Page 137 of Born for Lace

He rounds on me and Spero, blocking the bedroom door. “I can take care of you,” he presses, taking a single step toward me, forcing me backward.

I gape at him.

“All three of you.” His eyes narrow as if trying to puncture the layers of denial that surround me. “He’ll never be what you need. Even if he gets better.”

“Do you want him to?”

“Yes, of course!” he bites out. Then pauses, too quick to answer. Too quick for his heart it seems…

He exhales hard, a painful truth riding his breath. “Andno, because no matter what he does, you’re basically blind to it.”

“I am not blind to it.”

“I can’t stand this.” His voice swims with admiration as he says, “And now that you’re so pregnant, so damn beautiful…” He falters, resentment taking hold. “Ihatethat you’re with him. I can’t stand it. Three nights at the farmhouse. Three nights I had to listen to him fu—” Inhaling steadily, he seems to bridle his emotions. “I hated it. I sat in the kitchen and listened, tortured myself over you. And then, that last night, I let myself sin. I pretended it was me. I closed my eyes and pretended I was the one inside you. I don’t want to share you. I hated when Robert grabbed you from me, and I despise Lagos for coming for you.”

I swallow. “You’re my friend.”

“Am I?” He crosses his arms, puffing out his chest as he stares down at me. “You don’t treat me like a friend. The way you threw your arms around me in the tunnel didn’t feel like we werejustfriends.”

That hurts. I was desperately happy to see him. So utterly overwhelmed to see the man who was safe and kind to me. “I care about you. That is why.”

“See”—he shakes his head, not accepting the truth— “I think you do love me. I think you just can’t see it. I would be so good to you and Spero, and the baby. I have already worked it all out with Robert.”

Worked what out?

“Well, it is not up to Robert. This is… This is that thing you spoke of.” I walk to the cot and try to hide the way my hands tremble as I lay Spero inside. “How men become obsessed when they are denied.” I straighten. “Just stop, Tomar. I don’t feel that way about you.”

“Do you remember when you asked about sex?” His breathing becomes strange, fast and unsteady. “About finding a boyfriend and experiencingit. See, I think he just got to you first. You were so easily manipulated by him. Girls fall in love with the first man who they let touch them because they have been vulnerable. I saw him hurting you, Dahlia. I wouldn’t do it like that. I would be gentle with you?—”

“Stop!” I punch the word at him. “He isn’t usually like that. That wasn’t him. That was the coil. You know that.”

Too many feelings muddle my head, and I decide to push straight past him before we both say something we’ll regret, but he grabs me around the upper arms and shoves me to my backside on the bed.

I stare up at him in horror.

He looks down at his hands, shocked. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He lifts his gaze to where I am on the mattress, bracing myself on my hands, and a darkness coasts through his glowing blue eyes. “God, you’re beautiful. If you were with me,vulnerablewith me, just once, I could show you. I am a good man.”

“You’re scaring me,” I admit, feeling exposed and defenceless on the mattress, but unable to move. My muscles fill with heavy fear that locks me in place.

“I’m scaring you?” He spits out, still standing over me at the end of the bed. “I’mscaringyou.Me? When you have let him inside you, and I am the one who scares you?”

I don’t know what to say.

“Just tell me this,”—he clasps his hands together in front of him— “If he’s brain dead, if he’s broken or volatile and has to be destroyed, could you learn to love me?”

Destroyed?

He isn’t a machine!

Even crawling with unease, I answer him honestly because he is my friend. A littlebitof me. “You remember when you said that you can’t control grief?” I recall a time when his presence was comforting and safe. “Remember, you said you feel it everywhere, in your stomach and chest. This is like that. I won’t ever love anyone else like this.”

He chuckles, but it’s unfeeling. “You will. You could. I could show you. If you let me touch you, you’ll see what it’s like to have gentle, loving hands on you. That’s all I want.”

The taste of metal slides along my tongue moments before, “Time to visit your God.”

Lagos’ inhuman voice booms from behind Tomar, the depth capable of shaking the small cabin to pieces, splinter by splinter.

“Lagos.”

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