Into the Fading Twilight (Starlight Grove, #2) (111)

I couldn’t help it; I laughed. It was the last sound I expected to come out of me after everything we’d been through today, but it also felt damn good.

Kol glared up at me.

“I’m sorry.” I let my hands sift through his hair again. “But that’s one of the most asinine things I’ve ever heard.”

The glare deepened. “It’s not nice to call people asinine.”

“What you said was asinine,” I corrected. “Kol, you are the most caring, comforting person I’ve ever known. And it comes from your soul. You may not give it to many, but you give it to the people who are important.”

His glare ebbed, transforming into curiosity. “Do I really give you what you need?”

My heart broke. For the boy who, at just seventeen, had watched his family shatter. For the one who’d had the rug pulled out from under him when he realized who his father truly was. For the man who’d had every lie reinforced when a woman couldn’t see who he and his daughter really were.

He’d had every confirmation that he wasn’t enough. That everything about him was wrong, bad, and freakish. And it killed me that those doubts still lived inside him.

I stared into those dark-hazel eyes and let all my walls down. I let him see it all. “Kol, you helped me live. And I don’t mean you kept me breathing when I couldn’t carry on. You taught me how to find life again, how not to run away from it but live it. You gave me beauty and fun and a family. You let me show you who I really was when I felt like everything inside of me was ugly.”

A fierceness spread over Kol’s expression. “All of you is beautiful,” he rasped. “Your hope and your fear. Your joy and your pain. Because all of it is you.”

“There is nothing more comforting than knowing, down to your bones, that you are loved for exactly who you are. That is the most precious gift I’ll ever be given.”

Kol searched my face. “I love you.”

“I know,” I said, my mouth curving.

“Stop stealing my lines.”

“They’re good.” I brushed my lips across his and then straightened. A buzz lit in my muscles, not one of anxiety but those butterfly wings I’d felt before I told Brae I loved her. Anticipation and some nerves, but all of it meant I was alive. And because of that, I wanted to truly live. Not in fear but in freedom. “I want to try something.”

Kol’s dark brows pulled together in question. “Okay. You going to tell me what?”

“I want you to tie me up.”





CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE


Nova




THE SHOW OF EMOTIONS THAT PLAYED ACROSS KOL’S FACE was more than a little satisfying. Shock, then a hint of concern, then hope, then pure blistering heat. “Phoenix,” he growled.

I knew what would come next. Telling me now wasn’t the time. And I understood the concern. Everything swirling around us had stirred up my trauma. However, that was also why now was the exact right time.

“Trust me,” I whispered. “Trust me to know what I want. What I need.”

“Explain it to me.”

I could feel that same battling restraint in Kol’s muscles—one of the things I loved most about him. That he worked so hard to contain a strength that could easily overpower most people. That he cared enough to make sure he never got too rough.

My thumb tracked beneath his bottom lip, tracing the shape. “I need to let go. To know I’m not in control and am still okay. I want to reclaim what it means to be bound. And know that it will never be a bad thing for me again.”

Kol studied me, taking in everything I said and turning it over.

“And I want to give this to you.”

“Nova, you already give me everything.”

“You like it? Tying someone up?”

His gaze shifted to the side, and I had my answer.

“Let me give this to you,” I pressed. “Let me give it to me. Let me give it to us.”

That dark-hazel gaze was back on my face, searching again. “You have to promise to tell me if anything is too much.”

“I’ll never lie to you.” The words slipped from my mouth effortlessly. Because I never had. Kol made it so easy for me to share my truth with him because he accepted me just as I was.

He shoved to his feet in answer, grabbing my ass as he took me with him. He strode toward the back door like a man on a mission. The moment we were inside, he flipped the lock and set the alarm. He carried me as if it took no effort at all, taking the steps two at a time and making me giggle.

“You think you can offer me everything, and I’m not gonna be in a fuckin’ hurry?” Kol asked.

I grinned against the side of his face. “I think I like you in a hurry.”

His only answer was a rumbling growl as he strode into his bedroom—a room that was becoming ours. He slowly lowered me to the floor, and the friction of the movement sent sparks dancing across my skin.

Kol stared down at me for a moment and then ghosted his knuckles against my cheekbone. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” That buzz in my muscles intensified. It was a different sort of high than throwing myself off a cliff or hurtling down a mountain on a bike. There would always be something about those things that called to me, but this? This was better. It was more.