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“Ask me what you want to know.”
Priya’s breath left her in a long exhale.
“Why aren’t you seeing a neurologist? Why aren’t there a bunch of specialists here to help you transition back to your life? Why aren’t you seeking therapy or medication for your headaches and insomnia? How frequently do you have those nightmares?”
He looked at her, a smile curving his lips. “I can imagine you like this in the boardroom, making all those crusty old men toe the line. Busting their asses, calling them on their greed. You must be quite the thing to see.”
“Don’t distract me from this.”
His fingers pulled at his dark blond strands. “Just because I don’t share everything with you doesn’t mean I’m not addressing it. And for God’s sake, stop looking at me as if I was a fixer-upper project you can’t wait to sink your teeth into.”
“That’s the most ridiculous...” Priya trailed off then and raised a brow, giving it some thought. “Hmm. You’re not completely wrong about me wanting to sink my teeth into you. Who knew I was into grouchy guys with tight asses?”
His curse rang around them, but when she looked at him, his blue eyes were warm.
Despite her frustration, she understood his reluctance to share everything with her. For a man who’d thrived on being a leader, on being the best at everything, not being able to trust his own mind, not knowing what tomorrow might bring would be nothing short of torture. Her annoyance—spurred on by fear mostly—left her as fast as it had come.
“You’ve lost almost a decade of your life. I should’ve recognized that you’re in mourning even if you didn’t. Because I... I did mourn you. And you should have that space, too.”
“Did you? Mourn me? As more than a...”
Whatever he’d been about to ask, he cut it off with a growl. Priya watched him, confused. What was the piece of the puzzle from the past that she was still missing?
They remembered“two different realities,”he’d said before. But what exactly did that mean?
“I’m scared,” he admitted then, and it almost felt like he was confiding that just to get away from the subject of their past. And it did that. It whipped her straight back into the painful present. “I’m scared of letting anyone look into my head. Of letting a psychologist or a hypnotist or a neurologist poke about in there and making things worse. I’m scared of losing what I’ve finally remembered after all these years. I just...”
His confusion was like a thorn under her own skin, digging in deeper the more one tried to get it out.
“The risks outweigh the benefits right now,” he added, in a voice steadied through sheer will. “My head feels a little unstable, overwhelmed. In a good way but still. I need some time before I can shore myself up. I’d never willingly do anything to hurt Jayden.” His fingers landed on her clasped ones at his midriff. “Or you. Never,” he whispered again, imbuing the word with so much feeling that it lodged inside her heart.
“However, I have started talking to a therapist. The first session was pretty brutal.”
She clasped his hand, loving the rough texture of it against her own. “Tell me if I can do anything else for you. Whatever you need.”
His hands climbed to her hips, and he buried his face in her belly. Liquid heat gushed at her sex. “Anything?” His blue eyes were so full of charming naughtiness, that challenging, wicked gleam of old, that it was a punch to her heart.
She nodded, her mouth already dry.
His fingers stretched back until they reached the twin swells of her behind. “I love how your body has changed,” he said then, and pure feminine power jolted through her. “Everything about you turns me on.”
She gasped when he cupped her buttocks firmly and his mouth was at the seam of her panties again. “And yet you won’t take what you want from me,” she pointed out.
He looked up and color crested his cheeks. “I might not be that good anymore. In fact, it’s been so long I have a feeling I’m going to embarrass myself pretty fast.”
His grin was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. “Then we need to get the edge off. So that you can—” she licked her lips, tension thrumming through her “—last as long as I want you to last inside me.” She dipped her fingers into his hair. “I want to do all kinds of wicked things with you. I want you to do all the wicked things you once promised me you’d do.”
He groaned—it seemed to be ripped from inside him—and she laughed.
Joy was a giddy thing inside her chest. For the first time in weeks, she felt like they were making progress. She still wasn’t sure why he’d held himself back from her. Why he didn’t want to have sex with her when desire was etched into the planes of his face. But she didn’t want to delve, didn’t want to push him into a corner.
“I guess I should you tell, then, that I’ve made another decision, too. When you’re in this mood where you’ll grant me anything I wish.”
“What?” she asked, every cell in her standing to attention.
“I want some time to myself. Being here, in my old life, I thought it would settle me. Instead it’s been disconcerting, to say the least. I need a few weeks. Away from who I used to be.”
Somehow, Priya kept her face from showing her shock, her distress.
