Lifting her hands, he kissed her finger. “You’ve been let down. You’ve been hurt.”
So many times. “By you.”
“From your perspective, I’m sure you’ve felt let down by me on more than one occasion,” he conceded. “But I know, I know, Eugenia, it was all done in your best interest.”
They’d always been honest with one another, but that didn’t mean they had been honest with themselves. Eugenia needed him to recognize that. “No, Aaron. It was done in yours. Every favor you ever granted me has always come at a price. Every drop of blood I spilt on this boat was because of you.”
Sprawling at her side, his weight on his elbow, he tripped his touch across her collarbones. “It’s the eternal question of want versus need. I know what you want. My greater concern is with what you need. You often disagree, but here you are, healthy, safe. When the dogs howl, it no longer sends you crashing from your bed. You don’t cry in your sleep anymore.”
At no time was she going to discuss how often he came to sit in her room in the dead of night. Knowing he might have been there more often than she realized… made her uncomfortable. “You’re still the villain in the story. You’re not the hero because I got used to a mattress and shelter. I can decide for myself what I need.”
What she needed was to be away from tender touches and manipulative men with horse cocks and the tongue thing.
Spoken sweetly, as if he really cared for her, the captain said, “Then tell me what you think you need. I’ll listen, and we can discuss.”
Eugenia needed off the captain’s ship to run free without knowing she’d left women behind to suffer. “You should have never told me about Level 9. The reasons you did were revolting, Aaron. Don’t think that I don’t see the unwinnable crusade you’re trying to tempt me with. You want me to fight back so I’ll have a reason to stay. But I can’t save them from you. I’m not even going to try.”
Patient, he stroked her arm. “What else?”
The bait was right there, dangling. An offer to vent her complaints that would lead her nowhere, yet still, she spoke. “You came in me without permission. Held me down afterward so I couldn’t…”
“You knew by that point it was too late. Why should I let you run to the bathroom in a panic? Holding you still meant you had to consider. Which you did. And then I made love to you again, and held you down again. Like the wild dogs that used to send you running into walls in the dark, it’s a matter of adjustment and the slow realization that you are safe and everything is okay.”
There was too much to address in his statement with a single reply, so she changed tactics. “The first night we met, you struck me, put your hand around my throat, and tore my hymen with your fingers. It hurt.”
He took a moment, even looked away as if deep in thought before replying. “My reasons for doing it won’t be adequate, so I concede. I wanted to touch you first, since I knew I’d have to wait to have you brought to my rooms. My reasons were selfish, and I believed John’s graphic details of your sexual history.”
“And right there, you summed up everything that is wrong with the society that you built. You believed John.” Saying so was oddly freeing and equal parts excruciating. The women had no voice, though they were the prize men desperately sought to attain. They had nothing but what the men decided they should have. “Even after the world ended, men have learned nothing. And thanks to you, on this save the human race ship, you created a system that reduced us down to nothing but a commodity. You’re breaking the very women you expect to raise your children.”
“That would be a historically accurate thing to say about the male population in general. But we outnumber you, and I’ve done my best to keep the ladies onboard secure.”
Secure? Is that what he called it? “You whore them out for tattered bits of old carnival tickets.”
“They can say no. You did.”
Her lip shook, because it wasn’t that simple. “You force them to breed on Level 9.”
He didn’t deny it. “Yes. A diverse gene pool and population growth are necessary to keep everyone on the ship alive. Not only for this generation, but for our children’s generation. And so on. The amount of work it takes to keep the machinery operating, to provide food, to protect the borders cannot be managed by a few. If we don’t leave the children a legacy that’s safe and ordered, they will scatter, and the work done here will have been for nothing. If we don’t give them enough diversity in potential mates, it won’t take many generations before the population will become inbred. Not everything can be about you, or about me, or about the women who I have sacrificed for the greater good, or even about the men enslaved by a herd mentality system they cannot break free of.”
“You’re an evil man.” Yet saying so tore her apart. It dragged her shoulders down, stole her gaze from his. It left her sitting up in bed with her knees under her chin as she stared at a boring bit of cruise ship art on the far wall.
Dragging red curls behind her shoulders, he spoke gently. “Make me a better one.”
God, his moves on the game board were expert, Eugenia afraid he might actually win. “I can’t.”
“Then take me the way I am.” Fingertips tripping down her naked spine, he added, “Enjoy a life with me where you will be better kept than any woman living in these times. I will give you children. Many, I hope, because I love kids as much as you do. I always have. Of course, there will be arguments, disagreements, and disappointment before the inevitable acceptance of your new life.”
“No.”
His slow stroke reversed, until his fingers might delve into her hair. Until he might pull her back down into his arms by her roots and make her look him dead in the eye. “Hear me when I say this. I do love you. So much so that your fear is justified. But it is also misplaced. You lack facts and always assume the worst.”
Tucked in his embrace, she arched a brow. “Can you blame me?”
“No.” The captain’s mask slipped, Eugenia viewing a man in torment. “But you can’t imagine how much I wish you’d have come to me willingly.”
She couldn’t bear to hold his gaze when he tricked her into seeing him and not the captain. It produced the worst kind of ache behind her ribs. “You could have asked me—”
“Don’t be coy, Eugenia.” A man could not have looked more lovesick. “I’ve asked. I’ve even begged.”