Oh my. OK. This wasn’t the man I was used to. This was not the man at the ice cream shop. Who the hell was this? And why was he making my heart beat so fast it was in danger of breaking through my chest at any moment? “I wasn’t expecting this,” I said, finally able to say something that made sense, that told him what I was feeling.
His gaze dropped to my mouth this time, and my knees buckled slightly. He looked hungry. Like he wanted to taste me. No, like he wanted me to be his last meal.
His large hands grabbed my waist. His touch was electric; I could feel the heat on my skin, even through my clothes. I might as well have been standing there naked.
“When I first saw you again, as Rose, I was unable to look away. No one had drawn me in like that. Not since . . . you. I didn’t like looking at you because you moved like my Addy. You laughed like my Addy. You were petite and feminine, so much like my Addy, and I didn’t want anyone around who reminded me of what I’d lost. I stayed away from anyone who reminded me of you in the slightest. But you were hard to ignore. I watched you more than I should have. I hated that you were calling to something inside me that I had reserved for one person. And then I find out that you are that person? You’re here, and it’s fucking with my head, Addy.”
This was honesty. The kind of emotional honesty I hadn’t expected. I’d known who he was all along; he had been the one in the dark, yet he had sensed me. It was me he was drawn to, no matter how I presented myself.
“There was Elle,” I said simply, reminding myself as much as him. He might have sensed me, but it was Elle he had bent over his desk, in this very office.
His eyes clouded with regret. “She was a distraction. They’ve all been a distraction. There’ve been hundreds—I won’t lie to you. But I didn’t care for a single one of them. I never let them have me the way you had me. No one touched my soul, Addy. Only you.”
My skin heated at his words. I hadn’t slept with anyone since him. It had been ten years, and it was hard to believe, but I never wanted to be with anyone else. And until I loved again, I wasn’t giving that part of myself to someone. Being intimate with someone brought them into my life, and that meant Franny’s life. No one had ever been good enough.
“Hundreds?” I repeated. I wished it didn’t hurt. But he had thought I was dead. Would hearing him say he’d been in love with just one or two women be easier? No. It would have killed me.
“Never cared for them. Never saw their faces. Not one. I couldn’t see anyone past you,” he repeated, as he moved a hand up to cup the side of my face.
He needed to know. I wasn’t ready for this. “I haven’t been with anyone else . . . just you.”
His hand tightened on my waist, and his body tensed. For a second, he closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh of what I knew was relief. Then his eyes were on me again, and his pupils were completely dilated. “No one?” he said, as if he was holding on to those two words as some sort of lifeline.
“No one,” I repeated, because he seemed to need to hear it.
“Fuck,” he whispered, and then he was gone.
I stumbled back, grabbing the back of a chair to keep myself steady. Captain turned and walked to his desk. He placed both palms on the top of it and hung his head as he stood there, looking like he was in some sort of turmoil.
I didn’t say anything. I’d thought he’d want to know. That he’d want to hear he’d been it for me. But his reaction was confusing. I was finally able to take a deep breath; he was far enough away that his energy and presence didn’t suck up all the air around me.
My head began to clear, and the spell he’d wrapped me in began to fade as he battled with himself.
“I’m not the same. I’m darker, Addy. I’ve done things that have broken me. The boy who worshipped you and treated you with care is gone. I don’t know him anymore. He’s not me. I’m . . . intense. Even with you, especially with you, I’d lose myself, and . . .” He shook his head, stood up, and turned to me. “What I want, what I like, it’s not something you know. I can’t go there with you.”
Was he talking about sex? I was lost. “Why?” I asked, hoping he would make more sense.
He gazed at me with that look. A look I hadn’t seen in so long that it hit me hard. That was the look I wanted. “You’re too special, too fucking precious, for what I’ve become.”
I didn’t like that answer. I also didn’t believe him. Just moments ago, he was looking at me like he wanted nothing more than to have me. “What if I want what you’ve become? What if the man I see is the one I want? Do I not get a choice?” I realized that I meant every word. I did want the man he had become. He was different, but so was I. Didn’t he see that? I was harder and tougher, and I could survive. Just like him. It didn’t make him less appealing. I was a woman now. I needed a man. Not the boy from my memories.
“You don’t understand, and I can’t tell you. If I did, you’d leave town and never look back. I can’t let that happen. I want to prove that I can be the father Franny deserves. I won’t let you down.”
But he didn’t want to be anything to me. It went unspoken, but it was clear. The realization sliced through me in a way that I’d never get over, but I was tough. I was a survivor, and I wouldn’t beg anyone to want me. I’d done that as a child once, and my mother had left me anyway. Never again. Not even for River Joshua Kipling.