“This isn’t Romeo and Juliet, Rosie. You think only one person’s gonna die if we get found out? No. We both know, if you’ll just let yourself think about it logically for one second, that we keep doin’ this and we get found out, it isn’t only you and me in jeopardy. It’s your friends and family, your dad, Loulou and her fucking unborn children, your brother and his girlfriend, one of your best friends, Lila, Nova, and Bat, and Maja and Buck. You want to see all those lives go up in flames because we were too selfish to let go of this thing we got between us?”
He shook me gently by the shoulders, his eyes so green they burned through me like acid.
Something in me broke at the poignancy of his words and anger went flooding through me. I wanted to rally at the moon, curse the gods and sacrifice anyone but him. Instead, I shoved him away hard with a two-handed push and snarled at him even as I felt my heart beat and throb for him, the kick beat to every word I yelled.
“Loving you was never a decision I made. There was nothing conscious about it so how can I be logical about it now? I know it doesn’t make sense, the two of us, the good guy and the bad girl, with your family and my family. I know I make you crazy and I make you mad. You think I don’t know all that? Well, I do. So, stop telling me to think logically about this shit. There’s no logic to our love, only a feeling I’ve got so deep in the heart of me if I rip it out, I just know I’ll stop living.”
“You telling me you love me?” he asked, so low I almost didn’t hear the words, but I felt them. Each one hit a note deep inside me, plucking at an instrument only he knew how to play.
I blinked at him, chewed my lips and cursed myself for letting my hot head get me into such a fucked up, vulnerable situation, especially in the face of what I had to do.
But then it occurred to me that Reaper, Mutt and Twiz were outside waiting, guns at their belts and wicked knives in their boots. There was no getting out of what I had to do to guarantee my family’s safety.
It was Danner or them. And there were so many more of them, countless names that he had just reeled off like a grocery list.
One or a dozen.
The love of my life or the people who had given me life and raised me.
I knew what the answer would be.
So, I sucked in a deep breath and decided to be selfish like only I could be.
I decided to enjoy the only moment I would ever have with him where I could love him freely.
“Yeah, so what?” I said, sassy because he liked it and I knew it. “It’s not like you don’t love me too.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” he agreed instantly, in that long, honeyed drawl he used when I said something that affected him. “I love you and know the way most people know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that bikers know the sound of Harley pipes, and cops know the difference between fucking right and fucking wrong that you and I are made for each other.”
“Fuck,” I breathed through the rush of tears attacking the backs of my eyes. “You’re going to make me cry again. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with me lately?’
Danner bit the side of his grin but then gave up and blasted me with the beauty of his full smile, creases cut into his cheeks and pressed beside his glittering eyes. I even loved his strong, square teeth so white against his skin.
“Fuck,” I repeated again, feeling overwhelmed nearly to the point of hysteria. “I feel like I might faint or something equally wussy.”
His head tipped back as he laughed, exposing the long column of his throat. Before that moment, I’d never known an Adam’s apple could be so goddamn sexy. Before I could shake myself out of my stupor, he was on me, lifting me into the air so that I instinctively wrapped myself around him.
“You love me, Rosie?” he asked, looking up at me with carefree joy, his face boyishly open.
I wanted to rip him apart limb by limb with my teeth and fingers turned into claws. I wanted to hold his lion’s heart in my hands too tightly and feel it beat and throb for me, against me. I wanted to disassemble him, piece by bloody piece, to satisfy my burning passion, my crushing rage at the changes he’d wrought on my life and me.
But then…I wanted to sit crossed-legged in the middle of the mess, smooth my claws turned fingers over the jagged edges of him and put him back together again. I wanted to trace the outline of each of his limbs, knot together his muscles and slot his bones into their joints. I wanted to sew myself into every atom of his DNA and live there forever, intrinsically tied to him so that if any force tried to tear me away like I knew they would, they’d have to kill him to separate us.