“What the hell, Liv?” Rage flared through Dean, his fists clenching. “What kind of mother says that to her daughter?”
“She had problems of her own.” Sensing his anger about to explode, I rose to approach him. “I’ve tried to accept that, but it takes work. A couple of weeks later, we finally left the guy’s house. I’d never been so thankful to move. God knows what else he would have done.”
Dean swore again and pressed his palms to his eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry, Liv. I suspected something had happened to you, but I hoped to hell I was wrong.”
Oh, there’s more.
I couldn’t tell him all of it, though. Not now. Too soon.
“Is that the cause of your panic attacks?” he asked.
“Some, yes,” I admitted. “I’ve been through a lot of therapy. Learned how to deal with it. But I want you to know before…” …this goes any farther.
He lowered his hands to look at me. “Before what?”
“I don’t… I don’t expect you to stick around and try to deal with my issues.” My chest hurt as I forced the words out.
Dean looked at me for a minute before he cupped my face in his warm hands.
“I meant what I said the other night, Liv,” he told me. “If you don’t want to do anything, we won’t. If you want to go slow, we’ll go slow. If you want to end this right now, I’ll walk away from you. It’ll kill me to do it, but if you want me to, I will.”
The choice is yours, Liv.
He didn’t have to say it. His gift of a choice was a balm to my cracked heart.
“I don’t want you to walk away,” I said.
“Good.” The lines between his eyes eased with relief.
I gripped his wrists, a knot of fear binding my throat. “But you… you might want to go,” I warned.
Darkness flashed in his expression. “Why?”
My eyes stung. I swallowed hard.
“Here be monsters,” I whispered.
A heartbeat of silence, brewing with danger, filled the space between us. Then Dean tightened his hold on me and, with his thumbs, brushed away the tears that spilled down my cheeks.
“Liv,” he said, his voice rough with tenderness, “you don’t have to be afraid.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll slay monsters for you.”
CHAPTER NINE
eptember eased into October of our first year together. Burnished leaves flared from the trees and began to fall in a blazing carpet of yellow and red. A pleasant chill bit through the air. Classes continued, the rhythm of the semester settling into a soothing march.
Being with Dean was so easy that my fear began to subside. If anyone could slay monsters, he could—though I would never ask that of him. I did know he was the one with whom I could discover all the hot, sexy things I’d imagined but never done.
I knew he was waiting for me to let him know when I wanted more, that I had to be the one to make the next move. I knew he would wait for as long as it took.
It didn’t take long. I thought about him a lot. My dreams burned with memories of his lips crushing mine, his hand sliding up my naked thigh, my breasts pressed against his chest. I woke breathless and throbbing, often rubbing myself to orgasm before I even got out of bed.
A week after my confession, I invited him over to watch a movie. Which I asked him to pick. Which was my mistake.
“Oh, Lord.” I dumped a pot of fresh-popped corn into a bowl and rolled my eyes. “Is that another key to unlocking you, then? Obscure foreign movies?”
He looked offended. “This is not an obscure movie. It’s a classic Tarkovsky film about a fifteenth-century Russian icon painter.”
“Oh, well in that case…”
“Give it a chance, would you?” He put the disc in the machine and hit the play button before settling back on the sofa.
I’d give it a chance because he looked astonishingly sexy sprawled out over my sofa, one arm slung over the back so that the material of his T-shirt stretched across his broad chest. His hair was all disheveled, his jaw coated with the stubble that I’d come to expect on casual evenings and weekends.
As long as I could sneak glances at him from the other side of the sofa, we could have been watching a movie about the bubonic plague, for all I cared.
I handed him the bowl of buttered popcorn and sat down, tucking my legs underneath my skirt. The movie started with a man getting entangled in the ropes of a hot-air balloon, which then caught a gust of wind and carried him through the sky.
After that somewhat promising start, there was drama about people seeking shelter in a barn to escape a rainstorm, then a philosophical discussion between two monks about grief and knowledge.
Fifteen minutes in, I took the popcorn bowl back and ate a few handfuls. Twenty minutes in, I yawned. Thirty minutes in, I felt Dean glance at me.
“No?” he asked.
I snored.
“Ah, Olivia.” He sighed and reached for the remote control. “You’re breaking my heart.”
“My being bored by a movie about a Russian icon painter is enough to break your heart?” I said in disbelief. “What happens when I tell you that medieval history puts me into a coma?”