Eventually fatigue overwhelmed him and pulled him under. He woke up two hours later with someone poking him in the shoulder.

Poke. “Jase.”

Poke. Poke. “Jase.”

He cracked one eyelid open to see Talley leaning over him, her hair falling forward to obscure her face enough that he couldn’t really see the expression there.

“What’s wrong?” As he sat up he was already making plans in his head. He had a bag packed and ready if they needed to hit the road. He hadn’t been keeping up with the weather like Liam had told him to, but it was August. It wasn’t exactly like they were going to hit snow anywhere along the way. He would have Talley look and make sure there were no storms between Lexington and wherever it was they were going. As long as she wasn’t here to tell him someone was dead, he was ready to handle whatever it was.

“Nothing! Nothing is wrong.” She sat down on the edge of his bed and flipped a strand of hair around her finger. Suddenly, he was feeling even more anxious than when he thought the Alphas were coming for them. “Can we talk?”

“At three in the morning?”

Talley nodded.

He thought that since opening up to her that morning he would never shy away from her touch again, but he found he didn’t have the mental fortitude to let her See him now. He repositioned himself on the bed, making certain no part of him could accidentally brush up against any part of her.

“So, what do you want to talk about at this fine hour? TV? Music? Basketball?” He felt Guido wedged between his arm and the wall and considered clutching onto the little sock monkey for some moral support. That would have made him look all kinds of cool and macho. “I think the team this year looks promising, although they’re probably all a little nervous about having to move forward without me.”

Talley completely ignored the fact that he’d spoken. “Jase, you think you’re in love with me.”

So she had gotten that out of his head with all that other stuff. Well, at least he knew now and didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

“Talley, I don’t think I’m in love with you.”

Even in the dark with only the street lights shining through the window to illuminate the room he could see the uncertainty in her eyes. “But I Saw—”

“I know I’m in love with you. The verb is similar, but the difference is an important one.”

She just sat there unmoving for what felt like an eternity. He wanted to scream at her to say something already. There was nothing as painful as this anticipation. The not knowing was going to kill him.

“I won’t be one of your girls,” she finally said.

He thought he’d been smart and kept himself from hoping, but he was wrong. He knew he was wrong because at that moment he felt all the hope he didn't know he was holding onto die a quick and painful death just below his ribcage.

“I understand,” he somehow managed to say without bursting into tears like a two year old girl.

“Do you?”

Was she really going to torture him by laying out all the ways he wasn’t good enough for her? Didn’t she realize he already knew? Hell, if she wanted him to, he would write a ten page paper detailing his inadequacies. He would do anything if she would just leave and let him fall apart in peace.

“If we do this,” she continued, “you can’t just toss me aside tomorrow because you get bored. I’m not a plaything or an experiment on what it would be like to sleep with a fat girl—”

“Do not call yourself fat.” He wasn’t really understanding anything else she was saying, but he wasn’t going to let anyone put her down like that, including Talley herself.

“I’m a person, Jase. And my heart may not be worth much to anyone else, but it’s mine, and I will protect it with everything I have, so don’t say you want to do this unless you’re serious about it—”

She was saying yes. In her own lecturing, Talley-like way, she was saying yes. “I love you,” he said, smiling bigger than he thought was possible at such an ungodly hour.

“A relationship takes work, and you have to be committed—”

“Talley Anne Matthews, I claim you as my mate, now and forever.”

She stopped mid-rant. Her eyes grew big, and he thought she might have started shaking.

“What did you say?”

Emboldened with a sudden surge of confidence, he took her hand so she could See his sincerity. “You’re mine. Now. Tomorrow. When we’re old and have grey hair and wrinkles. If you don’t want this, you better say so now, because I’m not letting you go once I have you.”

Instead of answering, Talley grabbed his face and pulled it to hers, which he decided was the best answer she could have given. Her lips were even softer than he’d imagined. He sipped at them, trying to find every nuance of her perfect flavor. He was wondering how far he should go, how much he could push, when her tongue parted his lips. Then she slid a hand up his shirt and he thought he might die of pleasure. He knew she was using her Sight. The moment he thought of something he wanted, she did it. It was the most mind-blowingly amazing make-out session in history.

And it was getting very hot, and very heavy, very quickly.

“Easy,” he said, capturing her hand with his own, although he couldn’t quite convince himself to remove it from his chest. He hadn’t thought he was cold, but the warmth she was radiating felt good against his skin. “We don’t have to do this tonight.”

She blinked those big, blue eyes at him, and he swore he was aware of each and every dark lash. “But what if I want to?”

Jase decided he was going to be awarded sainthood for doing the right thing. “I’m not ready.”

Talley looked genuinely confused. “But I thought you wanted to.”

“Trust me, I do. You and I are going to be having an ungodly amount of sex someday.” He sent a couple of X-rated images her way to reassure her. The way she flushed and wouldn’t look him in the eye afterward was all he needed to stay on track. “But our first time isn’t going to be at three in the morning on a twin-sized bed that sags on one side.” She was still studying the pattern on his comforter, so he put a finger under her chin and lifted her head until she was looking at him. “You’re not just another girl to me, Talley. I wasn’t lying before. This is it for me. I want to be the one helping you pick out denture cream someday. And I don’t want to spend the next eighty years regretting that I didn’t make our first time special.”