The Best Goodbye (Rosemary Beach, #13)(35)

“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 f*cking 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.





Captain


My mood had gone to hell. I’d snarled answers to anyone brave enough to ask, and Jamieson was annoying the shit out of me, in his suit, with his iPad Mini. Tonight couldn’t end soon enough. Staying busy was all that kept me from stalking Addy and watching every move she made.

When she’d walked out of my office without a word, I’d known I’d been close to drawing her in. I could have kissed her. She’d have let me. When she had leaned into me and her body had responded to my hands, I’d felt like the king of the world. Then she’d told me what I’d already feared. The innocence that shone through her eyes wasn’t an act.

While I had changed over the years, making sure to destroy my emotions to kill the pain, Addy had essentially stayed the same. She had become tough, and she’d learned to survive, but that only made her more special. How could I touch her? How was I even worthy to be near her? Fuck, if she knew the things I wanted to do to her, she’d be terrified. All she’d had was a boy who was so in love with her that sweet, easy sex had been perfect.

But I didn’t want that with her. I wanted her naked and bent over my desk with her legs spread, so I could kneel between them and taste her, something I’d never done. I wanted her knees to buckle as I held her up with my hands and ran my tongue through her heat until she cried out my name, trembling from my kiss. Then I wanted to slam into her hard from behind and watch her face in a mirror as she came all over my dick. Because there would be no condom with her. I wanted nothing between us.

Closing my eyes, I considered leaving early. I couldn’t keep this up. Every move she made, I knew it. Even if I wasn’t watching her like I wanted to, I felt her. I knew who she was talking to and what she was doing.

Her laughter rang out, and my eyes snapped open, and a thick tightness rolled over me. She was in the kitchen. Motherf*cker was making her laugh. The fury boiling in my veins was more than I could tamp down. He’d been warned.

I slammed through the back kitchen door, and my gaze locked on Addy immediately as she looked over at Brad. The smile was still on her face, and all I wanted to do was beat the hell out of my head chef until I had blood on my knuckles. The blackness I knew should never touch her cloaked me, and I couldn’t stop. I kept moving toward them. This was the monster I didn’t want her to see. The one I had lost control over.