Page 45 of Vex
The decision felt momentous and utterly terrifying, like stepping off the edge of a cliff with nothing but his promise to catch her.
It was the scariest thing she'd ever done in her life.
23
Vex had a month to convince his mate to stay with him forever, and he was wasting an afternoon at Zane's house.
He was a fool.
Twenty-six days. That's how much time he had left before Luisa would make her decision about whether their trial month was worth extending. The countdown felt like a sword hanging over his head, each passing hour bringing him closer to the moment when she would walk away forever.
He'd had Luisa on his estate for a week, and it was its own kind of torture. He'd asked her to come, to stay, to be his.
And now he had no idea how to do it.
He could negotiate trade agreements that affected entire star systems, could command respect from criminals and kings alike, could shift into a form that could level buildings with his fire.
But put him in a room with the woman fate had chosen for him, and he turned into a stammering fool who couldn't figure out how to bridge the careful distance she maintained between them.
If he'd truly been the playboy lord he'd pretended to be on Aetis, they would have spent every moment naked in bed. The dissolute rake would have seduced her with practiced ease, would have known exactly which words to whisper against her skin to make her melt in his arms.
But that man had been a mask, a performance designed to serve his mission. Now, faced with being himself, Vex felt like he was fumbling in the dark.
The most he'd done was hold her hand while they strolled through the garden.
The gentle getting to know you wasn't a waste. Vex cherished every moment at Luisa's side. He just wanted more of them.
All of them.
He wanted to wake up with her pressed against his chest every morning, wanted to know what she looked like when she was completely relaxed and unguarded. He wanted to hear her laugh without the careful edge she kept in her voice, wanted to see her eyes soften the way they had that one night when she'd let him hold her. The hunger for her was a constant ache, made worse by her proximity and the careful boundaries she maintained.
There was some sort of block between them, something they couldn't surmount.
It wasn't physical distance. They shared the same space, ate meals together, walked through his estate while she learned about his world. But there was an invisible wall between them, built from her past betrayals and his own uncertainty about how to be the man she needed.
Luisa was made of defensive walls. She'd opened up to him a bit one night, explained more of her childhood, of what had brought her into Brant Tallyer's orbit. He'd almost marched back to his ship and flown to Aetis to destroy the man.
His mate didn't cry. But she let him hold her.
The memory of that night was burned into his consciousness with perfect clarity. The way she'd curled against his chest on the library sofa, her voice steady and matter-of-fact as she'd described a childhood that would have broken most people. Hunger, abandonment, the desperate choices that survival demanded. She'd spoken like she was reciting someone else's history, but he'd felt the tremor in her hands where they'd gripped his shirt.
And in the morning, he had sent a note off to the concierge letting him know he would consider it a personal favor if Brant Tallyer was never employed again.
She'd grown up learning that powerful men were dangerous, that offers of protection came with prices she couldn't afford to pay. How could he convince her that he was different when every instinct screamed at him to claim her, possess her, keep her safe in ways that probably looked like cages to someone who'd fought so hard for her freedom?
If someone could help him overcome this block, maybe it was an actual playboy lord.
Zane.
His youngest brother had a reputation that was both legendary and completely deserved. Zane moved through relationships with the casual confidence of someone who'd never met a woman he couldn't charm.
Where Vex was all duty and restraint, Zane was pure hedonistic pleasure, living exactly the life their noble birth afforded him without the weight of responsibility.
Vex would never tell his brother that part of his dissolute rake version of Lord Vex was based on his youngest brother. It felt too much like an insult. Besides, neither Zane nor Rook knew exactly what it was that Vex did for the king, and he intended to keep it that way.
As far as Zane knew, Vex had met Luisa on a trip, and that was that.
Rook would hear the same, if he and his mate ever made it back to Vemion.
