Page 85 of Loathing My Boss
“Absolutely not.”
“But—”
“Crisis,” he warns, patiently, stubble chafing against my shoulder. “Please.”
The pleading sobers me. So I whisper, “You’re certain you want to marryme?”
“I know it’s hard for you to believe, sweet pea…but I—quite passionately—am in love with you.”
That is really, really hard for me to believe after I’ve spent years staring myself in the eye and saying I am unlovable so it wouldn’t hurt as much whenever strangers obtain the compulsion to remind me of that fact.
His fingers loosen and skate down my arm, raising goose bumps in their wake. “Let me love you,” he whispers as his palm clamps to my waist. “Let me give you a family. Let me give you everything.”
“I don’t deserve everything.” My muscles constrict when he curls a finger under my camisole to drag the pad against my bare skin. “And this is starting to feel like coercion.”
“Let me coerce you.”
“Glad you’re not being discreet about it at least.”
“Zakery has said, several times, that I’m about as discreet as a marching band and he is appalled you’ve never caught on.”
Zakery can stop going around and telling people that they’re as discreet as a marching band, I think. Unwittingly, my body sinks into Viktor’s. “I…am not one to assume people like me.”
He forgoes teasing my skin in favor of holding me. “I noticed.”
I wait. Just a moment. Just in case a meteor wants to smite me in the next few seconds. Then, I say, “You’re sure?”
“Completely.”
“I don’t annoy you?”
“You don’t annoyKyran.”
That…is a point.
I wet my lips. “I’m not good, or kind.”
His hot breath fans over my skin. “I can’t wait to breakdown your beliefs and make them suit me.”
There I go, shivering again. Or still. I’m not sure.
I squeeze my eyes shut, fight to block out my doubts. “That doesn’t sound like a very healthy way to start a relationship.”
He chuckles. “We’re well past starting with an illusion ofhealthy, Crisis.”
He’s got me there.
“One three-letter word, sweet pea,” he whispers into my flesh. “Please.”
I try to dissolve into his skin. “Ask me the question again.”
“Will you be mine?”
His.
Being his sounds an awful lot like being loved. Which is scary. And overwhelming. And…everything I’ve never allowed myself to want. So I say, “Yes.”
Chapter 30
