Page 173 of Problematic

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

The question came out rough, almost angry, and I flinched before I could stop myself. His hand loosened around mine at once, but he didn’t let go. His fingers stayed hooked with mine as if he needed the contact. “Is that what you want?” he repeated, quieter this time but no less intense. “Me?”

I wiped my face with my free hand. “That is an incredibly stupid question.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, and the motion shifted his collar again. The mark on his throat caught the dawn light, coffee and rose leaf and smoke, beautiful enough to hurt and cruel enough to sit there and mock me.

“You would want me as your mate?” His voice roughened with every word, as if I’d been the one keeping the room full of lies. He got louder. “Knowing who I am? The life I lead? The danger attached to my name? Do you understand what that would mean?”

I stared at him. Blood still stained the skin beneath his mask. His weapons lay scattered across a chair like proof. The room smelled of iron, smoke, roses from the balcony, and him.

“You don’t get to yell at me because I want you,” I said.

He went still.

My voice shook, but I kept going, because if I stopped now, I would never start again. “You followed me. Watched me. Dragged me into your life, gave me pieces of yourself, then acted surprised when I started falling for you.”

“Liv.”

“No.” I pointed at him, tears sliding down my cheeks. “No, you listen. I am falling in love with you.”

The room snapped silent. The words hung there. His chest stopped moving again.

“I’m falling in love with you,” I said again, softer. “Everything else is details.”

His hand tightened around mine. “Details,” he repeated, as if the word had personally insulted him.

“Yes. Horrifying, violent, legally complicated details.”

His breathing changed. “Liv.”

“And it doesn’t matter,” I said, “because it isn’t even possible.”

His jaw worked.

The mask hid his face, but it couldn’t hide the war moving through his body. I watched his shoulders tense, watched his fingers flex against mine, watched the shadows gather at the end of the bed as if they’d stopped pretending not to care.

“It isn’t possible,” I whispered, mostly to myself now. “You already had a mate. Mine never came. My mark never showed up. So whatever this is, whatever my body thinks it knows, is wrong. Or broken. Or I’m broken.”

I laughed, but it came out ruined. “Which tracks, honestly. Very on brand for me.”

He shook his head once. “No.”

“No?” My tears came faster. “You don’t get to ‘no’ that. You don’t get to stalk me, lie to me, buy me mugs, grow me roses, make me feel as if I finally matter to someone, and then tell me I’m wrong for wanting the one thing that would make this make sense.”

He turned away. That hurt worse than it should have.

“Lux.”

He nodded once, as if he had reached the end of some private war and hated the treaty.

His hand left mine.

His fingers found the edges of the mask.

His shoulders rose with one slow breath.

Facing away from me, he pulled the mask free.