Page 44 of A Dragon's Miracle (Fires of Fate)
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Ryan wasin his pajamas and sporting bed-hair when he answered the door, which on him was kind of attractive. Or would have been, if I hadn’t felt bad for waking him. It was only early evening, but I should have texted him ahead of time to make sure. He slept a lot lately.
“I’m so sorry I woke you,” I said as I stepped into his apartment.
“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t sure I’d see you again so soon.”
I gave him a small smile. “Like I could stay away.”
“You seemed kind of mad when you left here last time.”
“Yeah, I was.” I ran a hand through my hair, feeling tired. “But you know I’m not good at holding on to anger, and I wanted to see you. And…”
“And…?” He walked into his kitchen area and showed me his half-filled coffee pot. “You want any?”
“No thanks,” I waved him off. “I’ve had far too much of that stuff last night.” Staying up, searching the Internet for all sorts of information about cancer.
“Alright, but I’m having one.” He filled himself a mug. “You were about to say something.”
“Yeah. I wanted to let you know that I’m going to look for Jin, whether you want me to or not.”
Ryan sipped his coffee and regarded me with an undecipherable look, leaning against the counter. He didn’t seem so sleepy now. “I thought you might,” he said finally. Putting the coffee aside, he walked back to me until he was almost close enough to kiss. “I have a counter proposal.”
“Yeah?” I looked into Ryan’s eyes. I wasn’t one of the tallest dragons, so he was only an inch or two shorter than me, and at the perfect height for me to lean in and press my lips to his. I should have been focusing on the conversation at hand, really, but I’d just spent twenty-four hours agonizing over how to save Ryan, and now that I had him in front of me, all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around him and not let go for a while. I didn’t want to argue anymore.
Ryan put his hands on my hips, as if he could see how close I was to breaking. “I don’t want to fight either,” he said.
I put my hands on his waist, sensing the heat of his body through his clothes. “So what do you propose we do?”
“Well, my mom used to say relationships were about compromise, and I get that I can’t expect you to just accept everything I’ve told you. It was a bit much, I know. So I wondered what I could do to make this easier on you, even if just a little.”
“It’s not me you should be worrying about,” I cut in. I wanted him to worry abouthimselfa bit more.
Ryan locked eyes with me. “I hate that I’m putting all of this on you. It was selfish of me to come back here and get into a relationship with you when the whole time, Iknewthat I was sick. I love you, Finn. I don’t want you to suffer.”
“Okay,” I said, because I couldn’t argue with the fire in his gaze. He was determined to care about me rather than himself, but I figured that was fine as long as I did the same in reverse. “What did you come up with?”
“I’m going to let you take me back to the hospital so they can run their tests and see if there’s anything they can do to help me. But you can’t go chasing after Jin. It’s a compromise. If you break it, I’ll really be mad.”
Involuntarily, I dug my fingers into his clothes. I did want him to get checked out thoroughly. I couldn’t say no. “Fine,” I said in the end, agreeing to the compromise. For now. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“Right away?” Ryan asked in an almost mischievous glint in his eyes. What was he up to?
“The earlier the better, right?”
“I don’t know about that.” He ran his fingers down my arm. “I feel like you should get some sleep first.” Taking my hand, he led me to his bed. “Let’s just be together for a moment. I’m not going to let this cancer take over everything.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Especially not when he started taking his clothes off. He was all I’d ever wanted, cancer or not. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” He pressed his lips to mine and I kissed him back.
And for the rest of the night we forgot about everything else.
