I kiss the top of her head. “Yeah, honey, I can imagine.”
Later, when we’re back down in the common area, lounging on the couch, she turns her eyes up to me. “Is it over, now, do you think?”
I eye her. “Is what over?”
“My parents. Jiwan.”
“Yeah, babe. It’s over. Your parents don’t seem willing to compromise, so unless you’re willing to go back to life their way, or they’re willing to accept you as you are and the life you’ve chosen to live, they’re pretty much out of your life. As for Jiwan, I think I made myself very fuckin’ clear. He’ll have at least a few days in the hospital to consider my message to him, and if he’s got even half a fuckin’ brain in his thick fuckin’ skull, he’ll know you’re off-limits to him. But overall, yeah, I’m pretty confident he’ll slink back to wherever the fuck he lives and leave you and us alone.”
She nods, thoughtful. “I am very glad. I do not wish to live my life worrying if he will reappear and create more trouble.”
“You’re safe, darlin’,” I tell her. “Safe and free.”
“Safe and free,” she repeats. “It is an odd feeling. To feel, yes, this is my home. This is my work. This is my man. These are my friends.” She shakes her head. “Never did I think I could have these things. Always I thought they are for other people, not for me.”
“They’re for you.”
She curls up against me on the couch, tucked into the corner—knees drawn up, torso twisted onto mine, nose in my throat, hands on my shoulders. “How much my life has changed in little more than two weeks.”
“Yours and mine both, sweetheart.”
I feel her smile on my skin. “How has your life changed, please?”
I laugh. “How—?” I throw my head back and laugh. “Anj, babe. Really?”
She frowns up at me. “Yes, really.”
“The trauma and guilt and regret I’ve been living with for fuckin’ years, babe—it’sgone. That’s you—youdid that. You gave me Luke back. You forced me to face my past and the shit I was runnin’ scared from. It’s not like I can say I’m totally over all that shit, the accident and losing my team. You don’t just get over that. It’ll haunt me the rest of my life. But I can live with it, now. Luke’s forgiven me, and that’s so huge I can’t even put it into words. Losing my team is something I’m not sure I’ll ever be totally able to live with or accept. That guilt won’t ever totally go away. But I guess if Luke could forgive me for killing his daughter, I can at least work on forgiving myself for fucking up that op.” I twist my head down and touch her chin so I can look into her deep dark soft eyes. “And I’ve got you. I never in a million years thought I’d find someone to share my life with. Someone who cares, who gets me, who…” I swallow hard. “When I saw Della-Marie lyin’ there dead, I thought I was dead with her, maybe not my body, but my heart, my fuckin’ soul. I never figured I’d love again, or be loved. You do somethin’ like that, you don’t feel worthy of love, honey.”
“Youareworthy, Kane,” she breathes, her voice soft, her eyes liquid. “You aresoworthy.”
“Takes more than just bein’ told, honey,” I whisper past the burning in my chest and throat. “You’re makin’ mefeelworthy. That’s the miracle you’ve worked.”
She snuggles closer, burrowing and nuzzling deeper into my arms, into me. I wrap her up and hold her, inhale her scent, her presence, soaking up the soothing balm that is Anjalee.
“Fuck, I love you.” My voice is rough.
She doesn’t answer in words. Instead, she places her palm on my cheek, lifts her lips to mine, and kisses me.
It’s soft. It’s slow. It’s deep. It’s sweeter than sugar.
It’s everything.
It’s nothing more than a kiss. There’s no groping, no rush to nakedness. Just our mouths, fused and moving. But it somehow lightens the weight on my soul, illuminates the darkness inside.
When I was standing in Myka’s apartment, watching her and Rev, and you’d told me in a little under three weeks that I’d have a woman who loved me, that Luke would have forgiven me, and that I’d feel free from the guilt and regret over Della-Marie that’s weighed me down since that dark day, I’d have laughed in your face.
Yet here I am.
Proof that miracles can happen in an instant. Lives can change in one chance meeting.
Sometimes, you meet a person, and everything changes. Call it love at first sight if you want. Maybe it’s more. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s something deeper, something more mystical and spiritual, fuck if I know. For me, it was Anjalee Sharma getting stranded in the desert. One look into her eyes, and I knew.
She’s it.
You just have to have the balls to risk everything, without any clue what you stand to gain…
That being everything.
