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“If?” She lifted a brow.
“If you tell me why you felt the need to be rid of it in the first place.”
A silence so thick I could have cut it with my cutlass filled the space around us. For a moment, I wondered if she might not respond at all, until her chest rose and fell in a muted huff.
She stood, offering her hand to help me up. I took it greedily. Any opportunity this woman gave me to touch her, I would take it. Shamelessly. She’d only been back in my life for a matter of hours, and I was already feeling like an addict.
“I need a minute,” she said, directing her attention to Leo and Lily.
Lily offered her a knowing nod, but Leo’s disposition was decidedly darker as she laced her fingers through mine and led me down the hall to her bedroom.
The space was precisely as I expected from what I knew of the woman. She didn’t seem to have an affinity for things—not a lot of baubles or trinkets—but she did have a few items that stood out.
A crossbow hung on the wall like a trophy, its fine wooden shaft dented and worn from battle. Was it hers or something she’d picked up as a display piece? My guess would be the former, possibly passed down through her family.
In the corner sat a full-length mirror, and in the reflection, I got my first real picture of the two of us. I wanted to pull her to a stop and stand her in front of the glass, watching her reactions as I kissed and touched and licked down her delicious body.
Instead, she pulled her hand free and turned, shaking it out at her side as though she was suffering a bout of the tingles.
“What the hell is that all about?” she asked.
Her reaction was a little confusing. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”
She eased back to her desk, a dull gray metal behemoth, resting her rear end on the edge as she crossed her arms in front of her. “The thing you just did. The same thing I did to you out there?”
She was talking about the touch. How she could feel what she was feeling. “Did you sense something when I was looking at the mirror?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
That settled it. I needed to do a much better job of guarding myself around her. Rather, guarding her from me.
I scanned the room and motioned to the bed. “May I?”
“Sit? Yes. Whatever the hell you were thinking earlier?” She paused. “We’ll see.”
Those two little words sent a thrill through me. I tempered the sensation, moving to sit on the edge of her bed. I didn’t want to be looming over the woman as she confessed why she’d hurled the pendant at me after finding out what it was.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. I did want to loom over her. I wanted her looking up at me so I could read every drop of emotion that didn’t make it into her words.
That, however, was not the way to get Never Darling to talk.
So, I took a seat that left yards of space between us, a chasm that seemed to grow wider with each passing second.
“You first, Hook.”
Honesty was the obvious choice, but giving her the truth of our connection might do even more damage than learning the true origins of the pendant had done. Not that I had any other great options.
I had a feeling she would know if I was lying, just as I would know if she was. I wasn’t certain, not by any stretch. What I knew of these kinds of connections came from stories so old they predated the written word in Never’s realm.
“Or you can just sit there looking contemplative,” she quipped, her tone as dry as my throat.
“I’m considering my words carefully, lo—” I cut myself off before I used the nickname I’d bestowed upon her a million years ago in my world.
It’d just popped out back then, and it had felt as natural as breathing. I wasn’t in the habit of referring to anyone with that kind of affection, but there was something about her.
She narrowed her eyes. I thought for a moment that she might comment until her expression turned guarded and she remained utterly silent.
I didn’t like that one bit. There were times when I wanted her quiet—for her safety, for my own twisted pleasure—but to receive her silence now left a hollow ache in my chest.
