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“I don’t know…”
“You don’t know what? What we were doing on the ship? How I was touching you? What don’t you know?”
“It’s just that…” Every explanation she tried to force to her lips fell off her tongue before sound was made.
“Just what, Tor? Why would you say such a thing—utter such words?” The cut in his voice tilted closer to fury.
“Roe, I can’t explain—”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Tell me.” His voice steel, he was breaking her down. Breaking her resistance. “Tell me now.”
She shook her head.
“Say it.” He leaned far in, his furious breath warm on her skin, prodding her. “Say it out loud, Tor. Say it.”
Her lips parted, her eyes closing against him as her voice cracked. “My legs.”
His head snapped back, his eyebrows collapsing inward. “Your legs? You said it because of your legs?” His head turned slightly to the side, yet his look stayed on her, slicing through her. “You think I touched you on the ship because you were convenient—a curiosity—and off the ship I wouldn’t want you? I wouldn’t want you because of your scars?”
She exhaled a long breath, defeated to her core. She’d tried so hard in every part of her life to not let her legs affect her. To not think less of herself because of them.
But this.
This was at the core of her. The most vulnerable, hidden belief.
She was sensible about it, knowing she was damaged goods—a match for only the elderly and desperate.
But she remembered what it was before the fire to have men look at her, talk and laugh with her, merely because she was interesting and pretty.
When she was worth something.
And that was the cruelest part of all. She remembered how it was to be whole. And she’d never quite accepted that she wasn’t the same person.
His left hand ran through his dark hair. “I thought you were dismissing me, done with me.” His eyes met hers, his mouth pulling back in a tight line. “But you…you were worried on your legs.”
He shook his head, swallowing hard, a lump in his throat she watched move down his neck. His left hand went to the side of her face, the tips of his fingers curling to the hair above her ear. “I love your legs, Tor.”
Her lips pursed as her look dipped between them. “Don’t pander to me.”
“Pander to you? Never.” His fingers along her face dropped, moving to wrap along her neck, his thumb pushing up on her chin. “Do you know I think of them as the sea?”
Her gaze lifted to him, wary. “You hate the sea.”
“I hate being on a wooden prison floating on the water with no hope of escape. That, I hate.” A half smile lifted his cheek, his steel grey eyes sparking warmth. “But the sea, the sea itself, I love. How it undulates across the expanse. Rough and smooth. Everything twisting and crashing together. The paradox of everything it is. Your legs. You.”
His voice dropped to the deepest rumble. “But convenient? A curiosity? Yes, you were those things.”
A sharp intake of breath flooded her lungs.
His fingers tightened along her neck. “And also my everything. I have been in love with you since the storm and lightning of you appeared in my cell at Newgate. Since you stood over me and told me I should rot in hell and you were glorious in your fury. When I had turned from you at the fire, you were broken and weak and were sure to die. But then you appeared over me. A rising, vengeful angel or demon, I wasn’t sure which. But it didn’t matter. I loved you from that instant. And I have never veered from that love. I haven’t been able to, no matter how much I have tried to let you be.”
His words fell silent and it took her one breath…two…three…to understand exactly what he was saying.
He watched her, his grey eyes intent on her face, not asking, not demanding anything from her. Only understanding.
