“I can’t,” I said, shoving at his chest. Tears clogged my throat and my chest ached with need. There was so much I needed from him, but couldn’t ask him for. My heart wouldn’t let me take what I needed, and my head wasn’t on board with any kind of forgiveness yet. “You tore away something inside me, and I can’t just patch it back up. He’s gone,” I choked out. “I haven’t spoken to him since he left that day. I don’t know how he is. I don’t know if he’s happy or scared. The only thing I know is that he was relying on me and I let him down.”
Alec’s arms wrapped tighter around me, pulling me right up against him. I wrapped my arms around his neck, taking what comfort I could at the moment. I felt Alec’s body shaking against mine, not from tears, but vibrating with anger. I knew he was pissed at himself, and I knew why. He was torn between what he thought was right and wanting to make me happy. There was no winning and that’s why this would never work between us. Because in the end, he would still go back and make those same decisions.
I felt his lips at my temple, trailing down my cheeks. He pressed soft kisses across my nose and down my jaw. It wasn’t sexual. His kisses were comforting, but he was doing it for him, because he knew this moment between us wouldn’t last. And I let him have it, because it was all I could give him right now. When the moment was over, I would go my own way and he would go his. Neither of us knew how to repair the damage that had been done, and the longer that I was away from him, the more I began to think that there was no way to fix us.
“Please, Nightingale. Stop fighting me.”
I let my eyes slip closed and gave myself over to him. Right now I couldn’t fight him. I just wanted his warmth and his comfort. I wanted to feel his strong arms around me, pulling me into him and making everything better. When his lips slipped over mine, I opened for him, letting him in. His hands caressed my body, making me feel his love, his desire. He was all mine and always would be.
“You have to forgive me,” he whispered. “Tell me you can forgive me.”
It was like a bucket of ice water washed over me. I pressed my fingertips over his lips and shook my head. “Not yet. I can’t.”
“Then when?” he asked as I started to pull away. “How long are you going to punish me?”
I took a few steps back, shaking my head slightly. “Until I feel like I can trust you again.”
✯✯✯✯✯
I barged into Cap’s office, supremely pissed off. Over the past month, my sadness and anger had morphed into pure, unadulterated anger. Everything pissed me off. I hated going home. I hated seeing Alec around the house, looking at me with those sad eyes, like he had any right to feel sad about anything. Hell, I even hated speaking his name. And then something would happen. He would crack just a small part of me wide open, and for just a few minutes or a few hours, I would feel something other than the anger. But it never lasted. I came out of it every time feeling a hundred times more angry than I had already been. I couldn’t help it. Every time that Alec slipped past my defenses, it took days for me to feel like I could control myself again. The anger was all I had right now. If I didn’t have those walls up anymore, Alec would slip past them and work his way through my anger, and then what would I have left?
“Florrie,” Cap mused. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I need information on Reid.”
He sighed and motioned for me to take a seat. I didn’t want to sit, not with the anger humming through my body, but I did as he asked.
“The report is the same as it has been every day since they got out to Utah. He’s doing good. OPS isn’t seeing any reason to intervene.” He picked up a paper off his desk and started reading. “According to Red’s report, he walks to school every day with his cousins and a few of the neighbor kids. After school, he plays basketball outside until his aunt and uncle call him in for dinner. He does his homework after dinner and then watches TV before he goes to bed.”
He put the paper down and looked up at me.
“That’s just a report. That doesn’t tell me if he’s happy or if he’s safe.”
“Florrie, there is nothing to suggest that he’s not safe. Now, I know you miss him, but there’s nothing here to warrant us filing a report with a social worker or me sending Red’s team in to get him out.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back. “You’re not looking hard enough. You were on Alec’s side to begin with. You don’t want to find anything.”
“Do you really think that Alec would leave Reid there if he thought he was in danger?”
I looked away. No, I didn’t think Alec would, but I was too pissed off to admit it right now.
“Florrie,” Cap said, coaxing me to look at him. When I finally met his eyes, there was only sympathy there. “I’m sorry. I really am. I wish that I could get Reid back for you, but at some point, you have to move forward with your life. I’ll keep an eye on him. I swear, I won’t stop watching out for him, but you can’t keep living like this. It’s not fair to you or Alec.”
I
