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“I’ve been remote and withdrawn from my family, my friends. I’ve been avoiding passion of any kind, avoiding warmth and affection. You make me crave everything I’ve been missing, but I don’t want you to be hurt. I’ve alienated everyone in my life who once cared about me. I didn’t even attend my own father’s funeral. I didn’t feel anything when he died. I should have been sad or angry. All I felt was this enormous void, this ocean of nothingness, and that’s when I understood that I wasn’t like other people, and I never would be.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s because of the kidnapping.”
He laid his hand over hers on the table. “Knowing the cause of my affliction doesn’t stop it from spreading.”
The instant sweet relief of his touch. Momentary relief because then she wanted more.
She lifted his hand and interlaced her fingers with his. “You can’t tell me that you don’t feel this... this energy between us. Our bodies... our minds. If you connected with your emotions, you’d feel it too.”
“If I allow myself to feel too much, I have attacks. Moments of panic and disorientation. Mostly when I’m in London. Or in crowds, or in small, unfamiliar dark spaces like the room behind the bookshelf. Small things set off the attacks. At the ball, when you found me hiding in the garden shed, it was because a drop of wax fell on my cheek and it reminded me of something that happened to me during my captivity.”
She nodded. “I’m beginning to understand you. You’re a puzzle and I’m putting together the pieces.”
“I’m not a puzzle, I’m a dead-end street. Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t want your pity. That’s why I don’t want people to know about my kidnapping. I hate the thought of people pitying me.”
“I can feel you closing up,” she said.
“I shouldn’t have told you, I shouldn’t have talked about it.”
“I do pity you, Drew, you’re right. But not the man in front of me, the boy you were. The one attending a celebration with his friends, happy and carefree, and then taken and locked away.”
Her hand clasped in his, the strength in her eyes. The tug of his heart wanting to connect with hers.
He’d confessed everything, his weakness, his mixed-up emotions, his fears and she still wanted him. It did feel good to talk about it, more than good.
The relief was instant, sweet and clear as a drink of spring water on a hot summer’s day. The sweetness filled his mind, spilled over into his body.
“I don’t want to burden you with my darkness,” he said.
“My shoulders are strong. I want you,” she whispered.
He groaned. “Mina, all I want to do is drag you into my arms. Hold you there, hold you so tightly.”
“I want that too.”
“I want it so badly it’s tearing me apart. I want you in my arms. My bed. I want to be inside you, know you, taste you.”
“Our acquaintance began with a waltz that felt more like a war,” she said. “It progressed to pistols and you holding me against a wall, and from there it’s devolved into passionate kissing and... other activities. We can never have a conventional relationship. Stop trying to shape it into something that can be classified.”
“It would only be a temporary closeness and in the morning we’d still have this quest we’re on. Everything would still be complicated,” he said, clinging to reason.
“We’re both lonely people, Drew. There is emptiness inside me too. I wanted so badly for my parents and my uncle to love me, to need me, to give me praise. This brief time with you has been the most meaningful and fulfilling adventure of my life.”
“It’s been unforgettable,” he agreed.
“It doesn’t have to end. Don’t wall yourself away. Stay here with me. Give yourself to me.”
Chapter27
Give yourself to me.
Was he willing to take that risk? Was she willing, knowing everything that she knew about how damaged he was?
“I crave you, Mina, I’m drawn to you, but I’ve lived for so long in this self-imposed prison. There are so many lines I never cross.”
She was everything he’d been denying himself. Not just sex, unbridled laughter, small intimate moments, new insights, feeling drunk and not touching a drop of alcohol, feeling giddy, uncontrolled.
Mina rose to her feet and he followed. She held out her hands to him, palms upward. “It’s all well and good to have high ideals, to be a provider, pay your brother’s debts, give your family a good life. It’s all wonderful and admirable. But what’s left for you? You’ve been living on crumbs because you feel like that’s all you deserve.”
