“I know,” I said. “But I wasn’t going to knowingly put you at risk. You mean too much to me.”

His head swung toward me, eyes suddenly sharp. “And what does that mean, exactly?”

“I…” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“The hell it doesn’t!” he said. “You nearly destroyed my family, Kat. You almost got both of us killed, and none of this is over. Who knows how much time any of us have before the DOD comes? I let that dickhead go. He’s still out there, and as terrible as this sounds, I hope he gets what’s coming to him before he can report back to anyone.”

Daemon swore. “You lied to me! Are you telling me all of this is because I mean something to you?”

Heated blood crept across my face. Why was he making me do this? How I felt didn’t matter now. “Daemon…”

“Answer me!”

“Fine!” I threw my hands up in the air. “Yes, you mean something to me. What you did for me on Thanksgiving—that made me…” My voice cracked. “That made me happy. You made me happy. And I still care about you. Okay? You mean something to me—something I can’t really even put into words because everything seems too lame in comparison. I’ve always wanted you, even when I hated you. I want you even though you drive me freaking insane. And I know I screwed everything up. Not just for you and me, but for Dee.”

My breath caught on a sob. The words rushed from me, one after another. “And I never felt this way with anyone else. Like I’m falling every time I’m around you, like I can’t catch my breath, and I feel alive—not just standing around and letting my life walk past me. There’s been nothing like that with anyone else.” Tears pricked my eyes as I stepped back. My chest was swelling so fast it hurt. “But none of this matters, because I know you really hate me now. I understand that. I just wish I could go back and change everything! I—”

Daemon was suddenly in front of me, clasping my cheeks in his warm hands. “I never hated you.”

I blinked back the wetness gathering in my eyes. “But—”

“I don’t hate you now, Kat.” He stared intently into my eyes. “I’m mad at you—at myself. I’m so angry, I can taste it. I want to find Blake and rearrange parts of his body. But do you know what I thought about all day yesterday? All night? The one single thought I couldn’t escape, no matter how pissed off I am at you?”

“No,” I whispered.

“That I’m lucky, because the person I can’t get out of my head, the person who means more to me than I can stand, is still alive. She’s still there. And that’s you.”

A tear trailed down my cheek. Hope spread through me so fast it left me dizzy and breathless. The feeling was like taking a step off the edge of a cliff without seeing how far the fall would be. Dangerous. Exhilarating. “What…what does that mean?”

“I really don’t know.” His thumb chased after a tear on my cheek as he smiled slightly. “I don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring, what a year from now is going to be like. Hell, we may end up killing each other over something stupid next week. It’s a possibility. But all I do know is what I feel for you isn’t going anywhere.”

Hearing that only made me cry harder. He bent his head, kissing the tears away until he caught each of them with his breath. Then his lips found mine and the room fell away. The whole world disappeared for those precious moments. I wanted to throw myself into the kiss, but I couldn’t. I pulled away, dragging in air.

“How can you still want me?” I said.

Daemon pressed his forehead against mine. “Oh, I still want to strangle you. But I’m insane. You’re crazy. Maybe that’s why. We just make crazy together.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It kind of does, to me at least.” He kissed me again. “It might have to do with the fact you finally admitted you’re deeply and irrevocably in love with me.”

I let out a weak, shaky laugh. “I so did not admit that.”

“Not in so many words, but we both know it’s true. And I’m okay with it.”

“You are?” I closed my eyes, breathing in what felt like the first real breath in months. Maybe years. “It’s the same for you?”

His answer was to kiss me…and to kiss me again. When he finally lifted his head, we were on his bed and I was in his arms. I had no recollection of moving. That was how good his kisses were. I had to wait until my heart slowed down. “This doesn’t change anything I’ve done. All of this is still my fault.”

Daemon was on his side beside me, his hand on the material covering my stomach. “It’s not all your fault. It’s all of ours. And we’re in this together. We’ll face whatever is waiting for us together.”

My heart did a wild dance at those words. “Us?”

He nodded, working on the buttons of my sweater, laughing softly when he came to where they were buttoned incorrectly. “If there is anything, there is us.”

I lifted my shoulders, and he helped me shrug out of the sweater. “And what does ’us’ really mean?”

“You and me.” Daemon moved down, tugging off my boots. “No one else.”

Blood pounded as I yanked off my socks and lay back down. “I…I kind of like the sound of that.”

“Kind of?” His hand was on my stomach, slipping down, moving under the hem of my shirt. “Kind of isn’t good enough.”

“Okay.” I jerked when his fingers splayed across my skin. “I do like that.”

“So do I.” He lowered his head, kissing me softly. “I bet you love that.”

My lips curved into a smile against his. “I do.”

Making a deep sound in the back of his throat, Daemon trailed kisses over my still-damp cheek that scalded my skin and lit a fire. We whispered to each other, the words slowly stitching together the aching hole in my chest. I think they were doing the same for him. I told him everything Blake had said and done. He told me how angry he’d been just seeing me around Blake, confused and even hurt. The truths he admitted, I kept them close to my heart.

The fear he’d felt when he saw the Arum and Blake this weekend was in every slight, delicate touch of his fingers. Those precious words may not have been spoken up until then, but love was in every touch, every soft moan. I didn’t need him to say it, because I was surrounded in his love for me.

Time stopped for us. The world and everything I’d been part of only existed outside the closed bedroom door, but in here, it was only us. And for the first time, there was nothing between us. We were open, vulnerable to each other. Pieces of our clothing disappeared. His shirt. Mine. A button came undone on his jeans…and on mine, too.

“You have no idea how badly I want this.” His voice was rough against my cheek. Raw. “I think I’ve actually dreamed about it.” The tips of his fingers drifted over my chest, down my stomach. “Crazy, huh?”

Everything felt crazy. Being in his arms like this when I’d truly believed he’d never forgive me. I lifted my hand, running my fingers down his cheek. He turned to the touch, pressing his lips against the palm of my hand. And when his head lowered to mine again, I sparked alive under him, only for him.

As our kisses deepened and our explorations grew, we got lost in how our bodies moved against each other, how we couldn’t get close enough. The clothes that we still wore were a hindrance I wanted to be rid of, because I was ready to take that next step and I could feel that Daemon was, too. Tomorrow or next week wasn’t guaranteed. Not that it ever was, but for us, things really weren’t looking in our favor. There really was only now, and I wanted to seize the moment and live in it. I wanted to share the moment with Daemon—to share everything with him.

His hands…his kisses were completely undoing me. And when his hand moved down my stomach, slipping even farther down, I opened my eyes, his name barely a whisper. A faint whitish-red glow outlined his body, throwing shadows along the walls of his bedroom. There was something soul-burningly beautiful about being on the brink of losing control, tumbling over into the unknown, and I wanted to fall and never resurface.

But Daemon stopped.

I stared up at him, running my hands over the hard planes of his stomach. “What?”

“You…you’re not going to believe me.” He pressed another sweet and tender kiss against my lips. “But I want to do this right.”

I started to smile. “I doubt you could do this wrong.”

Daemon’s lips stretched into a smug half grin. “Yeah, I’m not talking about that. That I will do perfectly, but I want to… I want us to have what normal couples have.”

Stupid, damnable tears rushed to my eyes, and I blinked them back. Oh dear God, I was going to bawl like a baby.

Cupping my cheek, he let out a strangled sound. “And the last thing I want to do is stop, but I want to take you out—go on a date or something. I don’t want what we’re about to do to be overshadowed by everything else.”

With what looked like a great amount of effort, Daemon lifted off me and eased down on his side. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me back against him. His lips grazed my temple. “Okay?”

Tipping my head back, I looked into his bottle-green eyes. This…this was more than okay. And it took me several tries to speak, because my throat was burning with emotion. “I think I might love you.”

Daemon’s arm tightened around me as he kissed my flushed cheek. “Told you.”

Not what I expected as a response.

He chuckled, rolling onto his side—onto me, really. “My bet—I won. I told you that you’d tell me you loved me on New Year’s Day.”

Looping my arms around his neck, I shook my head. “No. You lost.”

Daemon frowned. “How do you figure?”

“Look at the time.” I tipped my chin toward the clock. “It’s past midnight. It’s January second. You lost.”

For several moments he stared at the clock like it was an Arum he was about to blast into the next county, and then his eyes found mine. Daemon smiled. “No. I didn’t lose. I still won.”

Chapter 33

I crept back into my house right before six in the morning, feeling airy and…happy. I needed to shower and get ready for school. There was a part of me that felt wrong for the smile on my face. Should I be content after everything? I wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem fair.

And I needed to see Dee.

After I stepped out of the steamy bathroom wrapped in my robe, I wasn’t startled when I saw Daemon lounging on my bed, freshly showered and changed. At some point, I’d felt him.

I made my way over to the bed. “What are you doing?”

He patted the spot beside him, and I crawled onto my knees. “We need to stick close together over the next couple of weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if the DOD shows. We’re safer together.”