“That he is being completely faithful to you and doesn’t unleash his…other side. I thought it noble at first, but it is anything but.”
“Seb, what are you saying?”
“That you have to tell him it is okay to be who he is,” he says again. “That you will love him and still want to be with him, even if he does those things you disapprove of. Christ knows you put him through the ringer on a daily basis.”
“Yes, well what goes around, comes around,” I say mutinously, and he laughs softly.
“Well, I don’t suppose I can argue with you for thinking that. But you have the upper hand now. Tell him it’s okay.” He squeezes my hand and I shake my head.
“I’ve told him it’s okay, that I hold no demands on him. He says I do. I can’t force him to do something he doesn’t want to do. His guilt over whatever it was you did with Vivienne is what started all this time jumping in the first place. And he won’t do it with me,” I add so quietly that I don’t think he heard me at first.
“You’ve asked him to?” he asks after a few minutes.
“Yes. But he won’t.”
“Of course he won’t,” he snaps at me and I glare at him to shush. He lowers his voice again, “He would rather rip his own head off than hurt you like that. Are you insane for even suggesting that to him? No wonder he has taken such a firm stance on this. You must take it back. Tell him you don’t want him to do it to you, but he can do it to someone else.”
“I don’t want him to,” I admit sheepishly.
“This isn’t about you. It is what is best for him.”
“Why do you care so much?” I ask suddenly. “This is more than just charge-like concern.”
“I love him,” he says. “He isn’t just my sire. He is my friend. My best friend.”
Interesting, but I can’t resist the dig, “Yet you want what is his.”
“You aren’t his,” he says shortly. “Not yet, anyway.”
And that sounds all too familiar.
“You know, if you were mine, I wouldn’t object to your other lovers joining us regularly. I’m quite partial to seeing a woman’s pleasure,” he says conversationally.
I flick my eyes to his. He is being completely serious. About the whole thing. If I were his, indeed.
He clears his throat and changes the subject, holding up my hand, wrist facing out. “What’s with that? I thought you said you were trying to break it. Looks like it is getting stronger.”
“I am unable to break it,” I say.
“Because you can’t or don’t want to?”
“Both,” I admit defeat and he sighs.
“Liv, I can’t bear another secret on top of the ones that are already piling up. I know I have my hand in some of them, but it is getting too much.”
“Then just forget it. You never saw us, I never told you, we didn’t come to an agreement. It’s all redundant now after next week because we will be together properly, and that agreement will be null and void.”
“But I will still know something about you that he doesn’t.”
“You know lots of things about me that he doesn’t. And you won’t tell him because if you do then I will leave, and you will never see me again.”
“That threat is a fate worse than death,” he says sadly. “And I won’t tell about that, but this brings me back to the fact that you need to tell him about your Fae…err, F.H.”
“Not yet,” I say and we both make noises of frustration.
“Look,” I say. “I will go to the future and see what is happening there and then I will come back, and we can make the decision, together. Okay? It might be that it is best kept quiet, or maybe it is best that we come clean. And by we, I mean both of us.”
“Me? I have nothing to hide.”