Page 156 of Burn

Actually, this is how it went down. After sacrificing my body to the fire gods, he rushed out of the hotel, got lost and they found him dead in the stairwell. Died from smoke inhalation hours later.

How’s that for karma? The fire set to kill the girl you’re obsessed with like some kind of sick fuck kills you.

I won’t be attending his funeral.

When my dad leaves, there’s a look of concern on Caleb’s face I’d never seen before. A look that, for someone as controlled as he always has been, seems disoriented and confused.

I’m the first to speak. “I don’t care what you say next, Caleb Mathew Ryan, but I love you, and if you thinking you’ve burned me to the ground, well then, by all means, I’ll be ashes if it means I can have you too.”

He inhales deeply, searching for words, or maybe the courage to say them. Maybe he sees when you finally listen, when you find the words you need, that’s when the pain finally stops. “Don’t give up on me.”

“I’m not going to. I’m very determined.” I hold up my bandaged arm, smiling. “Even burns couldn’t keep me down.”

He laughs, lightly and leans in. There’s a smile on his face, but it does nothing to ease the conflict in his eyes. “Does it feel like I don’t care?” he asks, reaching for my hand again, his tone full of warmth. “That I don’t love you?”

Oh shit, we’re being serious. When I don’t say anything, he stares at me. I hesitate for a moment but say, “I know you love me, but you don’t knowhowto say it.”

His jaw tightens, eyes searching mine for an answer, a way to say the words his mouth won’t form. You’d think it’d be easy, right? Just say what you mean. It’s not for someone like Caleb because everything he’s ever loved has been brutally ripped from his life and burned.

“If you can’t feel my intentions here, I’m doing something wrong, and I’m sorry for that. If this stops beating”—he brushes his knuckles softly over my left breast above my heart—“mine does, too.”

I’ve had a few experiences of intimacy in my life, and all of them have been very different from one another and only physical. Even my connection with Caleb was physical in the beginning, but he tested my vulnerabilities and weakened my ability to say no to him since the first time I sat on his lap. He stole my heart, and he knew I would never be the same. He made sure of it.

I try to think about this in a way Caleb would, related to a fire.

In order for a fire to burn you need three things. Oxygen. Heat. Fuel.

We’ve got oxygen, we’ve got heat, now we needed something to burn.

Someone once told me that in order to make a relationship work, you have to give it everything you have and then give everything you didn’t think you had to give.

It makes sense now.

And as I look at him now, a shell of the man I first met, I’m reminded that I’ve seen his anger, his pride and watched them destroy him just the same.

But I’ve never seen him like this. In love and close to admitting it.

As carefully as I can, I lean forward and press my palms to his cheeks. His eyes are anxious. He’s not sure what I’m going to say next, and it scares him. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes again, those evergreen depths are full of anger and pain.

I don’t want to cry, but the tears surface and then spill over before I can stop them. “Caleb, if we don’t give this everything we have, we’re always going to wonder. I don’t want that. I want to know I gave everything I had.”

Leaning in, his breath blows over my face as he breathes, then presses a gentle kiss on my lips. “I want that, too,” he says against my tear-soaked lips, his hands sliding from my cheeks, mindful of my burns. “I can’t lose you.” Drawing back, his stare is intense, like he knows what’s said next is important. “I know I haven’t said it, and it’s not that I don’t feel it. It’s because love isn’t a word I can use as easily as others would, not with what I’ve seen. I don’t feel love when I’m with you.” My brow furrows, an ache in my chest as I attempt to follow what he’s saying. It doesn’t help that I’m on pain pills and they’re clouding my thoughts, but he’s speaking from his heart and I know I need to listen carefully. “Love is an experience. You can’t put a word on an experience. It’s impossible. It’s something that finds you like the way forgiveness finds you, or tragedy, it’s something that happens in the aftermath of an experience.” His eyes narrow, intent on mine, and I blink, waiting for him to continue. “But in the sense that I know you need tohearit, somewhere along the lines I fell in love with you. It wasn’t romantic, it was dirty, but I fell anyway.”

My chin shakes, a soft smile tugs at the corners of my mouth having heard those words from him. Momentarily, I shift my stare to his hands. I study the cuts and scars on them, a lifetime of working hard for what he wants displayed in every detail of them. This man saved me and he loves me. “Caleb Ryan,” I choke out between tears I quickly brush away. “Was that your way of telling me you’re completely and irrevocably in love with me?”

He laughs, smiling now, his forehead pressing against mine. “Yeah, I suppose it was.” And then he says, “I love you, Milena.”

The sincerity in his eyes makes me wants to kiss the hell out of him, again.

Caleb looks away, toward the window and takes a few deep breaths through his nose, then swallows hard. “I don’t know if I ever said it, but I’m sorry for the way I acted with you. For everything. I shouldn’t have . . . I’m just sorry.”

Shoving the ache aside, I take a deep breath. “Don’t be.”

His jaw clenches and I know whatever it is he’s trying to say is harder than he imagined it would be. “No, I need to be. There are so many times I treated you badly and shouldn’t have. I’m a lucky son of a bitch to have you still here after all that.” There’s truth in his words and conviction in his eyes, and I believe him. I do.

“You’re right,” I tease trying to return the lightness of the moment we just had a minute ago. “And I forgive you.” Placing my palms on his chest, I grip the dark fabric, clinging to him in any way I can. “So you kindareallylike me, don’t you?”

He smiles, blinking slowly, a boyish smirk I remember lifts the corners of his mouth. “A little bit.”

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