Page 59 of Orc'd At A Wedding
"I want you," I say finally. "That is not in question."
"Then what is?"
"Whether wanting you is sufficient justification for exposing you to the risks associated with my life."
She regards me for a long moment, and then she does something I do not expect.
She laughs.
It is not a happy laugh. It is the laugh of a woman who has reached the absolute limit of her patience and is about to do something dramatic.
"Olog," she says. "I just spent an entire weekend at my cousin's wedding being interrogated by my family and insulted by my ex and forced to smile through a rehearsal dinner where someone threw wine at me. You think your life is the dangerous part of this relationship?"
I blink.
"My aunt Susan," she continues, "once made my other cousin cry at Thanksgiving because she didn't like her hair. My father has not said a kind word to me since I was twelve. My ex-boyfriend is a narcissistic manchild who showed up at this wedding specifically to make me feel bad about myself. And you're worried that your job is going to be the thing that breaks me?"
She tightens her grip on my lapels.
"I survived my family, Olog. I can survive yours."
CHAPTER 17
BLISS
Iwatch his face carefully, searching for any sign that my words are actually penetrating that thick, stubborn, overly protective skull of his.
Nothing.
His expression remains locked in that infuriating professional mask, the one he wore when he first walked into the lobby two days ago, the one I thought we had shattered completely last night when he was buried inside me and growling my name like a prayer.
Apparently not.
"Your family," he says slowly, "is not an active threat to your physical safety."
"Neither is yours."
"You do not know that."
"Then introduce me to them and let me decide."
His jaw tightens, the muscle jumping beneath the ash-gray skin, and I feel my own frustration rising to match his, hot and sharp and completely unreasonable.
I should let this go. I should give him space to process whatever spiral of self-doubt and nobility he is currently drowning in. I should be patient and understanding and mature.
I don't want to be any of those things.
I want him to stop looking at me like I am a liability he needs to manage.
"Bliss." His voice is careful, measured, the tone he uses when he is trying to de-escalate a situation. "I am attempting to have a rational discussion about the practical incompatibilities between our respective lifestyles."
"No." I release his lapels and step back, putting distance between us because if I stay this close I am either going to kiss him or hit him and I haven't decided which. "You're attempting to convince yourself that you're doing me a favor by walking away. You're trying to make this decision for me because you think you know better than I do what I can handle."
"That is not?—"
"It is exactly what you're doing." My voice is rising now, all the careful control I maintained around my family for the past forty-eight hours completely gone. "You're standing there in your perfect suit with your perfect face making perfectly rational arguments about why we can't be together, and you're not actually listening to anything I'm saying."
He is silent.
