Page 42 of The Best I Never Had

When he realizes I’m not going to respond, he moves on. “Were my cousins okay?”

I huff out a laugh. “Well, Gabriel proposed.”

Owen groans and drops his head into his hands. “That boy’s a menace.”

I laugh again, pulling his hands away from his face. “Stop, he’s fine. Everyone was great.”

“They love you.”

I roll my eyes. “They’re just having fun with me because they’re trying to screw with you. They’d do it to anyone you dated.”

He watches me, his head slightly tilted. “No. They. Love. You.”

There’s an intensity in Owen’s eyes, like he needs me to see and understand. But the welcome I’ve received makes no sense. This family is incredible. After twenty-eight years of shallow interactions and dismissals, what are the chances they’d be the first to want me.

“I don’t understand how they even thought we were together to begin with.” He opens his mouth to argue, but I refuse to be bowed, to pretend that we both don’t know the vast disparity between us. Our backgrounds, our education, our bank accounts. “We’ve already established you’re out of my league.”

“We’ve established no such thing.”

I continue like I didn’t hear him, even if his words make goosebumps sprout over my arms. “I’m not the type of girl someone from your family marries.”

“I don’t see—”

“It just goes to show they’re all desperate for you to settle down.”

He takes one long stride, bringing our bodies flush as he glares down at me.

“I’m only going to say this once. They believed it because it was believable. One look at you would be enough to make anyone believe I wanted you. But then you spent three days showing everyone how wonderful you are. I’m not surprised they’ve spent the past three years wishing I’d get you back. You aren’t good enough for my family. You’re better.”

I stare up at him in shock. His pupils expand, slowly overtaking the green until only the shades of blue are left. I drop my eyes to hide the riot of emotions shooting through me.

He doesn’t let me take the easy way out, wrapping a large hand around the side of my neck and using his thumb under my chin to tilt my face back to his. “Do you understand, Thea?”

The way his eyes flick to my throat tells me he feels my answering gulp against his hand, but I manage a nod.

“Good,” he says just above a whisper.

His eyes slowly move back up my face. The light blue is gone now, too, leaving nothing but his blown pupils and those rings of navy. Dark and dangerous in a way I’ve never seen him. I expect him to walk away. He made his point. Instead, the hand on my neck tightens, a flex of his muscles that shoots straight to my core.

“I dream about you, you know?” His words coast against my lips.

My eyes widen. “You do?”

He pulls his lower lip between his teeth and a strangled whimper escapes me. His breath catches in response, and when he looks at me, there’s a new hope in those depths. “I do. Every few months, like clockwork, there you are. My subconscious loves to torture me.”

“Torture you how?” I ask. The breathiness of my voice should embarrass me, but I can’t regret this conversation and the way he’s affecting me.

“You don’t want to know that.” There’s a hesitancy to his tone, like we’re playing a game, and he doesn’t know where out-of-bounds starts.

“What if I did? Want to know.”

He can’t stop now. If he walks away and leaves me like this, I’ll never recover. I’ll spend the rest of my life in a constant state of anticipation, waiting to hear the things Dream Owen and Dream Thea did in the middle of the night.

“Are you sure?” he asks, his voice still cautious, but he chuckles when I nod with too much enthusiasm. The hand around my neck moves into my hair. “It shows me these curls, wrapped around my fist.” He tugs lightly, and when I tilt my head back, his other hand runs down to trace the line of my throat, then down my body to my leg. “These legs have been wrapped around me plenty of times, too.” His fingers play with the hem of my sleep shorts.

“Is that all?” I ask.

He licks his lips, that smirk growing into a grin at my goading. “Not even close. You don’t want me to get started on those lips. The unspeakable things they’ve done to me.” He drops his mouth to my ear. “I wake kicking myself for not learning what you tasted like when I had my chance.”