“Are you finished?” he demanded.
She nodded.
“Good. Because I fucking love you more than I’ve ever loved another human being in my life. You aren’t just the world, Honor Cambridge. You’re my world. My entire reason for living. Walk away from you because I don’t want you or love you? I walked away because you deserve better than me. Because you deserve a man who won’t fail to protect you and allow you to be nearly raped and then tortured. And I’m not that man,” he said in a savage voice.
“Yes,” she said calmly. “You are.”
Despair crept once more into his eyes.
“You have no idea what kind of life you’d have to live if you were with me. Because of the fact that I’ve accumulated more enemies over the years than the very monsters I’ve worked to take down, you would always be a target. You are my greatest weakness, and everyone in the goddamn world would know it and try to hurt me by getting to you. And they would hurt you. They’ve already hurt you,” he said in a tortured voice. “And I couldn’t bear it, Honor. I couldn’t live with myself if I lost you.”
“I’m glad you’re such a badass then,” she said lightly. “You’ll never, never let anyone hurt me.”
Guy closed his eyes, his fingers clenching into tight balls.
“Your trust in me staggers me. It humbles me when you have no reason to trust anything I say do or promise. But, Honor, the danger . . . that’s only part of. I’m a man who demands and expects complete control. In every aspect. As my woman, I would dominate you. I’d know your every movement. I’d expect you to check in with me anytime you so much as went to the grocery store.”
He lifted one hand to run it raggedly over his head.
“I’m demanding sexually. I don’t give up control in any aspect of my life, baby,” he said in an aching voice, as though he were admitting to murder. “I can’t. Control has been ingrained in me my entire life. I’ve been trained to always be in control of every aspect of every situation. How long do you think it would take before you began to feel smothered? How long would it take for me to kill the thing that sets you so far apart from the rest of the world? Your smile, your sunshine, your kindness and generosity. I would smother you, Honor. And eventually I would destroy you.”
She laughed, her smile wide as she took in his utter bewilderment at her reaction to his painful admission.
She held up her fingers, ticking off her points on each digit. “Let’s see, first, sexually dominant? I get the shivers thinking about it. I’ve already had a taste of sex with you, Hancock, and any idiot would know that you’re commanding, forceful and dominant as hell. I assure you, I’ll enjoy every moment of your dominance.”
She pressed another finger. “Second. Your need to know where I am at all times and you going overboard protecting me. Uhm, duh? I’m not an idiot, Guy. I’ve seen the worst this world has to offer and I’ve seen into your world. Quite frankly, I’m not going to want to go anywhere without you, and furthermore, if you want to hire an entire army to protect us, I’m in.”
She held up the last finger. “Now for the smothering, killing, stifling, destroying. I’m not going to give this much of a response because it doesn’t deserve it.”
She leaned over and touched his face, lightly pressing her lips to his.
“The only way you kill any part of me is if you no longer love and want me. If you walk away from me again. That will destroy me. Nothing else.”
He kissed her back, forceful, hot, scorching, like he was starved for her. And God, she was starved for him. For the last months she’d lived without the other half of her soul. Never did she want to endure that again.
Then he slipped off the bed, to his knees, reaching for her, pulling her to stand as he knelt before her. He wrapped his arms around her, burying his face between her breasts. Hot tears slithered over her skin, each one hurting her, like tiny daggers to her heart.
“I’m so sorry, Honor,” he choked out. “I’m so sorry. I went crazy those days, dying a little more every hour you were in his hands. It was all I could think about. Knowing he was torturing you and knowing that you thought I had betrayed you by giving you to him. I can’t sleep at night. Even now. Knowing he’s dead. That ANE is gone. That they can’t hurt you. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. Every second I think about how badly I hurt you and all the times I let you down. Please forgive me,” he whispered. “Please give me the chance to prove to you that I will never fail you again. I’ll spend my life making sure you don’t get so much as a scratch. I want to be a good man. For you. I want to be a man you can be proud of.”
“Oh, my love,” she whispered. “Don’t you understand? I love the man you are. You can’t go changing on me. I won’t love a man you create thinking it’s what I want and need. I need you.”
She thumbed away the tears on his cheeks, then leaned down to kiss him while her hands framed his face.
“And I’ve already forgiven you. There’s no need to ask it again.”
“You gave it without my ever asking,” he said quietly. “I should have been on my knees begging your forgiveness and so I gave that to you, because that is what you deserve, regardless that your generous heart had already forgiven me.”
When he would have pulled her back to him, she resisted, knowing that at the current angle, he’d have his cheek right over her rounded belly. He glanced up at her, puzzled, a little uncertain.
She smiled and sat back down on the bed, patting the space beside her. “Come. There’s one last thing we have to discuss.”
He eased down beside her and frowned because she’d suddenly gone tense and she knew he’d picked up on it. He slipped his hand around hers, lifting it to rest on his thigh as he laced their fingers together.
“What is it, Honor?”
“First of all, I wasn’t—am not—deceiving you. I’m merely . . . selfish,” she said with a grimace.
“You are the least selfish person I know,” he growled.
She smiled faintly. “It’s just that I had to know . . . I had to know that you wanted me. That you loved me. I didn’t want you to be with me out of obligation. So I didn’t tell you right away. But I’m telling you now.”
His eyes were worried now. Not angry or apprehensive, as though he thought she’d done some horrible thing. He was worried for her, and she loved him all the more for it.
“I’m pregnant,” she said softly. “I’m having your baby, Guy. I’m almost five months pregnant.”
He stared down at her belly in shock and then back up to her face, as if what she was telling him simply didn’t compute.
“I don’t show unless I wear confining clothing. Hence the baggy attire I chose for this trip. Not even the others know. Only my parents and siblings. I had lost so much weight and was so starved that when I got back home, I was literally skin and bones, so the weight I’ve gained with the pregnancy has merely made it appear as though I regained what I’d lost before.”
“Show me,” he said, his voice cracking. “Let me see our child. Please.”
She bunched the hem of her oversized shirt and slowly pulled it upward. Both his hands ever so gently pressed against the mound, his fingers trembling against her skin.
“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. “You were so hurt and as you said starved. It can’t be healthy for you to be having a baby.”
She smiled, wanting to reassure him. “My OB has me on a strict vitamin regimen as well as an eating schedule that my mother enforces like an army general.”