A clatter came from the far side, where tools lined a low wooden workbench. Light flared, sudden illumination that offered her the sight of Dallas's back in silhouette. "Go back to the warehouse, Lex." He bit off each word, as if he had to measure them one at a time to keep his control. "I need to cool off."
"I can't." She was drawn to him, always. Unable to walk away. "Are you all right? Your hands?"
His snarl echoed through the darkness. "I'm not fucking around."
"I can't," she said again, desperation almost choking her. "I can't leave. No matter what's going on between us, you need me here. I'm not just an O'Kane."
Dallas spun, still mostly backlit. She could barely make out his face, only sharp shadows playing over a fierce expression. "If you touch me, I can't promise I'll let you go again. Not right now."
She couldn't go, but she couldn't stay, either. Couldn't push or retreat. Love him or hate him.
Something had to give.
"All I wanted was you." Her voice broke on the confession. "To be as important to you as you were to me."
Silence. Heartbreaking, humiliating silence, until Dallas shifted his weight. "Would you stab me, Lex?"
An exact echo of his words from their horrible, horrible fight. She shuddered. "Only if you make me."
He was still wearing his boots. He hadn't taken them off before fighting Dom, and now he bent and jerked a knife free from the left one. He flipped it around so he was holding it by the blade and offered it to her.
His way of providing her an escape. If she couldn't walk out the door, she could still stop him.
As soon as she touched the hilt, Dallas was on her.
It was harder and different and more than the night she'd stripped off his collar. Rough hands, intense kisses, his mouth slanting over hers as he immobilized her with an unforgiving grip in her hair. But it wasn't angry. It wasn't punishment.
It was hunger, pure and simple. Unchecked, uncontrolled desire, spilling out of him without finesse or thought, drowning her in the truth of how much he wanted her. How much he needed her.
This was what she couldn't walk away from, the reason she'd stay, no matter what. Her longing reflected in the trembling clench of his fingers.
Lex let the knife clatter to the table and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Groaning, he slid his hands down to her thighs and hoisted her against him. "I can't do this without you. I can't be Dallas without Lex."
The night had driven that home already. "We can't wind up hating each other, either. The damn sector won't survive it."
"I know. I know." One hand caught her hair and dragged her head back again. "If you can't stay and be Lex, I'll be Declan and go. Anywhere you want, anywhere you can be happy. None of this is worth a damn if you're not here."
The world stopped. He couldn't do it, could never give up what he wanted so much and had worked so hard to build--and yet there was no deception on his face, just an earnestness that almost hurt to see.
He'd leave it all. For her.
"I want you to be happy," she whispered. "With Four, with the gang. With me."
His grip relaxed in her hair, shifting to cradle the back of her head as he turned and set her on the workbench. The knife glinted a few inches away from her fingers as he lifted his other hand to her cheek. "With you. That's the only way I'll ever be happy, Lex. I thought it didn't matter if you left, that it couldn't matter, but I'm a goddamn liar. I'm too fucking selfish to stay here and suffer like some noble fucking martyr. They're my people, but you're everything."
Power was one thing, but his people were another entirely. "You need them, too. But that's okay. So do I."
Dallas exhaled and rested his forehead against hers. "Yeah, okay. Maybe I need them. That's what's gotta change, isn't it? No more lying. Not to you, and not to myself."
"No more," she agreed. But he wasn't the only one who'd hidden things, from himself or her. "If you can do that, so can I. Because I love you."
"I've always loved you." A shudder worked through him, and he pulled her closer. "I've always wanted you. They don't have a word for how much I need you. Everything good I am, everything good I've ever done...it's all you. You