But she already knew he’d feel that way, and she was only telling him the details of what he already knew. So she continued.
“I set up that car accident, created that steeped-in-normalcy persona, because I’d judged only a woman like the fictional Hannah McPherson would have the best chance to make you feel safe enough to let her come close. And I was right.”
His hand grabbed the back of her head, his eyes so fierce, as if trying to compel her to believe him. “You were wrong. It was you, the woman beneath the act that I responded to. I proved that when I responded to you again, when you projected a totally different persona.” His hand gentled at her nape, making her melt in his grip. “But you said you never acted with me. Was that because once you met me, you judged I would respond best to the real you?”
And she made the first irrevocable confession. “Until I met you, I didn’t know there was a real me.”
His eyes flared like supernovas, and his grip twisted in her hair with the same ferocity, making her gasp with pleasure and ratcheting heartache.
Suddenly, confessions felt like poison she had to spit out. “From the moment I met you, all my scenarios evaporated, and I was unable to be anything with you but the person you knew, the person I didn’t realize existed. It was with you that I became aware of my true personality.” At his groan, she turned her face into his shoulder, escaping the intensity in his eyes. “I realized almost at once that I was actually feeling something for you. And among all the dangers I ever faced, those unknown feelings were the most dangerous thing that ever happened to me. It was as though you were my first intimacy. And you were. Any other man I’ve been with was a mission, an evil I’ve been forced to endure with a seductive smile while my soul retched or, at best, was numb.”
“Scarlett...”
She burrowed into his chest, unable to let him interrupt. The floodgates had opened and everything came gushing out. “It was with you that my senses were awakened for the first time and I realized what intimacy was, what transfiguring passion felt like. You were my first pleasure...then you become my first and, I’m certain, my last love.”
* * *
Never. Never in his wildest dreams had Raiden expected this. His best hope had been that she’d tell him the truth, and that it would include an admission to validate his feelings. That he hadn’t been just a mission to her, that she’d felt something real for him. Then, and now. Never had he dared wish she’d say anything near the things she’d just said.
But she’d said them. She felt them. Had always felt them.
And it felt as if the last barrier he’d erected inside him to protect himself from t
he heartache she’d caused came crashing down. Admissions rushed in, swamping him in the truth of his emotions for her.
Just as she’d come to life with him, so had he with her. Just as he was her first and last intimacy, her one and only love, so was she his.
Emotions rose like a tidal wave inside him.
With trembling hands he tried to lift her head from where she’d buried it into his chest, needing communion with her in those transfiguring moments. “Scarlett, darling, please, let me...”
Resisting him, she kept her head plastered over his thundering heart, words rushing out of her again, drowning whatever he would have said. “But it wasn’t only when I realized I’d fallen in love with you that it became imperative I ended the danger to you. From the first moment I met you, I knew you weren’t one of the sleazebags or criminals I was always sent after, and who deserved everything I did to them and more. You were everything I didn’t think existed—a noble man who used your powers for the greater good, and who never advertised your benevolence. It was by following in your steps that I ended up in my line of work now.”
She raised her head then, and he felt as if he got a direct blow to the heart. Her eyes. God, her eyes.
The emotions in them were staggering. As if everything she’d ever suppressed, ever hidden from him, from the whole world, was flooding out. He felt submerged.
She threaded shaking hands in his hair, such tenderness in her touch and gaze. “Then I found out that you were like me, but that you had escaped when I knew I never would. If I loved you with all my newly forged heart before that, I loved you even more then, with the broken parts of me before the whole ones I discovered inside me because of you. All I cared about from then on was protecting you at all costs.”
Her hands smoothed over his head, chest and shoulders, becoming feverish, as if she wanted to make sure he was here, safe, whole, and that she had protected him.
“To protect you, I had to throw Medvedev off your scent. So I stalled him until I figured out how to prove you weren’t his escaped agent, and to be with you for as long as I could.”
Every word she said felt like a stab, their collective pain pouring out of him on a butchered groan. “Why didn’t you tell me everything? I would have taken care of Medvedev and saved you from The Organization.”
Her eyes shot up to his, the tears filling them rippling like a pool in an earthquake. It was clear she’d never thought this even an option.
“Did you fear I’d punish you if I knew the truth?”
Her expression made it clear that wasn’t something she’d considered, either. “I was only afraid you’d go after Medvedev, and I couldn’t risk you. He was an unpredictable monster.”
He grimaced at her misplaced fear. “Didn’t you know enough about me to know I could have handled Medvedev in my sleep? Or did you think I would, but still wouldn’t help you?”
Her eyes implored his belief, when he’d sooner doubt himself rather than her now. “I only cared about your safety and the new life you’d built. And I wanted to end Medvedev’s danger to you without you finding out the truth about me and how I came to be with you. I wanted to remain the one you trusted implicitly, wanted totally. I couldn’t bear seeing the trust and passion in your eyes turn to contempt and disgust if you knew. I wanted to hold on to the memories. Those months with you, the way you looked at me, the way you treated me, meant more to me than anything.”
“More than your life?”
“Yes.”