Gruffly he repeats, “I need her here. She’s my medicine.”

She smiles. “Young love,” she whispers as she fixes the machine and hooks him back up. “Enjoy it while it’s young,” she says laughingly.

We’re both sitting on the bed now, and I turn to meet his intense gaze as he leans back on the bed and slowly reaches out and draws me to his chest.

Whereas yesterday when I came, he wouldn’t look at me. Now it’s like he cannot stop. His blue eyes drink me in in silence, and I drink him in while all my body clutches with yearning for this guy.

“You have no idea how hard it is for me for you to see me like this. I’ve never wanted anything less in my life,” he gruffs out.

A muscle in his jaw twitches uncomfortably, his eyes dark and tormented when he looks at me.

“Don’t hide from me. Both the good things and the bad,” I plead.

His blue eyes seem sad, as if his whole life force is turned off. “I didn’t want to give you the bad.”

“I want it. I want all of you,” I blurt out.

Those dark, sleek eyebrows of his shoot upward at that comment, and then his eyes begin to glow as if something about that lit up his fire.

“I’m not scared of this as much as I’m scared of what you make me feel, Racer,” I whisper painfully. “I’m scared of the way it feels to be with you, everything so acute and alive and thinking I wouldn’t bear to one day live without you. When David died it hurt too much and I never wanted that again, but I never thought I could feel it again a thousand times more intense until you. Guys didn’t even draw my eye that much but you. Like I was meant for you, Racer.”

I pause to get my breath.

“That day you told me that I … loved you … I was crying because I have never felt this intensely for anyone. And I don’t know if I can be all you need.” I catch my breath on a gush of emotion. “I want you, your whole being, your entire you. Even this.”

He shuts his eyes and puts his forehead on mine, his arms like steel around me as he exhales.

He starts to growl as he clutches me tighter, whispering in my ear, “You have no idea what you’re asking for,” he warns.

“I do. I do, and I WANT it. I want you.” I clutch his jaw and am so desperate for him to know how much I mean it, cuddle him. Smell him. Let my body say what I haven’t said in words, that I love him, so much, so much I’d stay here with him forever if that were the only way I’d get to be with him.

I cup his strong jaw and look into his tortured blue eyes. “Are you okay. What are you thinking?”

“What I’m thinking stays in my head,” he says, frowning determinedly. “I get sucked into this goddamned vortex, and I need to remind myself it’s just perception. Just in my head. You’re what’s real. This.”

He cradles my skull in his palms and presses me to his chest. I can hear his heartbeat. Strong and steady. His muscles feel lax, his blue eyes shadowed and his energy subdued, but his arms are still his arms. He is still him. And I’m even weaker against him, determined to be strong for him and at the same time, I’m completely vulnerable to him.

“I love you.” I wipe my tear as I start to cry.

His strong, large body seems to jolt and tighten at that, and his embrace tightens around me as he drops his head and growls in my neck, “God. Don’t say that. Don’t tell me this now.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t want to hear it.”

He releases me and drags a hand over his face, his fingers trembling. “You don’t, crasher. You don’t. You can do so much fucking better than me.”

“You’re it.”

“I’m no good,” he hisses. “I’m no fucking good for you. I’m as fucked up as it gets … look fucking around you, Lana. Is this really what you want?”

I stare at him squarely in the face. Never surer.

“I love you, Racer Tate. YOU.”

His eyes flash, and his nostrils flare as if he’s fighting to stay in control as he looks at my face like I’m not even real. Like he’s imagining me.

He reaches out and drags his thumb along my jaw, his voice achingly tender and pained. He shakes his head warningly. “Don’t say it because I can’t take it if it’s not true. If you leave me. If you get sick of me. Stop loving me. Don’t give me hope only to take it away one day because it’ll push me over the edge and make me insane.”

“I won’t ever take it away, it’s yours. I’m yours.”

He growls and yanks me to his chest, pressing my skull to his chest as he leans his head and kisses the top of my head. “Baby. My sweet girl,” he whispers out on a hiss, shutting his eyes as he lovingly nuzzles my face.

“My strong, fast boy,” I whisper as I feel him wipe another tear from the corner of my eye.

I wipe a small drop at the very edge of his and my whole being shudders.

He growls softly as he leans his head and pecks my lips. Just once. Easy first. I catch my breath. He eases back, looking at me again. He leans again. Pecks them again, this time on the side of my mouth. I thrum all over. He turns his head, his lips grazing another peck on the other side of my lips. I groan softly, and his eyelids lift, and his eyes are heavy and fixed on me as if nothing else exists but this. He shuts them up again as he parts my mouth, and when he teases his tongue into my mouth, I feel like detonating from the feeling of love and hunger it brings. A feeling I’m only too familiar with now that Racer, this guy, my guy, has introduced me to it.