False Start (Red Zone Rivals, #5)

by Kandi Steiner

“Because I’ll light you on fire and dance in the ashes. I am not a weak, helpless thing. I can handle myself. And if you respect me at all, you’ll honor this.”

“I know you don’t need me,” he said, cutting me off. His eyes flashed with something achingly familiar when he added, “But I need you.”

“Ugh!” She pouted. “Fine, but can you give me something? Tell me how you know her, or what level of serious it is. Oh, tell me your tropes!”

“I’m Kyle,” Kyle repeated. “I just told you that. Is your hearing bad, or are you just stupid?”

“But I gotta say… good luck keeping this from Giana. You know that girl. Not much gets past her. All those smutty books she reads give her superpowers to see right through shit like this.”

Then again, I couldn’t imagine a life where Sebastian was never born. Everything happens for a reason, they say. And if he was the reason for all the hell I had to endure, I’d do it ten times over.

“I may have shown it in an asshole way, but I care about you guys. I always have. And if I ever annoyed you, if I ever pushed you, if I ever made you want to punch me in the jaw — it was because I was desperate for someone to recognize my existence.” He tongued his cheek. “Sometimes, I just needed to know that someone still knew I was alive and gave a shit.”

“I hated you,” I whispered. “I did, Mads. I hated you with everything that I was for years. Until I saw you again.” I laughed then, the sound just a huff of air leaving my chest. “And then I realized that the only reason I could hate you was because I couldn’t see you, couldn’t touch you, couldn’t remember what it was like to be in your presence. And the moment I was around you again, all that was eviscerated. Because the truth is I can’t do anything but love you.”

“You don’t have to do this alone. Not anymore. Not ever again. You’re mine, Mads. You always have been. I lost you then, but I refuse to lose you now. Whatever you need, I’ll give it to you. Whatever we have to do, we’ll do it — together. No more letting anyone or anything get between us, you hear me?”

“Don’t think about this,” he pleaded, his blue eyes searching mine. “Just… let it be. Let us have a chance.” I nodded, kissing his palm. “I’m scared,” I whispered. “So am I,” he admitted, and then he framed my face. “But I’m sure, too. I’m sure about you. I’m sure about us. I’m sure about this.”

“I am and always have been hers. And being with her again, fighting through what we’ve had to, surviving what we did… there’s no one in this world I could ever want more than her. There’s no one who could ever make sense. She’s it for me. Period. End of story. She is… everything.”

“I love you, Mads,” he breathed, and when his jaw flexed with those words, when emotion made him swallow — it nearly broke me. “God, I love you fiercely. I love you in a way that would kill me if I wasn’t allowed to act out this love every day of my life. I love your passion and your heart. I love your fight. I love your determination. I loved you as a friend, as my first love, as my first… everything. And I love you even more now, as a mom, as a woman who has worn the weight of the world on her shoulders.”

“It’s me and you now,” he said between kisses. “Me. And you.” “Me and you,” I echoed. And somehow, even with Marshall’s threat hanging over our heads, I knew I was safe in Kyle’s arms. I knew we would figure it out. I just knew. Fireworks went off in my heart, sparking me to life in a way I hadn’t felt in a decade. All the pain was worth it. And for the first time I believed myself when I said everything would be okay.

“Yeah,” Sebastian said. But his smile faltered a little then, and his eyes met Kyle’s. “Will the new baby call you dad, the way I call my dad?” “Yes, buddy, they will.” My son swallowed. “Would it be okay if I call you dad, too?”

Family was this. It was a woman who filled every shattered piece of me, who fired up the need I’d never felt before to be a good man, a good caretaker, a good lover. It was my son and my daughter, the home we would all build together, the one that was already filled with laughter and playfulness and joy. It was knowing that no matter what came our way, we would hold hands — the four of us — and we would get through together.

“But there’s so much more I still want to know about you,” Kyle said, his eyes finding mine. “And I know that will never not be true. There is nothing in this world I love to discover more than you. Every day I spend by your side, I peel back another layer. I find something new to love. I find something new to cherish in the woman I never deserved, but will spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of.”

“I love you. And I will keep loving you until I am taken from this Earth, and long after I am gone, too. Always. That’s how long you have me. Forever. That’s how long I want you. Infinite, Madelyn — that’s what we are.”