“But you don’t intend to do it,” he repeated.

At what I thought he was saying, my heart twisted and I had to curl my fingers into his shirt at his chest to help support me.

“Sorry?” I breathed.

“You don’t intend to do it.”

I let him go in order to shift away.

Nick’s fingers went from my hips and his arms rounded me.

Tight.

Slamming me into his body.

“Sebring—”

He bent his face close to mine and barked, “Nick,” so fiercely I winced.

I tensed as I asked, “What’s happening?”

“Got your painting, Olivia. Got your note,” he explained but it didn’t explain anything. “You want me to be happy. But you don’t intend to do it.”

I didn’t intend to do it.

He was right; I didn’t intend to do it.

What he would never know was that I’d die and kill to have the privilege of making him happy.

It just wasn’t an ability life afforded me.

“We both know I can’t be that for you,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” he bit out like he had to expel the word because it tasted beyond foul. “What you know that I don’t is that you can’t be that for anybody.”

I went completely still.

“Can you?” he clipped but didn’t wait for my answer. “You can’t be that for anybody.”

“Sebring—”

His arms gave me a squeeze. “Nick.”

I shook my head. “Why are we—?”

“Good question, Olivia. Why? Why can’t you be that for anybody? Why can’t you be happy?”

We hadn’t been together for weeks.

How had he figured so much of this out?

I cautiously tried to pull away.

His arms got tight and this time they didn’t loosen.

I stopped trying to pull away.

“We’re rewinding,” he decreed. “I know why you can’t be that for me. I know why I can’t share why you can’t be that for me. What I wanna know is why you think you can’t be that for me.”

“You can’t share and I get that. You have to get why I can’t share.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You have to.”

He bent close to me. “Your father is a piece of shit. Planet’d be better if he was obliterated from it. Not sure about your sister, but thinkin’ she’s much the same. Know you got soldiers who deserve a bed in the dirt.”

At his words, I wrenched in his arms but he held fast.

I again went still and kept my hands between us to give as much distance as he would afford me.

“That’s part of why I can’t have you. But you’re not about that. You’re not them. You haven’t shared that with me. I still know it down to my balls. You know it too ’cause you live it. So why won’t you let yourself have me?” he asked.

You’re not them.

Yes, he’d figured me out.

“Sebring—”

He lost it.

“Nick!” he thundered, giving me an abrupt, rough shake.

“Nick,” I whispered, pressing my hands into his chest, not to get away but in a gesture I hoped was soothing.

He stilled and the tumult of his eyes calmed.

God, just that, his name and a simple touch from me and he calmed.

Was he that attuned to me?

“Who burned you?” he whispered back.

Oh no.

I closed my eyes.

“Livvie.”

My throat clogged.

No one called me Livvie.

No one.

Livvie didn’t exist.

Not for anyone.

But me.

“Baby, who burned you?” Nick pushed gently.

I opened my eyes.

“Who burned you?” he pressed.

I stared into blue.

“Who burned you, baby?”

“I can’t be with you,” I told him.

“Who burned you, Livvie?”

“I can’t be with you, Nick.”

“Who burned you?”

“I can’t be with you because my father is a piece of shit and I care about you too much to have his stink settle on you.”

Nick went silent.

But the room went wired.

He heard me and he got me.

Every word.

He got me.

He knew who burned me.

He knew, my father burning me, there was no me. There was just Vincent Shade’s daughter, and me not even having me, I couldn’t give myself to someone else.

I felt the electricity snap against my skin, but for Nick I had to force out my plea.

“Let me go.”

Nick didn’t move or speak.

I slid my hands up and curled them around either side of his neck.

“You need to let me go, sweetheart,” I whispered.

He moved then.

He slammed his mouth down on mine and kissed me.

I didn’t bother fighting it. It had been weeks since I’d seen him, touched him, heard his voice. If I couldn’t fight it to stop something from starting that I knew for the both of us was unhealthy, the need I had for him after weeks without him was impossible to beat.

So, no.

I didn’t fight it.

I kissed him back.

He moved us toward his bed.

On our way we tore at each other’s clothes. I heard ripping. I knew I popped some buttons off his shirt. I didn’t care about either.

I just needed him.

We fell to the bed partially clothed. We made frantic but light work rectifying that.

If before sex had been a battle for control for us, now it was war.

It wasn’t hungry.

It was wild. Frenzied.

Abandoned.

I had no thought. Not one. Not about anything but what I was feeling and what I could make him feel.