“Get undressed for bed and comfortable. Give me a minute to wash up and change myself. Then we’ll get into bed and talk.”

She swore he was delaying it, almost as if he were still gathering courage to broach whatever topic he had on his mind. It only made her more nervous, and she wanted to blurt out that he should just tell her now, because the wait was killing her.

But she also recognized that whatever it was, he needed a moment to collect his thoughts. For him, she could wait, because she never wanted him to feel uncomfortable with her. Not when she was so at ease with him. There wasn’t anything she felt as though she couldn’t tell him, and she wanted him to feel the same way about her.

“Okay,” she said softly. “It won’t take me but a moment, but take as long as you need. I’ll be in bed waiting.”

Relief registered in his eyes and he turned abruptly, heading to the bathroom. A moment later she heard the shower turn on. She stripped out of her clothing and chose a comfortable pair of silk pajamas. She certainly had sexier options to wear, but she didn’t want to distract Swanny from whatever he wanted to discuss. The desire between them had been a tangible force in the room, but she’d also registered the importance of whatever it was he wanted to talk to her about, so she pushed thoughts of lovemaking from her mind and mentally prepared herself for what lay ahead.

Hoping for the best, she took a steadying breath and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to modestly cover herself, and waited for Swanny to return.

She didn’t have long to wait. It wasn’t even five minutes before Swanny returned, wearing a pair of boxers and a form-fitting T-shirt that had her drooling over his muscled physique. He paused at the edge of the bed, uncertainty once again filling his eyes.

Taking the initiative, she pulled the covers back and patted the space beside her.

“You can talk to me about anything, Swanny,” she said softly. “I never want you to feel as though you have to hold anything back. Not from me. Never from me. I feel closer to you than I’ve ever felt to anyone else in my life outside of my father and brothers.”

His features relaxed and he climbed into bed beside her and turned on his side facing her, propping his head up with his palm, elbow down on the pillow. He fiddled with the sheets a moment, his gaze lowered, but then finally he seemed to gather his courage and he lifted his gaze to meet hers.

She waited patiently in silence, not wanting to press. She sensed this was something huge. At least to him. But still, she couldn’t stanch the tiny tendrils of dread that wrapped themselves around her heart.

“I know I’m not good enough for you,” he said gruffly.

She opened her mouth to voice an immediate denial, but he put a finger gently to her lips.

“Let me finish,” he said quietly. “There’s a lot I want to say and I need to get it all out before I completely wimp out.”

She promptly closed her mouth, her heart aching at the vulnerability in his voice.

“I—I guess I want to know where this is headed,” he said in a faltering voice. “You and me, I mean. You have to know I have feelings for you, Eden.”

He stopped and shook his head.

“That’s not accurate. I’m in love with you. Completely and utterly in love with you. There’s no doubt in my mind about how I feel about you. And I need to know if you have any feelings for me. When this is over, I need to know where that leaves us. You aren’t just a job to me. You never will be. And I don’t want, when this is all over with, for us to go our separate ways and pretend that we didn’t share such a deep connection, and I guess what I’m asking is if you feel that same connection or if it’s one-sided on my part.”

He grew quiet, the anxiety in his gaze heightening. Her heart was racing, near to exploding. He’d laid himself bare before her. The courage that must have taken with his insecurities over not being good enough for her, not fitting into her world, his scars both internal and external. God, she couldn’t fathom such courage when she hadn’t even had the courage herself to tell him how she felt about him. She was suddenly shamed that he’d had to be the one to bring the topic up. That she hadn’t had his courage and had forced him into such a vulnerable position. If only she had as much bravery as he had. If she had only been willing to face her own fears, he would never be in this position, placing his very heart and soul in her hands when he had no idea if he’d face rejection.

Tears burned her eyes and she made no effort to wipe them away. They slid soundlessly down her cheeks and for a moment she simply couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t possibly say a word. Her throat was clogged with emotion, her chest heavy. Close on the heels of raw emotion came overwhelming relief. He wasn’t blowing her off. God, he’d just said he loved her. The very thing she’d wished the most for. The thing she’d lacked the courage to offer him first.

She still couldn’t find the words that were filling her heart, her mind, her very soul, so she did the only thing she did find herself capable of. She threw her arms around him, knocking him onto his back. And then she kissed him. Raw, heated, pouring every ounce of what she couldn’t summon to say into her kiss.

Her tears spilled onto his skin. She could taste them, salty and warm on their tongues as he returned her kiss in equal measure. She framed his face in her hands, gently caressing the scarred side, and then she kissed the corner of his mouth, the one where the scar just reached and affected that side’s ability to tilt upward as much as the other, and then she followed the path of the scar all the way up his cheek to where it ended near the corner of his eye.