Page 110 of The King's Maiden

The pain dulled. But it didn’t ease completely.

Because some things never left us.

And that pain, those tears—they’d never stop coming.

“You’re alright,” Landon echoed those words again, exhaling them like an answered prayer. His voice pitched low like he couldn’t believe it.

I saw it, then—what I’d missed while I cried in his arms.

His eyes had tears in them, too.

I took his face in my hands, closing my eyes as he pressed our foreheads together. “I’m alright. I’m sorry. I just?—”

“Panicked.” He pulled my head back to his chest, tucking me under his chin. “You just panicked. You’re alright.”

His hands stroked up my back and tangled in my hair, and his heart felt like it was trying to beat its way out of his chest. Mine did, too.

But eventually, it slowed.

And, lying there together, we fell asleep holding onto each other in the dark.

Chapter Thirty-One

QUINN

I’d been staring at the ceiling for the last twenty minutes.

After Landon had barged into the bathroom and pulled me out of my panic, we fell asleep. At some point, I woke to him scooping me off the floor. I barely remembered making it to the bed, but I couldn’t forget crying into his chest until I fell back asleep.

Waking up alone in bed after all of that, somehow, I still felt safe and warm. Tucked under the covers Landon had pulled up around me, I opened my eyes to find I’d curled toward the window where he slept.

And once again, he was gone.

After what happened last night and what I’d shared with him, he wasn’t there. But I’d woken up plenty of times in the last two weeks without him—that wasn’t even the problem.

It was that Iwantedhim to be there.

That tiny realization made my heart pound.

Oh, fuck.

Shooting upright, I threw the covers off my body. I kicked the sheets away with my feet, as if the bed had been filled with snakes. Though, the real betrayer rested in my chest.

When I uncovered a silk pajama set I hadnotfallen asleep in last night, I shot right past how Landon had dressed me and went straight to freaking out.

The pajamas had gotten twisted overnight, the shorts riding up my ass and my tits falling almost completely out of the camisole. I had absolutely no choice but to tear it off my body.

I needed my sleep shirt.

I needed my inhaler.

And I needed…Fuck. To be honest, I probably needed breakfast, but the only thing on the menu was a large helping of grade A panic.

I couldn’t deny it anymore. And I couldn’t blame it on the orgasms. I couldn’t cheapen it or refuse to claim it.

All I could do was wonder how I could be sofuckingstupid.

I’d done the one thing I said I wouldn’t—the last thing I needed to do. I’d gone and gotten myself attached, and now I was waking up all heart-eyed emoji over the way the guy had tucked me into bed.

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