Oh, no. “It happened again, didn’t it?”
“Yes. You passed out.” His self-castigation was palpable. “I carried you to bed.”
Even though she’d come to the realization that he would want her anyway, despite something like this, embarrassment still heated her cheeks, just as she’d suspected. “I’m so sorry, Koldo.”
“Don’t be. I pushed you for too much, too fast.” His shirt once again covered his magnificent chest, and that was, perhaps, the greatest tragedy right now. “Next time, I’ll go slower.”
“Next time,” she said, and wanted to purr with satisfaction.
He frowned. “You don’t want a next time?”
More than anything. “What makes you think that I don’t? Unless you don’t want me to want a next time,” she added in a rush. “Are you trying to hint that you want to go back to being just friends?”
He flattened his hand against her jawline, his thumb caressing her cheek. “Did you hit your head? Of course I don’t want to just be your friend. And you should know me well enough to know I’ve never hinted at anything.”
So true. She smiled at him. “Could you be any sweeter?”
His lips twitched at the corners. “First, I don’t care if you pass out every time we do this. You are worth any effort. Second, I make you happy. Therefore, I’m aiding your healing.”
Not just happy, she thought. Delirious.
“Do you wish to remain just friends?” he asked, and this time his tone was so sharp it could have cut her. His expression, however, was tortured. “I’m not a man willing to buy your affections, but perhaps I could do other things. Is there something you want that I haven’t given you?”
Her heart lurched. “No,” she admitted. “I don’t want to be just friends. And you’ve given me everything.” He was the man she’d thought about all evening. The man she’d wanted to be with. The man she’d craved.
He relaxed, nodded and moved his touch to her neck, where her pulse hammered wildly. “I like the kisses we share.”
“I like them, too.”
“I like the taste of you, the feel of you.”
“Yes.”
“I want the toxin out of you.” His tone was layered with determination. “Forever.”
Her, too. More than ever. And they had to change the subject before she pushed for too much too fast. “Say something to distract me. Please.”
He peered at her for a long while before nodding, decided. Rolling to his side, he said, “The first time I saw you wasn’t in the elevator.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. The day before I was sent to the hospital to help a human male, and I stumbled into your sister’s room. The Most High showed me that she was in the condition she was in because she’d entertained a demon of fear for so long, the demon was able to worm its way inside her body. He showed me because He wanted me to help her. Her, yes, but also you I think. You were in danger of succumbing the same way.”
Nicola rested against him, finding comfort, companionship and acceptance, all wrapped into one tantalizing position, despite the topic. Or maybe because of it. Knowledge was power. “I was entertaining a demon? I mean, I know I had the toxin, but I just thought... I don’t know what I thought.”
“There were two of them hanging around you.”
A gasp lodged in her throat. “But I never knew. Never saw them.”
“If I have my way, you never will.” He draped his arm over her neck in a gentle choke hold—gentle, but a choke hold nonetheless. He was as new to this kind of thing as she was, and she was suddenly fighting a smile.
“Tell me something about you,” she said. “Something you’ve never told anyone else.”
A long pause. He gulped. “When I was a child, I lived in constant fear. My mother hated me, and my father...abused me.”
“Oh, Koldo. I’m so sorry.” Had his father caused the scars?
“I never knew what horrors I would have to face next, only that I would, in fact, have to face them.”
No wonder he was so fierce, so standoffish—so vulnerable and unsure. He had built a shell around himself, desperate to protect a fragile heart that had been trampled by the people who should have loved him most. People who instead had rejected him with their abuse.
She traced her fingers along the ridges of his stomach, wishing the shirt would disappear, then chiding herself for wishing.
“Ask me a question,” he said. “Any question. I like sharing with you.”
She thought for a moment. “Why were you so upset when we spoke on the phone after yesterday’s meeting?”
“I had just found out a man I loved was killed.”
“Oh, Koldo,” she repeated. He had endured one blow after another, and the knowledge saddened her.
He took her hand, brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed. He next rubbed her hand over his cheeks, his jaw, his beard tickling her skin, before once again kissing her knuckles. “It’s a punishment I deserved.” The same guilt and shame she sometimes saw in his eyes now dripped from his tone.
“I’m going to say something, and I don’t want you to be offended, all right?”
“All right,” he said reluctantly.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! You did not deserve to lose a friend.”
He relaxed the tiniest bit. “I haven’t always been the man you know.”
“And I haven’t always been the girl you know.”
He shook his head. “You’ve always been sweet, kind and caring, and that’s that.”
No. He didn’t know the full truth—that she and Laila had once planned to murder the man responsible for the deaths of their parents and brother. And she would be forever grateful the plan had failed. A moment of rage would have changed the entire course of their lives, and not for the better.
But all she said to Koldo was, “You’re making a mistake,” and kissed his chest. There was no reason to spoil the moment. “And notice how wonderful I am, pointing it out just like you asked.”
“Wonderful. Yes.”
There’d been no sarcasm in his voice. Darling man. “Say-la,” she interjected, recalling the way he’d once used the word with her.
He fell silent.
She traced an X over the heavy beat of his heart. “What does the word mean?”