He’d tried. His lips had parted, the words lying ready on his tongue before instantly shrinking back in response.
As that memory tempted him, as the words waited, once again at the tip of his tongue, he found himself once again unable to utter them.
Why? What could be holding him back?
She stared up at him expectantly, waiting. She wasn’t going to ask, and she wasn’t going to beg for his love. He would give it willingly or she wasn’t going to take it at all.
She wanted more than what he was giving her. It didn’t take an extra or heightened sense of what she was thinking to figure that one out.
She was going to make him say the words, he thought, feeling his throat tighten at the thought of it. He hadn’t said those words in a hell of a lot of years. More years than he often cared to remember. He didn’t even know whether he was aware of how to say them now.
“I missed you a lot,” he tried, brushing his lips against her brow as she continued to stare back at him.
A backbone of pure steel, Timothy had once accused her. As stubborn and determined as the mountains themselves.
And she was at that. But his block against the emotion that he had lived with for so damned long was just as stubborn.
He couldn’t say it. He wanted to, but there was always the chance he could have the girl and protect his heart at the same time.
And that was important.
Eve stared back at him for long moments, feeling a hint of nerves, a bit of uncertainty, but also a great capacity to love that he was still holding inside him like a miser held on to his gold.
She wasn’t satisfied with that now. She wanted the love that he was still holding inside his soul like a captive he refused to release.
She wanted all of him, not just the parts of him that he was willing to give her right now. She wanted the heart he was so protective of, the one she knew belonged to her, yet that he kept just out of reach.
She wasn’t satisfied with just knowing he cared about her. She didn’t want to just sense those emotions held trapped inside him. They weren’t going to do her any good if they weren’t allowed to be free.
She waited.
If she didn’t get the words verbally, even though she could feel them as he stared back at her, then she wasn’t going to accept any of it. She deserved much better. She deserved all of the man she loved, not just an awareness that he could love her if he let his emotions free.
She wasn’t going to let it break her, though.
No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much she ached for him or how it would kill her to lose him, she wouldn’t let it break her pride. There was no way to keep it from breaking her heart, but the rest of her emotions were salvageable.
Besides, if she was pregnant, her child would need a mother fully capable of caring for him. If he had to do without a father, then he at least needed more than just half a mother. Or a mother who couldn’t forget that she had had to beg his father to love her.
He. She kept thinking of the baby as a he. Just as Christa, Chaya, and Kelly had claimed they had done with their daughters, she had already assigned a sex to the child she might have conceived.
As she stared up at Brogan, he laid his forehead against hers and closed his eyes as though he meant to nap a bit more this morning.
It was apparent he wasn’t going to say a damned thing.
This time she didn’t have to fight the tears back, though her chest tightened with aching regret. There were no tears filling her eyes; there was only acceptance—an acceptance tinged with bitter regret.
“It’s time for me to get up,” she told him, pretending everything was fine. “I have things to do this morning. ”
Slowly, watching her carefully, he let her go.
Uncertainty flickered in his gaze, and despite having sensed it in him before, she still found that small bit of vulnerability endearing. Brogan wasn’t a man who admitted to any sort of weakness, and he would see uncertainty in any area as a weakness.
“Will I see you this evening?” she asked as she moved to the closet and pulled out a light blue casual chiffon skirt that fell just below her thighs, along with a loose matching camisole top.
“Definitely,” he answered, propping his hand on his palm as he watched her, his gray-blue eyes reflecting simmering lust. “I may even be able to get away from the job early. We could go out to dinner. ”
He was willing to take her out now? Why now? Because he was afraid she wouldn’t wait until he was ready to stake his claim? Her dinner with Chatham—or Doogan, as Brogan had called him—hadn’t pleased him in the slightest.