Just like always.
I loved that about him and I hated that I loved it.
Hoping to hide my feelings, I babbled on, “When I got to your world, I was totally freaked out. The first ten, fifteen minutes, I thought it was a dream. The rest I knew wasn’t and I was scared shitless.”
“You forget, my love, I was prepared for your world,” he told me and I felt my brows draw together.
“You were?” He nodded. “How?”
“You told me about it. About the cars and the buses and the planes and the asphalt and the sidewalks. You told me about the buildings made of glass rising into the sky. People talking to other people on their phones in the streets. Others sitting in front of those…” he hesitated, “boxes, tapping at them with their fingers.”
“Computers,” I reminded him, stunned.
He remembered everything I told him.
Everything.
He smiled. “Computers.”
“You thought I was making it up,” I whispered and his eyes went dark.
“But now I know you were not.”
“You thought I was,” I semi-repeated.
“But now, Cora, I know you were not,” he also semi-repeated, this time softly but also firmly, that tender look back in his eyes.
I swallowed.
It was Tor’s way of apologizing. And it was a good way.
Then I decided I’d had enough. I couldn’t take more. He was going to get to me and he couldn’t. What he did hurt, too much. And anyway, he didn’t belong in my world and I didn’t belong in his. It was unnatural and anything could happen. Nature had a way of righting itself, sometimes violently.
I’d given in once, giving him all I had and taking what I could get in return.
And I loved it.
But it could be taken from me. He could be taken from me. At any moment a blue mist could form and whisk him away.
I had to stay on target. I had to sort out my life. And I had to guard my heart.
Which was going to be hard with a seasoned warrior obviously intent on laying siege to it.
But I had to try.
“Do you want to watch TV?” I asked into the void, his eyes flashed his displeasure at my change of subject then they settled.
“Will you rest if we watch this… TV?” he asked back and I nodded. “Then yes, I’d like to watch TV.”
I sucked in breath then turned, leaned down the couch, opened the drawer to my side table and grabbed the remote. I hit the button and resolutely ignored him as I switched channels until I found an innocuous sit-com. Then I settled in, partly turned away from him, and focused on TV (mostly for my sanity).
Not long after, I heard his plate hit the coffee table then the remote was slid from between my fingers.
My head twisted to him and I cried, “Hey!” but like a man, of his world or mine, he took over the technology, hitting buttons on the remote so the channel changed, the contrast changed, the volume changed and then he found a decent volume along with a cop show.
Figures.
Then he tagged me around my chest and pulled me down to lying beside him, wedged against the back of the couch, as he stretched out on his back, head to a pillow against the armrest.