Page 71 of Dravin

“Keep telling yourself that. Or don’t. Maybe you should stop listening to whatever it is in your head telling you those lies. They’re patently untrue.” I grasp his arm. He tries to angle away, but I hold tight. “For someone who borderline made me an obsession, you’re doing a really good job of running away.”

“I’m right here.”

“But we’ve talked. It’s so obvious what you want. Why can’t you just believe me? Why can’t you believeinme?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it? You just said this is our life, but you’re trying very hard not to live it together. I let go of his arm and make a fist, placing it over his heart. “We don’t have the same heart or the same past, but you can live your truth, and I can live mine and maybe we can live them side by side. This isn’t asee where it goessituation. This is anit goes where we make it.”

“I’m not trying to fight you,” he growls, but the rasp in his voice betrays how emotional he’s getting. “I’m trying to give you real options, not take them away.”

“Fair enough. But just because I have a choice doesn’t mean I’ll choose to walk. I know you damn well haveserious whiplash. I get that. But I’m making my position pretty clear right now. I’ll do everything in my power not to hurt you like I’ve been hurt and not to leave you like everyone else in my life has left me. I know how painful grief is… how it can be so much better when you have someone to walk through it with.” I’m fighting tears now, but I’m not going to let them stop me from getting this out. Who knows if I’ll ever have another chance? Not just because tomorrow is never guaranteed, but because Dravin could shut me out completely. “Quit fighting me when the war is out there! We’re not about anything out there. Not my brother, not the shit that brought us here, not the world. We’re about you and me and what we want. I want you, but you want to be scared. So, dig deep, find your balls, and let’sfucking go.”

That was mean, and borderline too far. If I was sober, I never would have said it or at least encouraged him in a different way. I should have told him that he’s gorgeous inside and out and has the rarest heart in the world.

I suppose I did.

Before I insulted him.

I open my mouth to apologize but his huge hands dip into my hair, framing my face. He backs me against the door.

“Imperfection is the only form of perfection in this life,” I whisper, canting my head up. “You’re my light in all this dark, Dravin.”

He’s not going to do it even though he’s close. Even though his body is pressed up against mine and his hands are in my hair and on my face.

I’m the one who pulls him down to me.

I’m the one who slants my mouth over his and kisses him. His mouth is fire, like the rest of him. As soon as I open my mouth, whimpering at the sheer bliss of tasting him, some of that carefully controlled fire spreads to me. His resolve crumbles, or maybe he was just waiting for me to unlock this in him, to be beyond certain.

His hand slips from my face. He punches a code in at the door and shoves it open. That answers my question about him having a room here.

Strong arms encircle me, sweeping me inside. He shuts the door behind us, dropping his nose to my neck and nuzzling my earlobe, breathing me in loudly. He’s all aching tenderness, but his arms are locked tight around me. Whatever the energy is between us, it’s not all stark desire and sexual tension. There’s an undercurrent of something much stronger and far more unyielding. It pulses in my stomach like a second heartbeat, matching the one throbbing behind my ribs.

I’ve never loved a man before.

But I could love him.

So much of me does already. To me, love means trust. It means loyalty. It means goodness. I’m not talking white knight level heroism here. Just everyday, normal, living your life with honesty and integrity.

“You want to stay, I’ll find a way to be happy here. I was wrong about this place, and your instincts were right. I spoke from fear and prejudice, not from any real experience. If you want to leave, I’ll follow you.”

He groans and brackets my head with one hand, guiding me into his chest. I drink him in, soaking up his scentand warmth, my body and my soul growing more and more desperate for his.

As good as this is, I don’t want to just stand here all night.

I break away, walking over to the double bed. The room is small, though not uncomfortable and certainly not stark. The clubhouse clearly used to be some kind of factory or warehouse or something. The exterior is brick. When it was turned into a biker clubhouse, they obviously kept as much of the old look as they could.

There are a few bottles of water on the nightstand. I twist the cap off one and take a drink, then spin around and upend the rest of the bottle over Dravin’s head.

“What the hell?” he sputters, coughing as the water runs over his nose and mouth. He’s frozen for a minute before he shakes his head, sending droplets of water spraying all over the place. He swipes his soaked hair out of his face and snaps his head back.

I break out in goosebumps seeing his snarl, but at the same time, noting the way his lips twitch at the corners, like he expected me to do something crazy.

“You’re hot when you’re wet,” I tell him. “I love that you’re dressed in all black and that you look all menacing and deadly, but then you’ve got water trickling down your temples and you also look good enough to devour.”

I plant my hands on his chest, stand on my tiptoes and arch up, licking from his sharp jawline all the way up to the textured scars on his forehead. I dip my hand down, tracing the fabric that’s damp in spots over his hard abs. I linger there, butthen tear my touch away and undo my own jeans. I thrust my hand down into my soaked panties, coating my fingers in my wetness. I smear it across my mouth as Dravin watches, open mouthed and practically panting.

I surprised him with the water.

---