“Three?” I shift so that I’m braced over him, careful not to rest too much of my weight on his upper body where he’s still healing, but less careful in other areas.
Neither of us are wearing more than undershirts and sleep pants, in part because getting fully dressed seemed impractical and in part because we are both running dangerously short on intact clothing. Through the thin fabric, my eyes flutter closed at the feel of him against me, but I don’t need to see him to know he’s grinning. I can hear it in his voice when he murmurs, “Wake up ready, don’t you?”
I huff out a laugh, no sense in denying it, but I still try, just so I can tell myself I have some semblance of control here. “You’rethe one who’s been sleepin’. I’ve been awake for a few hours.”
Cypress chuckles, lifting his head and kissing my jaw with such intensity that I don’t need a mirror to know I’m as marked up as he is. “How fortunate for you that it won’t take me nearly as long to catch up.”
To prove it to me, he lifts his hips, grinding against me, letting me know the extent to which both of us are already hard, already needy. And suddenly, I’m not so sated after all. I’m not sure I ever will be.
“What’s the third?” I ask him, distracting myself by burying my face into his neck. Right over where I can feel his pulse. Strong, but starting to race. “I only remember two.”
His pulse picks up. “Hm?”
“I remember Maddock. Then the last one.” I lift my head and stare down at him before asking again, “What’s the third?”
That vulnerability is back in his eyes, a wariness, too, as if he’s not sure he should say, but part of me is nearly sure he already has, that he’s tried.I have been in love with you to the point of madness for nearly ten years.
Ten years. Same amount of time that had passed since Dolly met him, since he wandered back to her place wounded. It’s not possible, and yet…
You ever think about what’s coming out of your mouth before you say it?
Always.
I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.
Better. Because then you know I mean it.
“Cy,” I murmur, tracing the scar on his chin. “Why do you call me wolf?”
“Suits you,” he whispers, eyes searching my face as he gives me the same answer he did on Dolly’s rooftop. “Told you that.”
“You did,” I reply, not saying more until I’ve rolled us so that we’re lying side by side and facing each other. “But you didn’t tellme why.”
He hesitates. “Didn’t think you wanted to know.”
“I do now,” I reassure him. “You remember being on the train?”
He frowns. “A bit.”
“You told me some things. And before we left, Dolly did, too,” I say slowly, still watching him closely. “About what happened to you.” I brush some of the messy strands from his forehead, clearing my view of his stunning blue eyes. “She said you’ve never told her all of it.”
His mouth presses into a tight line. “Didn’t want to burden her with that.”
“Cy…” I murmur, inching closer so that my forehead is pressed to his as I wrap an arm around him, tight enough to hold us both together. “Will you tell me?”
“Why?” he mutters. “So you can be burdened instead?”
“So I can keep my word to you,” I tell him. “I want your future, Cypress, but I want your past, too. So when you go back to visit it, you’re not alone there anymore either.”
He takes a deep breath, lets it out. Then another. “I do go back sometimes. Even though I don’t want to.”
“I know.” I sigh. “I do, too.”
For a time, both of us stay as we are, breathing each other in and taking comfort in the fact that there are some things we don’t have to explain. Not to each other. Makes it easier then, I think, to ask for the things we do.
“Dolly said you told her there were people you lost. That you were trying to find them? People thatmet you in the dark. And on the train, you mentioned you see them when you sleep.”
“Not anymore,” he says, his voice quiet like a whisper even though there’s no one but us and the water running by. He shifts, somehow getting closer. “Dolly told you? About some of the young women being abducted from her place?”