She sighed and reached slowly for his face. He instinctively took a step back.
“No!” she cried out.
He froze.
“If you expect me to entertain anything you’ve just told me to be the truth, you must show some faith in me. I need to touch you, Kish. I’ve needed to since we met.”
His gut clenched when the tears pooled in her eyes once more. She looked like a goddess sitting on the railing under the bright moonlight with her arms stretched toward him and her white nightgown softly fluttering in the breeze. She seemed ethereal almost, as if she’d fade away under his touch. Too perfect for him.
He had to do this for her, had to prove to her that he didn’t think her a callous bitch that would shun him for his scars. He couldn’t expect her to accept what he was saying, what all it would entail for her future without giving her something in return. But did she have to ask for his very soul? She already had a piece of it, would forever have a piece of it. But did she need the whole damn thing?
If he did this, if he allowed her to see all of him, she’d forever hold the ability to crush him. His life, his heart, his soul would literally rest in her two tiny hands.
There was no avoiding this. No matter how many days, months, or years passed, it would always come back to this. He had no choice, but he would not do this in a dream. If she was determined to see all of him, she would see him for real.
Chapter Thirteen
Georgia sat up in bed. The dreams were getting more vivid, more real, if that was even possible.
“I’m insane.”
“I thought I was the insane one.”
Georgia nearly jumped out of her skin. Kish’s voice came from beside her. She didn’t feel Lucy at her feet any longer and assumed she must have gotten down on the floor.
“How the holy hel do you keep doing that?”
“It’s a lycan thing.”
Georgia sighed. “Kish, I—”
She felt the edge of the bed dip as he sat down beside her. “Look, Georgia. Everything I’ve told you is the truth. And yes, the dreams are as I said too.
Don’t try to argue with me. I can sit here and tel you word for word what just happened in your dreams.
You know why? Because I was there. I experienced it with you.”
Could this realy be happening? While her logical side resisted believing it, something deep inside her told her it was the truth. Kish wasn’t loony, but she might be going to crazy town soon.
He reached for her hands. “If you realy want to do this, it’s going to be for real. Not just dream real.”
Butterflies danced in her tummy. He was going to let her touch him. He was going to trust her even though the tone of his voice gave away his hesitancy to do so. She wished she could find a way to convince him somehow that his scars did not and would not ever matter to her, but she knew it was something she’d have to show him. No words would prove it. Only her actions could.
She held her breath as he dragged her hands to his face and placed them flat against each side of his jawline. She hesitated when he dropped his hands.
“Are you sure?” She hoped he didn’t change his mind because she needed to touch him, needed him to trust her with this, needed to show him that his scars didn’t mean anything to her.
She felt the slight nod of his head and began slowly dancing her fingers over his face. The stubble of his slight beard pricked her fingers, but she liked the feeling. It was befitting of him, added to his already-rugged qualities. Once she reached the edge of the stubble, the left side of turned into smooth skin while the right turned into rougher skin. The ridges of the scars were evident under her fingertips, but they didn’t seem al that pronounced in her opinion. She had a hard time believing that they would be al that noticeable even to those with sight.
He tensed under her touch when she folowed the scars around to his temple over his forehead and around to his eye. His eyebrow felt unaffected by the scarring. She trailed over the ridge of his nose, which seemed to have only a smal scar on the very edge where it met his cheek and traveled on down to his lips.
She sighed and smiled. His lips were perfect. Fuler than most men’s, but not girlie either. Her tummy flip-flopped at the memory of his kisses, the memory of his taste. She framed his face in her palms and slowly stroked his skin with her thumbs in what she hoped was a soothing manner.
“Kish,” she said quietly. “I think you are the sexiest, most gorgeous man I have ever met.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Georgia. I have two eyes. I know what I look like.”
“Maybe you have a worse opinion of yourself than others.”
“Apparently not.”
“They don’t matter.”
“They realy don’t matter to me, but they seem to matter to a lot of women.”
“I’m a woman, and I’m teling you they don’t change my view of you one bit. Even if your skin was as perfectly smooth on the right as the left, I couldn’t think you were any more breathtaking than I do right now.”
“Once you see them, you’l change your mind.”
“That’s making a whole lot of assumptions for me, Kish. First of al, you’re assuming I wil agree to let you change me. Secondly, you are assuming I’m as shalow as the other women you’ve dated, which by the way, pisses me off. Third, how could you possibly think that I would turn my back on someone I love because of something as trivial as scars?”
“Y-you said that you lo—”
“Yes. I said I love you. Just like you said you loved me. Or does that only count in dream world?”
Kish took her hands in his and kissed the backs of them before getting up from the bed. “I meant what I said, Georgia.”
His voice was quiet and came from across the room now. She stood and found her way to him. His back was to her and she looped her arms around his waist and laid her head against him. She felt tiny against him. The top of her head barely reached the bottom of his shoulder blades.
“I can’t do this again, Georgia.”
The pain that laced his words made her chest ache.
“Can’t do what?” she asked softly.
“If you end up leaving me like the rest because of my scars, I wouldn’t recover. Al this time, I thought I was so damned wounded because I thought I’d loved these women who’d proved to be nothing but shalow in the end. But I’ve realized I felt the way I did mostly from my pride taking a beating. You? Wel, little Georgia, you have the power to completely destroy me if you reject me. I can’t open myself up to that.”
Tears spiled over her cheeks. “I understand why you’d have a hard time trusting me after what you’ve been through, but the key lies in what you just told me, Kish.”
He turned around slowly, and she laid her palms against his chest.
“What do you mean?”
“You said that the biggest reason you were hurt by the others was because of your pride being stepped on, not because you were in love with them. I can only assume that you cared for each of these women in some way if you had a relationship with them, but it sounds as if it wasn’t your heart that took the beating.
If you’ve come to realize that then why can’t you see me? That someone who realy loves you—loves you for you, not for your name or money or looks—I don’t care about your scars now, and I wil never care about them. I love you, not your looks.”
He grunted.
“Although, I won’t lie. I think you are pretty dang sexy.” Georgia chuckled.
“Sweetheart, my sexiness pales in comparison to your radiant beauty. You are an amazing woman.”
She sighed.
“What?”
“You know, you aren’t the only one with doubts and fears. I have them as wel.”