Love Him Desperate (On the Market #5) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,70

it’s worth it. I really like him. I want to make him happy. I think I could—if he just let me, but I don’t know how. And I know he adores you more than anyone else in his life. He trusts you in ways he doesn’t trust other people. It’s important to me that you understand I just want a chance because I think I could be good for him. And to him. Hell, I’d buy a ring right now if I knew we had a future together.”

Dmitri wanted to cry. He wanted to smash his mug and wail and tear at the walls and put his fist through a window just to feel something besides the pain in his gut. Mostly because it was the one thing he had truly wanted for Raphael—that worship, that adoration, that happiness. He’d just wanted it to come from him. And he wanted it to be welcome.

But that was not reality, and it was time.

“Okay,” he said, and Rian blinked in shock.

“What, really?”

Dmitri nodded. “Because I feel the same way about him. I haven’t known him that long, but he was one of the first people who took a look at me and decided that I was worth something just for existing. Even my family kind of kept me at arm’s length, because they weren’t sure I was going to turn out to be any good at all. But Raphael didn’t care if I did or not. And I want him to be loved so completely and so totally that he’ll forget everyone else around him.”

He bled the words in heaving, gaping wounds inside, but he meant them. He meant every single one of them.

“So, tell me what to do,” Rian begged.

Dmitri nodded. “It’s going to start with a lesson in patience, and after that, it’s going to start with a lesson in food.”

“That sounds simple enough,” Rian said, almost like he was suspicious of Dmitri.

“It is. And that’s probably what you’re missing. Raphael doesn’t need anything complicated. He just needs to believe that he’s worth it.”

“Well, he is,” Rian said.

Dmitri bowed his head. “Yeah. I know.”

Chapter Thirteen

Not every instance of déjà vu was a seizure, but when Raphael’s cheeks and fingers began to tingle, he knew. His last coherent thought was one of frustration. It had been four weeks and six days—and he knew none of his treatments were a cure, but he wanted more time before another.

Somewhere in the background, he heard himself calling for Jayden, and he wasn’t sure how he got to the massage room, but he woke on the table with the heating blanket turned on and a warm, wet towel over his eyes. There was a faint hint of jasmine, but Jayden knew better than to turn on any of the diffusers because the smells overwhelmed him right after he woke up.

His head was fine, until he tried to move, and then it felt like someone had driven a spike through his temple. The tears were inevitable, from the pain, from the fact that when he wriggled his legs, he realized that he was in lounge pants that didn’t belong to him. He smelled soap, and under that, a faint hint of urine. Nothing new—nothing different.

And it had been four weeks, but it wasn’t enough.

He tried to stop himself, but his breath came out in a big, heaving sob, and it was loud enough to draw someone to the door. It slid open, and the sound was grating, so he buried his face in the pillow and braced himself for touch.

He was over-sensitive. There were only a few people in his life who know how to touch him the right way when his nerves were all on edge and on fire, but these hands were not one of them. They touched too hard, too fast. Fire prickled at him, and he groaned, trying to pull away.

“Hey.”

It took him a second to place the voice. The fog was heavy, settling over his awareness, and fatigue weighted his limbs. He wanted to be home. He wanted Lorenzo. He wanted Dmitri, but even in this state, he never asked for him. He didn’t want this man.

“Stop.”

“Raph, it’s Rian. Can I get you anything?”

The voice wasn’t simpering, but it was close, and Raphael felt a surge of anger. Part of him—what was left of his ability to think rationally, knew he was being unfair. But that part was a quiet whisper against the raging storm inside him that had no tact,