I’ve never needed company or companionship to keep myself entertained. All it took was a quick trip to the club to watch a scene and get off, or maybe find a stranger for the night that I would never think about again after I walked out the door.
With Temperance, everything has been different from the beginning.
I didn’t know I could want or need someone so badly. In the past, I would have worried about whether having a woman of my own could be turned into a weakness that could be exploited. But watching Mount and Keira has shown me that the right woman can make a man even stronger. Even more purposeful and deadly. Because there are no lengths to which he won’t go to protect her.
Regardless of what happens next, we will be fine.
It’s with that thought I doze off in my bed, my limbs tangled with Temperance’s.
We’re on top of the world. Not a damn thing or person can come between us.
Or so I think until I wake again.
The side of Temperance’s face is pressed to my chest and she shifts, opening her eyes.
“Give me a couple hours, and I’ll have the strength to go get your stuff from your apartment and move it here,” I say as I absently stroke her hair.
She stills. “What?”
“Your stuff. You’re moving in. The warehouse is yours, anyway. Might as well use it. Plus, it has everything you need to work, and I’ll get you anything else you want.”
She rolls off my chest and props herself up on an elbow. Her dark eyes look too serious.
“What’s wrong?”
“We need to talk about a few things first.”
“Like?”
“The fact that I don’t want to move out of my apartment again so you can keep me locked away from the world until you deem the threat has been eliminated.”
My thoughts had been exactly that. “I won’t compromise on your safety. You can’t expect me to.”
“Then I guess you’re moving in with me, because I’ve decided that I’m going tolivefor real this time, which means not being shut away from the world.”
Fuck. Of course she would want that, and I’m not going to stand in her way ... but with one stipulation.
“I can’t move in with you. What will your friends think? The guy who killed your brother and came back from the dead? That’s not going to happen.”
“First, did I ask you to move in with me?” She tilts her head.
“Temperance—”
She interrupts me with a laugh and a smile. “I’m kidding. Iamasking you to move in with me, and you don’t have to worry about the rest.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t tell anyone anything.”
I blink at her several times. “What?”
The humor fades from her eyes. “I wasn’t exactly functioning, and even if I had been, I wasn’t going to tell everyone how stupid I’d been. Keira said she didn’t know who you were. So, I assume that means only Mount does, which means ... youcanmove in with me. You can have a life outside the shadows too, Kane.”
The realization stuns me.
A life outside the shadows. That’s not something I’ve ever tried. Keeping to myself was always the easiest solution, and everything else presented too many problems to deal with.
But for Temperance, I would find a way to solve every single one of them. I wouldn’t have to watch her live, I could do it with her. It was like someone handed me the keys to a kingdom I never contemplated entering before.