Surrender (Careless Whispers #3)(21)

“Wife,” I say. “I never thought . . . but I like how that sounds.” I have recovered from the shock of his proposal enough to know why I’m hesitating to accept. “But there are so many reasons—”

“For you to say ‘yes,’?” he supplies, his voice rough, shadows in his eyes that weren’t there moments before.

He’s right; there are. But instead I say, “For us to talk. I need to sit up so we can talk.”

He stares at me, his expression unreadable, his naked shoulders bunched, and I can tell that he wants to refuse to move, but he doesn’t. He leans back just enough for me prop myself on the arm of the couch behind me. But he continues to bracket my hips, caging me as if he thinks I’ll run away, when all I want to do is kiss him. I settle for reaching up and fingering a strand of his light brown hair. “You’re The Hawk.”

“And that has what to do with you marrying me?”

“Everything,” I say, my hand moving to his jaw, the newly forming stubble rough beneath my fingers, while my rejection of his proposal is a weight on my shoulders and heart. “You’ll make decisions to protect me.”

“That’s right,” he says unapologetically. “I will.”

“But those might not be the right decisions.”

“We had this conversation thirty minutes ago. Caution is good.”

“Unless it makes you afraid to act.”

“Sweetheart, I get that you just saw Enzo die. But he was young and foolhardy, two things I am not. I don’t let fear control me, and I don’t make rash decisions. If I did, Niccolo would be dead right now. Because believe me, I wanted to kill that bastard today.”

For just an instant I see my father lying in his own blood, and the certainty that Kayden had found his fiancée and his mentor in the same condition has me shivering. Kayden notices, too; of course he notices. He’s somehow always aware of what I’m feeling, even when I’m not. He straightens and reaches for the blanket at the back of the couch that I know he intends for me. I take that moment of freedom and scoot to a sitting position, snatching up the tissues he’d given me and tossing them behind me, because already Kayden is wrapping the blanket around my shoulders. And while I am now covered, I am aware of every inch of his naked, muscular body. And when he holds onto the edges of the cloth, and those blue eyes, a shade paler now, capture mine, I can’t breathe.

“Ella,” he says, breathing out my name, compelling me to accept his proposal.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you can’t live without me.”

“Stop making me feel that way and I will.”

“What if I do? What if I stop making you feel that way?”

“Impossible,” he assures me, “which is why you’re marrying me. The end. We’re going to find an insanely expensive ring, and we’ll marry when and how you want. If you want your friend Sara there, we’ll have her there. If you don’t—”

“You can’t just tell me I’m marrying you.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to share the rest of—”

“Yes,” I say. “I do, Kayden. Very much, but—”

“Do you want to marry me?”

“That’s not the issue. That’s not even a question.”

“Do you want to marry me?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I love you. But Kayden—”

“No but. You want to marry me. I want to marry you. We’re getting married.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It’s as simple as we make it, sweetheart.” His cell phone rings, his jaw clenching in response before he tightens his grip on the blanket and uses it to pull me closer, kissing me hard on the lips before he releases me.

He stands up and it’s all I can do to not pull him back, reminding myself that this call could be news that we’re waiting for about any number of things. Instead, I find myself once again staring at his gorgeous backside, a reminder that it could be mine to admire the rest of my life. And I want it to be. I want him to be.

But I don’t just remember my father on that floor. I remember my mother collapsing at the funeral. I remember tears and torment, and the bastard of a drunken man she settled for, as if to punish herself for something I didn’t understand and never will. I loved my father, but there was a reason he trained me. He knew that one day he could put us in danger. Yet he didn’t stay away. He should have stayed away, even for his own sake. Maybe then he’d have been less distracted, and more ready for an attack—like Kayden will be without me.

I inhale on that hard-to-swallow reality, watching Kayden fish the phone out of his pants pocket and glance at the screen before answering the call. “Yes, Adriel,” he says, and I know this is to let me know who is on the line. It’s a respect I appreciate, one he gives me often. But he is still The Hawk, still dominant in every way, and when he’s passionate about something, he’s a stubborn force to be reckoned with. And he’s clearly passionate about the topics of marriage and Paris.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he says, listening to whatever is being said to him and reaching for his pants again, while I catch the blanket before it slides away, the tape on my arm catching on the cloth.