He stared down into her face. That beautiful face. In a deeply perverted way, he even loved that apprehension because it said so much. It told him she cared enough to be anxious. To want to please him. That maybe, just maybe, she could love him enough to see past the killer in him and want to stay even if she learned the absolute worst about him. He hoped so. He hoped he sucked her in deep enough to accept his life. To stay with him in spite of what he could never get out of—because he couldn’t. He knew that. Not alive.

“You stay if they tell you I killed people?” His fist gripped her hair harder. Involuntarily.

Her gaze didn’t waver from his. “Elijah. You might not have said that to me, but you certainly implied it. I heard rumors. I’m here.”

“You going to stay no matter what I ask for in the bedroom? Even if it scares you?”

She blinked. Drew in a breath. “I trust you, Elijah. I imagine that if I were really scared you would help me get past that. Having said that, I’m willing to try anything you want at least once. Then I trust you to hear me if I say it didn’t work for me.”

His heart actually stuttered in his chest. In his life, other than Rachel, his sister, who he had to pretend he didn’t care about, and Joaquin and Tomas, his bodyguards, he didn’t have a single soul who stuck by him. Not one he could trust. Not a single other family member who didn’t want something from him.

“What do you want from me, Siena?” he demanded.

“I want you to be happy, Elijah.” Her voice was soft. Her face was soft. Her eyes, intensely green. “Honey, share with me what’s going on. Let me in.”

She was so far in he was totally fucked, but she didn’t see it. She didn’t see what she meant to him. He didn’t understand how that could be when he felt the earth shake under his feet and his lungs burning with the need for air every time he tried to take a breath around her.

“Here’s me sharing, Siena. You didn’t deserve a fucked-up grandfather who put your life in jeopardy, or a father who followed in his footsteps and got your mother killed. You sure as hell shouldn’t be anywhere near a man like me. If I were any kind of a man, I’d let you go, but it’s not going to happen. Ever. You get pissed, we talk about it. We work it out.”