Crow could see Penelope visibly relax as she bought his explanation for the past events. The sight brought him a strange mixture of relief and guilt. On one hand, now that she believed him again, he wouldn’t have to worry about watching his step around her for a while, but on the other hand, he had lied to her again, and that alone was enough to make his stomach churn. After all of the promises he’d made to try harder to be the man she deserved, he was falling right back into old habits like they were second nature. He wished he could genuinely get on track to being honest with her, but unfortunately, everything and everyone continued to stand in the way of that dream. He just hoped it would all be over soon, so he could be free to earnestly live up to her expectations.

He nodded wordlessly when she spoke about tracking down Jaxon, wishing he could agree with her, but knowing things would never be so easy. As she held him tighter, he mirrored her gesture, feeling a surge of protectiveness at the thought that Jaxon could still deem his word broken after everything that had happened with Gavin and come after her. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. He didn’t know what he would do if the murderer took her life or if she died in a one-sided battle against the Younisians.

At her apology, he shook his head. “I knew it was coming,” he sighed, gently stroking her back with one hand. “Gavin left in such a fit that I figured he would try to pull something like this. Hopefully he’ll back down now that you know the truth about what really happened.” Again, he loathed himself for how smoothly the deceitful words flowed off his tongue. He wished he didn’t find it so easy to lie to her, but he couldn’t help it. It didn’t matter how close they had become. The habits had simply become too deeply ingrained in him for their relationship to make any difference in how he treated her.

“On the bright side, at least we don’t have anyone else around to give us nasty looks,” Crow said optimistically when she mentioned going back to their regular meetings. His eyes wandered desirously to her soft lips. “And there’s no one around to stop me from doing this either.” In the next moment, he leaned in to press a deep kiss to her lips, pressing one hand to the small of her back and the other to the nape of her neck as he pulled her close to himself. His heart pounded as he forgot about the troubles they faced and focused instead on the woman in front of him, kissing her passionately in the dark.