She wanted him to touch her now, to tell her this was all some ridiculous joke.
“You know all the important parts of me.”
A sudden thought hit her. How deep did her ignorance go? “Do I know your name?”
He went still. “My name is Henry Flanders.”
It was obvious she was going to have to be specific. “Is Henry Flanders the name you were born with?”
“It doesn’t matter what name I was born with. I am who I choose to be.”
She wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “I want to know your name.”
His jaw tightened. “Which one? The one my mother gave me because my father wasn’t around? She named me after the bastard in case he ever came back. She thought it might soften his heart toward me. He never did. Should I give you the name I used as a CIA operative? There were many of those, but Bishop is the one people remember. John Bishop. I’ve gone as Mr. Black. Mr. White. Really whatever color suited me that day. Mostly I should have used red because that was the color of my world then.”
She’d never seen him so on edge. He’d been quietly getting into her space, moving closer and closer with every word.
She was angry with him. Volcanically angry, and yet there was something about this man that called to her. Every time. It was precisely why she’d put up with his moody crap the first time around. She turned her chin up. He towered over her, but she wasn’t about to back down. “How many?”
“Names? I told you.”
She shook her head. “No. How many people have you killed?”
He put a hand on the wall behind her, caging her in. “Myself or on my orders?”
He was pushing her, and the atmosphere of the room was turning into something…dangerous. “How about you give me a nice round number.”
“Hundreds before I met you. Probably thirty or so myself. Many more on my orders, and I can’t tell you that every one of them deserved it. I gave my bosses intel that led to bombings of entire cities.” He stared down at her. “So here I am, Nell. I am everything you write about. I’m the beast who got tamed by a slip of a woman, who changed his whole being because he fell in love. Are you really going to toss me out?”
She shook her head. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to challenge me like that. I’m not the one who lied. I have never lied to you.”
“You never did anything you weren’t proud of,” he said, challenge plain in his voice. “You never had to completely reinvent yourself.”
“Are you serious? You act like I never went through anything bad in my life.” There was a tension that charged what little air there was between them. She had to put her hands back against the wall, palms flat against the curve of the logs that formed the cabin. Her breath came out ragged.
He stared down at her and there was more than sorrow in his eyes now. “I’m not saying that.”
“But you are. You had it so rough? You think foster care was a breeze?”
“I know it wasn’t. I spent my time there, too. My mom died when I was young, and there was no one else to take me in. I moved from home to home. I was that kid who kept his shit in a garbage bag because I didn’t have a suitcase.”
“You didn’t lie about that?”
“I only lied about the things I was ashamed of,” he admitted. “This changes nothing between us. Nothing.”
How could he possibly say that? “It changes everything.”
“I am still the man you love.”
She didn’t understand how that could be true. “The man I love would never lie to me. Not about something this important.”
His hand came up and cupped her breast. “I’m still the man who can make you melt.”
God, he was. She knew she should push him away, but it felt too good.
And it might be the last time he ever touched her.
His fingers found the place where the rings pierced her nipples, reminding her of the night she’d had them done. Henry had been with her. He’d held her hand as she’d closed her eyes and hissed at the minor pain. He’d been the one to lovingly take care of them while they healed. And he’d been the one to toy with them and the VCH she’d had done at the same time. He would gently twist them and light up her breasts.
They’ll remind you that I’m always with you, love. I’m always thinking about you, and I’m incomplete when my body isn’t inside yours.
How many nights had been spent wrapped around this man, so close to him she was sure she would never be alone again? The last six years of her life had been settled, centered around Henry Flanders and the marriage they’d made. There had been none of the terrible uncertainty from before, and now it was all roaring back to life.
He’d lied. He’d had a whole life he’d hidden from her, and she knew she hadn’t heard the worst yet.
She couldn’t make it through this. Not without the strength she would get from one last time with the only man she’d ever made love with.
It didn’t have to be love. It could be sex. It could be a place to put all the awful emotions she was feeling. They needed somewhere to go or she would drown in them.
She lifted her chest slightly, her heart starting to pound.
“If I asked, would you show me your breasts?” Henry’s voice had gone deep.
“You never ask.” They’d set specific parameters when they’d started their relationship all those years ago.
