Page 282 of Once Upon a Fable

Of course, she couldn’t.

What a moronic thing to ask.

I laughed under my breath. “Forget it. I only meant...” I sighed and looked at the stars. “I want you to feel safe. You’re safe, Gemma...I-I give you my word that I won’t hurt you. Not tonight.”

She nodded once, hearing what I had.Not tonight. She was safe...justfor tonight. I couldn’t guarantee all the other days and all the other nights, but for the next few hours before dawn broke, while my mind was stable and completely here, with her, she wouldn’t be molested, bruised, or tormented.

I rolled my eyes, cursing my constant headache. What sort of offer was that? What did that make me when I couldn’t extend that promise because I had no control when sleep claimed me?

Silence thickened between us, and as we stood next to flames with their soft crackle in our ears and starlight above us, I felt as if she saw past all the nightmares I couldn’t face and all the memories I locked up deep inside. She shoved past any connection I might’ve had with my Fable family, elbowed past a childhood I couldn’t remember, and dug deep, deep inside me until she found the core of who I was.

The nucleus that’d given up hope and happiness a long time ago.

She sawme.The eternal me. She didn’t see a man imprisoned with loneliness, not a boy with severe trauma, not even the man I could become thanks to her. She saw past all of that, and I came alive and died beneath her study.

She made my heart revoke me, forsake me, and bow to its new owner.

The air crackled with more than just flame-chewed firewood. It positively blazed with whatever magic had sprung between us, and I couldn’t stand there any longer as separate people.

Ihadto touch her.

To thank her.

To hide just how much she’d undone me.

Stepping into her, I cupped her cheeks with both palms. “You’re safe.”

She froze with a quick inhale.

Our eyes locked.

Our pulse raced.

“I promise.” I dropped my head and captured her mouth with mine.

She gasped as I kissed her softly.

She trembled in my hands as I groaned at her taste.

I kissed her softer still, turning my head, running my thumbs over her cheekbones, licking at the seam of her lips. “Let me make this right.”

For an awful moment, she kept her mouth pursed, denying me.

“Please...” I kissed her sweetly, feathering affection that made my entire body buckle for more, reining myself in from being cruel. “I need to do this. I need to show you how much you mean to me.”

She moaned and opened for me.

The dark parts of me rejoiced. I deepened the kiss, swift and savage.

Her spine arched as I clutched her close. She didn’t push me away, but she didn’t melt into me either. Her lack of participation and the fact that she hadn’t actively refused me made me worry she’d only agreed out of fear. That even now, even after what’d happened between us, she still expected me to lose myself and leave her at the mercy of my nightmares.

“You’re safe,” I breathed, pulling away, forcing myself to stop.

She blinked, belief and disbelief equal in her stare.

“I’m at your command, Gem.” It took all my willpower to stay slowand gentle. “You only have to tell me, and I’ll stop.” I bowed my head and kissed her again, light and tantalizing. “This time is different. Ifeeldifferent. I’m different because of you. Thanks to you.” I sucked on her bottom lip. “I want to show you what it could be like between us when there’s no shit, no struggle. I want to know whatwecould be like. Just us.”

CHAPTER THIRTY