I held my arms out, and she crawled into them, melting like wax on my chest. She was quiet, and I let her be, running my fingers through her hair and holding on.
Maybe this was going to be over soon. Maybe not. Either way, I would be here with her—standing beside her, behind her, or wherever she needed me.
Chapter Thirty-two
Zara
“Youwantsomethingtoeat?” Cormac asked, gentle as a lamb.
I sat up in his lap so I could look at him.Reallylook at him. His face…I couldn’t get enough of his face. His perfect, pink cupid’s bow, a jaw that could cut glass, and little glimmers of red and blond in his dark scruff. It was his eyes that did me in, though. They should have been icy and cold, but this was Cormac, and everything about him was warm. His cool blues were a summer day, bright and clear. I could have lain down and basked in them forever.
The way he was looking at me now, like he wanted nothing more than to take care of me, if only I’d let him, made me want to kiss every inch of his perfect face at least twice.
My chest was bursting with the need to give himsomething. He wasn’t in crisis. I couldn’t swoop in and rescue him the way he kept doing for me. But I needed to show him.
“In a little.” I shifted to straddle his legs and took his face in my hands. “I’ll make us something.”
His hands came to rest on my waist. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. I wish you hadn’t heard those digs he made about you, but—”
He shook his head. “It didn’t bother me.”
“It bothered me.” I leaned in, kissing the tip of his nose. “You’re such a good person, Mac. You always have been. And you’re so good to me.”
I kissed each of his cheeks then his eyebrows.
“I want to tell you to go run into a door or trip and skin your knee so I can take care of you, but I really don’t want to see you hurt.” I kissed his chin then along the sharp line of his jaw. “I just want to take care of you the same way you always take care of me.”
“You do.” He caught my lips with his as they passed, pressing a fleeting kiss. “Come back here.”
“You’re the sweetest man alive, you know.” I squeezed his cheeks with my palms and kissed his eyelids. “I’m so happy you’re in my life again. Like, super, very happy.”
His mouth hitched, and something in my chest fluttered. Not my heart, but something close by. It felt like a pile of snakes slithering around so much I could barely stay still. What was that?
“I’m super, very happy too,” he said, making me groan.
“God, Maccie.” I squeezed his face a little harder and kissed him all over his forehead. “You’re so cute, I can’t stand it.”
His laugh was sharp and sudden. “Cute? Is that the kiss of death?”
“No, no, no.” I tipped my face to kiss beneath his ear then dragged my lips down the long column of his throat. “I love that you’re cute. If you were just sexy, I might be able to resist you. The cuteness is what clinches it for me. I can’t stay away.”
His arms banded around me, flattening me against his chest. “You can call me whatever you want, as long as you keep coming back for me.”
I lapped at the beating pulse in his neck. “Show me your tattoo.”
He tugged his shirt to the side, revealing our words. “Here you go.”
I fell on them, rubbing them with my lips, then kissed each letter. By the time I got to the end, Cormac took my head in his hands, bringing us eye to eye.
“Tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.” I looked back at him, steady under his blue sky. “I really am. We have a plan, and a small part of me is relieved Jackson’s going to his parents. I want him out of my life, but I don’t want him hurt.”
“I get it. You’re human. It makes sense you care, even if you’re done with him.” He carved his fingers through the sides of my hair. “You are, right? Done, I mean.”
“So done,” I whispered. “My feelings for him were trampled so thoroughly I don’t think I’d recognize them if I ever ran across them again.”