Bitter Sweet Love

Chapter Fifteen

Pressure clamped down on my chest and a ball formed in my throat. There were so many knots in my stomach, threatening to tie me up.

I’d been pacing the length of my room since I’d left Layla. My thoughts were all over the place, which had made it impossible for me to sit still. I couldn’t stop thinking about Layla and the fact that she would never know love—not really, not like I would one day, no matter what I decided. She could never truly get close to another person. She could never kiss. Love had been forbidden to her and that was so unfair. And I couldn’t stop thinking about what she had said.

Love would always be enough, no matter what.

And I did love Dez. I was in love with him.

I don’t know what exactly had made up my mind. There were a lot of things I wasn’t ready for, but there was one thing I was.

Footsteps in the hallway caught my attention. Heart leaping in my chest, I froze—and then I sprang forward, rushing to the door. Popping my head out in the hall, I saw Dez.

He stopped, surprised. “Hey.”

“I was... I was waiting for you.” God, I sounded like an idiot. I started backing up as he came into my room. “What did Abbot say about the demon?”

“He’s concerned. It’s abnormal for an Upper Level demon to do nothing but talk smack and then walk off. They’re going out tonight to hunt him down.” He closed the door and leaned against it, folding his arms. “Obviously, the punk is up to something. They want to find out what.”

“Are you going out with them?”

“I should, but I think before we got distracted, you wanted to talk. And right now that’s more important.”

As his words sank in, I realized he was putting me before his duty. He had been for seven days. Catering to me. Playing babysitter. Following me around while I did a whole lot of nothing, and he hadn’t complained once. Even enjoyed himself because he... he had been with me.

Lifting my gaze, I could barely speak around my pounding heart. “I wanted to say that these... these seven days have been amazing.”

“Including Herbert?”

I laughed. “Yes, even Herbert.”

Doubt crossed his striking features. “Even though you didn’t get to see DC or hunt a demon?”

“I was telling you the truth. Those things don’t really matter.” I stopped, taking a deep breath. “Maybe they did before, but I don’t know what I was trying to do. Maybe delay the inevitable? Because I—”

“Wait.” He held up a hand, stretching the cotton shirt across his shoulders. “Before you tell me what I know you’re going to tell me, I need to tell you something.”

“But how do you know what I’m going to tell you?”

He laughed dryly. “I know, Jas.”

There was such obvious resignation in his voice that I squared my shoulders. “What do you want to tell me?”

“What I should’ve told you the first night I came back.” He cocked his head back against the door. Several seconds passed. “I should’ve said goodbye, but I didn’t. That was a gigantic mistake—one I can’t fix. And I know I made another by not being honest with you when I returned. I just didn’t want you to know the truth.”

Those words were forbidding. “The truth about why you left?”

He nodded.

A shiver coursed over my shoulders. “Well, if you didn’t want me to know, I’m pretty sure I can figure it out. I mean, you were eighteen, so I assume you were out doing your thing.”

Dez lowered his chin and pushed off the door. “My thing?”

There was a note of warning in his voice. Sometimes I needed to just shut up. This was one of those moments. Of course, my mouth kept moving. “Yeah, you know. Hooking up. Sowing your wild oats. Getting laid. Whatever.”

“Are you serious?”

I shrugged.

“There hasn’t been a single female I’ve thought about, let alone wanted to hook up with,” he said. “What I did when I left didn’t involve anything like that, Jasmine.”

I thought about the night in the hotel and my body flushed. He had to have experience, lots of experience.

“I wasn’t with anyone during that time,” he added.

I snorted. “Yeah, I’m not stupid, Dez.”

Anger flashed across his face as he stormed forward. “There’re a lot of things you could say about me, but I have never lied to you. I’m not lying to you now. I stayed true to you! This whole time! There has been no one else!”

I opened my mouth to argue, but his words sank in through the anger and confusion. My heart was like a balloon straining to float away. “Wh-what?”

Dez stared at me, his eyes now shining a brilliant blue. Two pink circles appeared on his cheeks and then he looked away, shoving a hand through his hair. “I haven’t been with anyone, Jasmine. Not like that.”

“Why?” I blurted out the question before I could stop myself, and the look he gave me said he wondered what was wrong with me. But I couldn’t comprehend that he had been with no one—no other female of our kind or human. It wasn’t as if he’d been hurting for attention. Females would cut off their left legs to be with him.

He blew out a deep breath as he dropped his hand. “I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t?” I stepped closer.

“No. It wouldn’t have been right.”

I stopped, holding my hands pressed tightly against my chest as if I could stop my heart from jumping out of it. “Because mating with me was a duty, or—”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.” He prowled forward, stopping just in front of me. Air halted in my lungs as he dipped his head, his mouth inches from mine. “What is between us has nothing to do with duty or an obligation to mate and procreate. It’s only about us.”

My eyes widened. “It is?”

He placed a large hand on my cheek. “I wasn’t with anyone else because I couldn’t be. I didn’t want to be, because I always knew I was going to come back to you. There was never a doubt in my mind.”

“Never?” I whispered.

“Never.” He dropped his forehead to mine and breathed in unsteadily. His lips brushed my cheek, causing a shiver to rush across my skin. “I loved you the night you brought me pudding and stayed with me until I fell asleep. That was eleven years ago and my love for you has never faded, Jas. Not for one second.”

Oh, Lord, my heart escaped me, floating through the roof, up among the stars, but I didn’t understand. “Then why did you leave me without saying anything? Not even a goodbye?”

He closed his eyes, spreading his hands on either side of my neck. “I needed to find the demon responsible for attacking my clan—killing my parents.”

Stunned, I slipped free, the backs of my thighs hitting the side of the bed. “You went after the demon?”

His hands dropped to his sides. “I followed up leads, tracked the bastard across the country. He’d left California for a while, but that’s where I finally found him again.”

Placing my hand against my chest once more, I drew in a deep breath. “And you confronted him?”

“I killed him.”

My brain had stopped working. He’d spent three years tracking the demon responsible for massacring his clan? My father’s words made sense now. Dad had known what Dez was doing.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” I asked.

A slight smile appeared. “You would’ve tried to stop me.”

“Damn straight I would’ve!” For some ridiculous reason, I wanted to cry. “You could’ve been killed!”

“I could be killed any night, Jas.”

“But that was different! You were out there by yourself. No one had your back.” Tears burned the back of my eyes, which was so stupid, because he obviously wasn’t dead. He was standing right in front of me. “Why did you need to do this?”

The smile slipped away, as if it had never been there. “You know how I was. So full of hate and anger. I needed to clean it out.” He palmed my cheeks. “I knew if I told you why I was leaving and you told me not to, I wouldn’t have been able to go.”

I wanted to push him away and I wanted to grab him and hold him close. Forever. “My dad knew?”

“Yes.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “It’s why I never called you or told you when I got back. It’s not a good enough excuse—it’s a shitty one, but I knew you would want me to stop... and that once you knew what I was doing you’d think differently of me.”

I blinked my stupid tears. “It was a shitty excuse, but you could’ve called me. You not doing so made me think differently of you. Not because you wanted to avenge your clan’s murder. You’re an idiot.” I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. “For three years I thought you ran to escape me.”

“God, I hate that you ever thought that,” he said. “You were just so strong. You lost your mom. You saw her die, but you were strengthened by it. You didn’t let the hate swallow you up. I would’ve. I’m not proud to admit that, but...”

My hands shook as I wrapped them around his wrists. “But what?”

“But when your father announced his intentions for us, I knew I had to purge myself of the rage, because loving you... loving you was bittersweet,” he whispered against my lips. “Because I knew if I didn’t do this, if I didn’t get all the hatred out of me, I would never be the mate you deserved.”

“Oh, Dez.” My breath caught. “I...”

“I know it’s probably too little, too late.” He kissed me softly, just a brush of his lips, and then pulled back, his fingers trailing down my face. “But what I’ve told you is true. And like I said before, I’ll wait. No matter how long it takes to prove that I do love you, I will.”

So much was running through my head that it took a moment for me to process everything. “Too late? Dez, it’s not too late. God, we’ve both made such a mess of things.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened his mouth again. “What are you saying?”

There were so many things I was trying to tell him, but words or the lack thereof had been our problem all along. Either we weren’t telling each other what was really going on or we were saying all the wrong things.

Words sucked sometimes.

So I did the one thing that I knew we’d both understand. I crossed the small distance between us and placed my hands on his chest. He watched me intently as I stretched up. Sliding my hands up his chest, I circled my arms around his neck. He shuddered an instant before I pressed my lips against his.

I poured everything I wanted to say and should’ve said into the kiss. I pulled him close, breathing him in when he responded, when he took the kiss to a deeper level, sweeping his tongue over mine, drinking me in.

“I love you,” I gasped.

His hands settled on my hips. “Say that again.”

“I love you.”

“One more time.”

My lips curled up. “I love you, Dez.”

And that’s all I said. Dez kissed me, and that kiss—that kiss scorched me. It was everything that I felt given back to me. His hands slid up my back and our lips parted just enough for him to say my name and I knew the sound of it would stay with me to the end of my days.

We ended up on the bed, our limbs tangled together, our hearts pounding in our chests. I didn’t tell him yes. He didn’t ask. It didn’t need to be spoken. Because I had been his and he had been mine all along, and one day we would make that lifelong promise to each other. When we were both ready. And while that was bucking tradition, neither of us cared. Because right now, as his lips moved against mine and he pressed me closer to his body, I felt the way I did when I flew over the mountains back home. During the precious seconds when I was free-falling and there was nothing but that rushing sensation, of not being able to form a thought or breathe. In Dez’s arms, I had found what I’d been searching for every night I took to the sky.

I was free.

I was home.