She blinked up at me and pulled back. “Yes. You are.”
“No. I’m not.” I shook my head. “But you make me better. You make me want to be good. I know I’ll fuck it up, and I know next to nothing about life outside of”—I gestured to the dead bodies on the floor—“well, this hellhole. But I also know what it feels like to be with you. And it feels good, sweetheart. You can’t stay here, with them. You have to come with me. I need you to come with me.”
Biting down on her lip, she stepped out of my arms. They’d never felt so damn empty before. “I like being with you, too—”
“Let me finish. I know it’s asking a lot, but I want . . .” I gestured between her and me impatiently. “I want this. With you. I want to spend the rest of my life protecting you. Taking care of you.”
“Is that what this is?” She blinked rapidly, but she looked less than convinced. If anything, she looked even more skeptical. “Is this just you finding yet another way to keep me safe?”
“You’ll never be safer than when you are with me,” I argued.
“The thing is, you already gave up everything for me. Walked away from everything you know. Everything you wanted.” She gestured at the apartment. “You don’t have to spend the rest of your life keeping me safe because you think it’s the right thing to do. You did enough for me.”
“No.” I shook my head. She didn’t get it. “Please, darlin’.”
She gripped the top of my couch, keeping it as a barrier between us. “Please, what?”
“I’m not asking you to run away with me because I want to save you, like a hero. I already told you, I’m not one. And I never will be.”
“Lucas . . .”
“I’m asking you to run away with me because I want that life. And I want it with you. I want it so fucking bad. Run with me, sweetheart. Live a normal life, in the safest town in America, as far away from here as possible. Live in a normal house, with a fence. Plant an ugly garden with me.” I stalked across the living room. “I know you can do better than me. I know you deserve better, too. And I know you love that shitty little bar across the street, but you know what? I . . . I . . .”
She let go of the couch, her mouth parted. “You what?”
I swallowed the acrid taste of acid rising in my throat. Was I actually going to do this? Say this sappy shit? Yeah. I was. And I wouldn’t regret a single word. “I love you, damn it. So that’s why I dare you to run away with me. That’s right. I fucking dare you to run.”
She gasped. “Wh-what?”
I’d wanted to vomit before I’d said those words, but once they came out . . . damned if it didn’t feel amazing. I walked around the back of the couch and yanked her into my arms. She sagged into me, barely breathing. “I love you, okay? You made me realize I wasn’t as dead to the world as I thought, and I want to embrace it instead of killing it. I want to live in that little house with you, probably killing lots of flowers, and spend the rest of my life loving you. Making you smile. Making you as happy as you’ve made me, if that’s even possible.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she smiled up at me. How the hell did women do that—manage to look both brokenhearted and ecstatic all at one time? “Say it again. I want to hear it one more time.”
I cocked a brow. If she was asking me to say it again, that had to mean one thing. I’d gotten my yes. “I love you, Heidi.”
She let out a sob and threw her arms around my neck. “I love you, too.”
For a second, my arms hung limply at my sides. Not because I didn’t want to hug her, but because I was so stunned that she could possibly love me back. She was . . . she was her, and I was me, but she loved me anyway? “You love me?”
She nodded, her face buried in my neck. “I do. I didn’t want to admit it for the longest time, but I knew I loved you that night we first made love. You kept telling me not to want you, or fall for you, but it was inevitable. I fell, and I fell hard.”
I finally closed my arms around her, hugging her close to my chest. She clung to me, and I stood there for a second, just taking it all in. She’d said she loved me. Really loved me. Me. “Yeah, well, you fucking tripped me.”
She laughed, pulling back and smiling up at me with shining blue eyes. “We’re really going to do this? Run away together and be normal?”
She said that as if it was this horrible, dreadful thing, so I couldn’t help but laugh.
And I couldn’t believe it, either.
“Hell yeah, we are. So hurry up and pack before Steel Row gets here . . . or even worse? The Boys—not counting Scotty, of course.” I kissed her forehead. “Even though this is the shittiest section of Steel Row, someone might have called it in.”
She nodded and let go of me, but her eyes held on to that sparkle. “Okay, let’s do this.”