I think it, but lately, he’s too consumed with his hurt over what I did. I may not understand human emotion, but I know anger when I see it…and fear.
Dino is afraid of me.
As usual, that gives me goosebumps, tiny electrical pulses trembling through every cell in my body, telling me it’s time to hunt. But there’s also another reaction—my heart feels heavy, my breathing strained, and my gut twists harshly, all when I see the uncertain way he looks at me. I’m used to all kinds of rawness in his blue orbs because out of all the boys. Dino is an open book. But fear has never been there….
And I like it too much.
“You’re afraid of me,” I say, just coming out with it.
His frown deepens. “I’m…” He stops to run a hand through his hair, breaking eye contact. His eyes are flintier, harder when he looks back at me. “I’m not afraid. I just don’t know if I still love you.”
I tilt my head, waiting, mainly because I don’t know what to say next. I don’t even know what love is anyway.
“After…what happened,” he carries on. “The first thing I wanted when I woke up was to see you. I know you didn’t mean it. It was the rage in you, reacting. You were in your zone, and I fucked it up. I took your outlet away from you.” His eyes burn into me as he says the next part. “That’s why I held you. Didn’t try and stop you.” He almost chokes on the last part. “I let you use me to let out the rage.”
Something dark and feral tugs in my chest. I swallow it down, stifling it before it can rise and become me. “I could have killed you,” I say on the surface, matter-of-factly.
His dimple puckers. “And I would have let you,” he counters.
“But why?” I’m glaring at him now, unable to keep the anger from rising. Why the fuck am I pissed at him?
“Because…” He stares into my eyes, unflinching. “I would have done anything for you.”
“And now?”
He shakes his head, drawing in a breath. “Now, I can’t stand the sight of you.” I don’t say anything to that. I wait, watching him search for the words. “I waited in that damn hospital. Everyone I hated was there; my mother, my stepfather, my uncles, even your fucking father, but not you.”
“I was arrested,” I say, blinking at him.
“I know that now, but I didn’t know then. And when I found out, I was so fucking pissed off at you for not even bothering to come to see me before….” He drops his eyes, unable to look at me anymore, hands becoming fists. “You decided to save Jude instead.”
“I came to see you,” I say slowly.
His snort turns into a sneer. “You didn’t try that hard.”
“Lorcan and Dante tried to keep me away,” I say, thinking back to what happened. “But I ditched them, stole Dante’s car, and drove to St Guy’s Hospital.” Dino’s gaze, still shuttered, shifts upward, resting on me as I speak. “I walked in through the emergency entrance because I was covered in your blood and didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I got as far as the corridor to your room,” I say, letting Dino see the truth in my eyes. “But my father saw me, and then I couldn’t go any further. I turned around and walked out. I’d already called the police and turned myself in before I arrived, so they were waiting when I left the hospital. And then it was too late. I couldn’t go back.”
Dino doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me, eyes searching my face.
He wants more. He needs more than that. I drag in a lungful of air and then shift in my seat. My legs are falling asleep. Dino is still watching, waiting. But I don’t know what the hell to say next.
“Why did you want to see me?” he asks after a few beats.”
“I wanted to see you because everything inside me was…falling apart.” I give a slight shrug. “It still is.”
“You need me,” he says. It’s more of a statement than a question.
“No, I don’t.”
He frowns.
“I don’t need anyone, but I want you. There’s the difference.”
“Why?” he practically growls out the word.
“Because…” I search my newly created relationship arsenal for something to say he’ll accept. “You’re the light to my darkness.”
He closes his eyes, letting out a long sigh. When his baby blue eyes refix themselves on me, the furrow in his brow is gone, and the weight behind his eyes is less.