“I love you, too.” My voice is barely a whisper, but he hears me.There’s no room to doubt it because Luca melts, all the rigid determination abandoning him at once.
He groans, hinging at the waist and bracing his hands on his knees. “Thank fuck.”
“Are you okay?” I reach for him, but he’s already moving. His hands grip my cheeks.
“Shut up,” he gasps. “Please, Ciprian, shut up and kiss me.”
That I can do. Curling my fingers around the back of his neck, I pull his mouth to mine and devour him, leaving no room for anything to get between us. Luca’s lips are hot and demanding. I can taste what’s left of his temper, and it’s delicious. Teeth clash. Noses collide, but it’s exactly right. I’m light-headed and needy, and all I can think about is getting closer to him.
“We can go inside now,” Luca rasps. “If you want.”
My lips curl. “You dragged me all the way out here to talk and only asked one question.”
“I got the answer I needed. As long as it’s true, nothing else matters.”
It’s a cute thing to say, except we both know better. People break up all the time, and plenty of them are still in love. I like his take, though.
“For the record, I don’t think you’re a monster.” I kiss him again for emphasis.
“And I don’t think you’re a spoiled, rich asshole,” Luca says. I lift my eyebrows and he smirks. “Okay, okay, sometimes I do, but I’m into it.”
My face falls. “You’ll get tired of it, though. Everyone does.”
Luca runs his thumb over my bottom lip. “Don’t tell me what I will and won’t do, Ciprian. If I say you’re exactly what I want, I expect you to believe me.”
The urge to argue is nearly impossible to ignore, but I keep my mouth shut. I’m not an idiot, and I want Luca to love me. I wantour ragtag group to last until I’m old and gray. The details don’t matter because every time I picture my future, they’re there.
“It feels too good to be true,” I admit.
Luca shakes his head. “Too good to be true? We’ve fought tooth and nail for this. Nothing about it has been easy. Not since the night I killed Roscoe and set this entire chain of events in motion.”
Now it’s my turn to clamp my hand over his mouth. “Keep your voice down,” I hiss. “If anyone here finds out I lied about that, I’ll be in huge trouble.”
Luca nods, and I drop my hand. “This fear you have. Of being too much or not enough, I don’t get it,” he says. “You’ve always been exactly right to me.”
I meet his eyes and stare directly into them, searching for his angle. A flicker of insincerity... something, anything, but Luca looks like Luca. Milk chocolate brown hair falling over his forehead; his silver lip ring trapped between his teeth.
Godsdamn me, I believe him. “You do love me.”
He nods.
“And you don’t think I’m too much?”
He shakes his head.
“And you want to make this work long-term, even though I’m an enclave heir and you’re Mister Fringes?”
“Technically, if anyone is Mister Fringes—which defeats the whole purpose of an unincorporated community with no formal governing structure, by the way—it would be Ali.”
Heart pounding, I crash into Luca again, driving him into the hedge and kissing him with everything I’ve got. With each drag of his lips against mine, he erases my fears, wiping them away until I’m left with nothing but the taste, the smell, and the feel of him—entwined with the flicker of hope I no longer want to smother.
“You did all this thinking we would ditch you?” Luca frowns. I chase his mouth, but he dodges. “I don’t fucking like that.”
“I didn’t think Celine would ditch me,” I admit. “But I thought you and Alistair might eventually force her to choose, and I would get squeezed out. Two-to-one.”
“That’s bullshit.”
I roll my eyes. “And you assuming I thought your basilisk was a monster was perfectly logical, right? As if I haven’t fought for that scaly bastard on multiple occasions.”