I could come just from kissing this girl.

I could come just from holding hands with this girl.

She was everything.

My legs buckled as her tongue swept over my teeth. My brain misfired, forgetting to hold up my weight when all it cared about, all it needed, was to be inside her.

I slammed to my knees, dragging her down with me.

Her mouth opened wide in discomfort. Hay pricked us. Brick bruised us. But I couldn’t stop kissing her.

Unlooping our fingers, she pressed both hands against my chest, pushing gently. “Stop…please.”

Stop?

I couldn’t.

I didn’t want to.

I never wanted to stop.

“Sully.” She avoided my seeking kiss.

I needed to taste her again.

“Please, stop.”

My eyes opened, blinded at first as if I’d lived in a different realm and forgotten how to see in this one.

Eleanor stared back. Her lips swollen and pink. Her cheeks flushed. Her gaze cool and resolute.

More pain.

A goddamn axe to the chest.

It took every bit of strength I had left, but I pulled away. My lungs pumped air to a suffocating heart. My blood pressure ensured I would never walk again unless Eleanor helped relieve my excruciating erection.

But with the way she watched me…it hinted of punishment instead of pleasure.

Punishment I deserved, and punishment I would gladly take if it made me worthy of her.

Worthy?

Shit, I’d done so much to be the opposite of worthy.

My ribs cracked with overwhelming force—an emotion that I’d done my best to murder each time it appeared. A truth I could no longer deny.

I ran my tongue over my lips.

I raked both hands through blond hair.

I prepared to give myself to another.

To her.

Forever.

Our eyes caught.

I shrugged almost in apology.

I stared at my queen with her invisible crown and confessed.

“I love you, Eleanor Grace.”

Chapter Twenty-One

THE WORLD STOPPED.

I sat in a bubble of time, an iridescent capsule where nothing and no one could touch me.

I love you, Eleanor Grace.

I love you.

I

Love

You.

In another life, I would’ve launched into his arms and kissed every inch of him. I would’ve clambered onto his lap and inserted him deep inside me so we could consummate such a vow.

He’d told me he loved me while hidden behind the masks of other men. Now, he’d told he loved me while stripped bare and in pain.

But…

After what he’d done? After the tricks and tests? After doubting my honesty?

I was wary.

I was burned.

I was hurt.

I didn’t accept what he said.

I didn’t know if he was capable of love.

I didn’t know how to trust it.

Trust.

I laughed under my breath.

How ironic that Sully was finally prepared to trust our connection and I’d lost the ability to do the same.

I mean…how am I supposed to accept such a declaration when it comes from a stable hand with blond hair, brown eyes, and a body half the size of Sully Sinclair’s?

Yes, our souls sparked when we touched.

Yes, I heard him behind the voice of the disguise.

But it was still a mask.

A mask designed to protect himself—just like all the other masks he wore in his life.

He slipped between them so effortlessly, I doubted he knew he did it.

But I knew.

I’d been witness to the genius scientist who spoke of elixir like he’d birthed it, rather than conjured it in a test tube. I’d watched the sadistic hotelier as he welcomed guests upon his shores. I’d seen the golden-hearted man who killed himself with empathy over animals he couldn’t save. I’d studied the green-fingered gardener who prowled through vegetable patches bursting with life. I’d swooned over a man who loved a tiny parrot more than money, power, or possessions. And I’d fallen for the boy behind the mask of a monster.

The boy who’d been taught a lesson when he was young that trust was an abomination.

A boy who still carried that lesson at the forefront of his mind.

And now, I was supposed to believe that after decades of conditioning, he’d suddenly been able to switch? That he’d let me into the heart that had a thousand walls and locked with a million keys?

“Eleanor…” He pinched the bridge of his nose for a second, gathering his thoughts. The action might be done by a blond farm boy, but it was Sully’s mannerism without a doubt. The way his shoulders rolled. The way his chest strained with violence to argue his case and restraint to accept my refusal.

“I don’t expect you to leap for joy over such a confession, but…” He dropped his hand, staring me dead in the eyes. “I do expect you to believe me.”

I splayed my hands in surrender. “How can I know if it’s the truth?”

He grabbed my right hand and slammed it over his heart. It hammered beneath my fingertips, irregular and panicked.

Panicked at the thought that I would deny his devotion. Panicked that just because he’d chosen me…didn’t mean I’d chosen him.

“That is yours. It was yours the moment I fucking met you. It knew…all while I tried to say otherwise.”

I tried to take my hand back, unnerved by the walloping of his pulse. “Sully—”

“I love you. I can tell you again and again. Tell me how many times I need to say it to make you believe me.”

I smiled sadly. “It’s not about repetition.”

“What’s it about then?” He let me go, balling his hands. “What do you need to trust me?”

What did I need?

What would fix this after he’d broken it apart?

I studied him, noting the faint freckles over his nose, the golden strands on his head, the slightly crooked front teeth. As far as disguises went, this one was cute in a first boyfriend kind of way. First roll in the hay. First kiss behind the barn. First heartbreak at the end of summer.

The only thing was…Sully was none of those things.

He wasn’t innocent or young or blond.

He was stubborn and weathered and dark.

Dark of hair and dark of soul.

Dark enough to need the light I could bring him. Dark enough to hopefully step into that light…to show me his secrets…to hide nothing from me.

I looked up. My tummy clenched. I braced myself against his reaction. “Tell me the truth. About everything.”

His forehead furrowed. “What truth? The truth that I love you? That I always will. That I know who you are now? That I finally have an answer to a question that’s kept me up at night? You are mine, Eleanor Grace. You were mine the moment you took your first breath. Just like I am yours.”

Goosebumps made me shiver. My stupid romantic heart wanted so much to stuff those words into its pocket and keep them safe. To pull them out and re-read the love letter. To hear them spoken every damn day for the rest of my life.

Just like this farmhand was the beginning of a romance—first kiss, first fumble, first goodbye—Sully was the end. The forever. The always.

There would be no goodbye. No heartbreak. If I’d done the impossible and made a man like him fall in love with me…then it wasn’t to be taken lightly.