The Best Goodbye

by Abbi Glines

  “Addy.” His voice had gone even deeper, and I shivered at the sound of my name coming from those lips. He growled a curse that snapped my attention off his lips.

  Looking at his eyes wasn’t easier. They were dark now, his pupils big with the intensity of his stare. “Don’t lie to me. Why didn’t you look at me?”

  I blinked, trying to break this spell he was putting me under, but it didn’t help. I was going to need to grab his arms to keep myself upright if he kept this up. That, or find a seat to sink into. “You stopped looking at me.”

  I forced myself to take a step back, hoping to get hold of myself, but Captain’s move mirrored mine as he took a step with me. I felt like I was being caged in, and as much as that should have terrified me, it didn’t. My head knew this was River. I couldn’t be scared of him. We had too much between us.

  “For a moment. I had to make myself clear to the girl. My eyes went right back where I wanted them, but . . .” He paused, and his hand moved to brush his knuckles along the outside of my arm so softly it was like a whisper. “You wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t concentrate. I’m not even sure what all I said to the staff. I just wanted your eyes on me. I didn’t like seeing you look at the floor. I wanted you to look at me.”

  Oh my. OK. This wasn’t the man I was used to. This was not the man at the ice cream shop. Who the hell was this? And why was he making my heart beat so fast it was in danger of breaking through my chest at any moment? “I wasn’t expecting this,” I said, finally able to say something that made sense, that told him what I was feeling.

  His gaze dropped to my mouth this time, and my knees buckled slightly. He looked hungry. Like he wanted to taste me. No, like he wanted me to be his last meal.

  His large hands grabbed my waist. His touch was electric; I could feel the heat on my skin, even through my clothes. I might as well have been standing there naked.

  “When I first saw you again, as Rose, I was unable to look away. No one had drawn me in like that. Not since . . . you. I didn’t like looking at you because you moved like my Addy. You laughed like my Addy. You were petite and feminine, so much like my Addy, and I didn’t want anyone around who reminded me of what I’d lost. I stayed away from anyone who reminded me of you in the slightest. But you were hard to ignore. I watched you more than I should have. I hated that you were calling to something inside me that I had reserved for one person. And then I find out that you are that person? You’re here, and it’s fucking with my head, Addy.”

  This was honesty. The kind of emotional honesty I hadn’t expected. I’d known who he was all along; he had been the one in the dark, yet he had sensed me. It was me he was drawn to, no matter how I presented myself.

  “There was Elle,” I said simply, reminding myself as much as him. He might have sensed me, but it was Elle he had bent over his desk, in this very office.

  His eyes clouded with regret. “She was a distraction. They’ve all been a distraction. There’ve been hundreds—I won’t lie to you. But I didn’t care for a single one of them. I never let them have me the way you had me. No one touched my soul, Addy. Only you.”

  My skin heated at his words. I hadn’t slept with anyone since him. It had been ten years, and it was hard to believe, but I never wanted to be with anyone else. And until I loved again, I wasn’t giving that part of myself to someone. Being intimate with someone brought them into my life, and that meant Franny’s life. No one had ever been good enough.

  “Hundreds?” I repeated. I wished it didn’t hurt. But he had thought I was dead. Would hearing him say he’d been in love with just one or two women be easier? No. It would have killed me.

  “Never cared for them. Never saw their faces. Not one. I couldn’t see anyone past you,” he repeated, as he moved a hand up to cup the side of my face.

  He needed to know. I wasn’t ready for this. “I haven’t been with anyone else . . . just you.”

  His hand tightened on my waist, and his body tensed. For a second, he closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh of what I knew was relief. Then his eyes were on me again, and his pupils were completely dilated. “No one?” he said, as if he was holding on to those two words as some sort of lifeline.

  “No one,” I repeated, because he seemed to need to hear it.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, and then he was gone.

  I stumbled back, grabbing the back of a chair to keep myself steady. Captain turned and walked to his desk. He placed both palms on the top of it and hung his head as he stood there, looking like he was in some sort of turmoil.

  I didn’t say anything. I’d thought he’d want to know. That he’d want to hear he’d been it for me. But his reaction was confusing. I was finally able to take a deep breath; he was far enough away that his energy and presence didn’t suck up all the air around me.

  My head began to clear, and the spell he’d wrapped me in began to fade as he battled with himself.

  “I’m not the same. I’m darker, Addy. I’ve done things that have broken me. The boy who worshipped you and treated you with care is gone. I don’t know him anymore. He’s not me. I’m . . . intense. Even with you, especially with you, I’d lose myself, and . . .” He shook his head, stood up, and turned to me. “What I want, what I like, it’s not something you know. I can’t go there with you.”

  Was he talking about sex? I was lost. “Why?” I asked, hoping he would make more sense.

  He gazed at me with that look. A look I hadn’t seen in so long that it hit me hard. That was the look I wanted. “You’re too special, too fucking precious, for what I’ve become.”

  I didn’t like that answer. I also didn’t believe him. Just moments ago, he was looking at me like he wanted nothing more than to have me. “What if I want what you’ve become? What if the man I see is the one I want? Do I not get a choice?” I realized that I meant every word. I did want the man he had become. He was different, but so was I. Didn’t he see that? I was harder and tougher, and I could survive. Just like him. It didn’t make him less appealing. I was a woman now. I needed a man. Not the boy from my memories.

  “You don’t understand, and I can’t tell you. If I did, you’d leave town and never look back. I can’t let that happen. I want to prove that I can be the father Franny deserves. I won’t let you down.”

  But he didn’t want to be anything to me. It went unspoken, but it was clear. The realization sliced through me in a way that I’d never get over, but I was tough. I was a survivor, and I wouldn’t beg anyone to want me. I’d done that as a child once, and my mother had left me anyway. Never again. Not even for River Joshua Kipling.

  Captain

  My mood had gone to hell. I’d snarled answers to anyone brave enough to ask, and Jamieson was annoying the shit out of me, in his suit, with his iPad Mini. Tonight couldn’t end soon enough. Staying busy was all that kept me from stalking Addy and watching every move she made.

  When she’d walked out of my office without a word, I’d known I’d been close to drawing her in. I could have kissed her. She’d have let me. When she had leaned into me and her body had responded to my hands, I’d felt like the king of the world. Then she’d told me what I’d already feared. The innocence that shone through her eyes wasn’t an act.

  While I had changed over the years, making sure to destroy my emotions to kill the pain, Addy had essentially stayed the same. She had become tough, and she’d learned to survive, but that only made her more special. How could I touch her? How was I even worthy to be near her? Fuck, if she knew the things I wanted to do to her, she’d be terrified. All she’d had was a boy who was so in love with her that sweet, easy sex had been perfect.

  But I didn’t want that with her. I wanted her naked and bent over my desk with her legs spread, so I could kneel between them and taste her, something I’d never done. I wanted her knees to buckle as I held her up with my hands and ran my tongue through her heat until she cried out my name, trembling from my kiss. Then I wanted to slam into her hard from behind and watc
h her face in a mirror as she came all over my dick. Because there would be no condom with her. I wanted nothing between us.

  Closing my eyes, I considered leaving early. I couldn’t keep this up. Every move she made, I knew it. Even if I wasn’t watching her like I wanted to, I felt her. I knew who she was talking to and what she was doing.

  Her laughter rang out, and my eyes snapped open, and a thick tightness rolled over me. She was in the kitchen. Motherfucker was making her laugh. The fury boiling in my veins was more than I could tamp down. He’d been warned.

  I slammed through the back kitchen door, and my gaze locked on Addy immediately as she looked over at Brad. The smile was still on her face, and all I wanted to do was beat the hell out of my head chef until I had blood on my knuckles. The blackness I knew should never touch her cloaked me, and I couldn’t stop. I kept moving toward them. This was the monster I didn’t want her to see. The one I had lost control over.

  “Don’t,” I said, my glare leveled on Brad. I didn’t say more. The need to hurt him was choking me.

  His eyes went wide, and I could see the uncertainty and fear. I wanted that. He needed to fucking fear me. I wasn’t a whole man. I was a broken, fucked-up one, and he was getting too close to the one woman who owned me.

  “Captain!” Addy’s voice snapped at me, but I didn’t look at her.

  I kept my eyes locked on Brad until he nodded and dropped his attention to the food in front of him.

  “Captain,” Addy said again, clearly annoyed.

  I turned to look over her head at the wall. I couldn’t let her see my eyes right now. I knew the evil she’d see there. The evil that seeped through me.

  “This isn’t OK.” She sounded furious now.

  “Don’t let him near you” was all I said, before walking away.

  If she didn’t understand why I’d done what I’d done earlier today, then I wasn’t sure she would ever get it. I had to go outside and calm down. There wasn’t a gym open at this time in this small town, and right now, I needed to hit something until I was too exhausted to stand up.

  “Table five is unhappy with their steak, although it’s cooked to their requested temperature,” Jamieson said, hurrying toward me.

  I didn’t give a rat’s ass if table five was unhappy. “Handle it. No time like the present to learn to deal with shit,” I said, with a snarl I couldn’t control, before heading outside.

  Ten years ago

  When I opened the door to Addy’s room, I froze. My breathing ceased. My heart stopped. I couldn’t move. It was late, and my mother was asleep across the house near my own bedroom. I had been waiting until I knew her sleeping medicine had kicked in before coming to Addy.

  This wasn’t what I was expecting. In her dark room, with the moonlight shining down on her, Addy stood in front of me wearing nothing. Absolutely nothing. I needed to speak or breathe or something, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I was afraid I was asleep, and if I moved, I’d wake up, and this would be gone.

  I’d thought about her like this. I knew she’d be beautiful, but never did I realize just how perfect she would be. She shivered, and that was enough to wake me from my trance so that I could at least get the door closed and locked. She was naked, and it wasn’t an accident.

  “Hey,” she said softly, and my dick, which was already at attention, jerked. What was she doing?

  “Hey,” I croaked, my eyes on her creamy, plump breasts, completely bared to me.

  My eyes lowered to take in her flat stomach and the freckle just beside her belly button that I loved. Then I sucked in a breath as I lowered my gaze to see the small triangle of blond hair.

  “Addy,” I whispered, as she continued to stand like that for me.

  “Yes?” She sounded as affected by this as I was.

  “You’re beautiful . . . perfect,” I said, in awe.

  “I am?” She sounded unsure but hopeful.

  God, had she never looked in the mirror? This was . . . shit, this was every fantasy I’d ever had. “Completely,” I assured her, tearing my eyes off her body to look at her face. She smiled shyly. “What’s going on, Addy?” I was afraid to hope.

  “I want to . . . tonight. I’m ready.”

  Fuck. OK. We’d been messing around a little at night while kissing, but I always ended it before it got painful. This was not what I expected from her. “Why? I mean, are you sure?” My eyes drifted back over her smooth skin that I so wanted to touch. That I wanted to feel move against mine.

  “Because I love you, and I want to be as close to you as I can be,” she whispered.

  I made a step toward her, and my hands trembled as I got closer. This was it. Tonight I’d have her in a way no one else ever would. She would become mine completely. We would know each other more deeply. Our connection was already unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my life, but this would make it unbreakable.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, before I reached out to touch her bare hip.

  “Yes,” she said, and I didn’t hesitate. I pulled her to me and claimed her mouth, while her body molded to mine. The sex I’d had in the backs of cars and other less appealing locations had been for release, because I was horny and they were willing and it felt good.

  But this was different. I wanted to memorize every second. Every inch of her body. When I sank inside Addy, I would give her all of me that she didn’t already own. “I love you so much,” I said against her lips, as I moved us over to her bed.

  “I love you, too,” she said, gazing up at me with all the trust in the world.

  I’d never been with a virgin. “It will hurt you at first,” I told her, praying she wouldn’t back out now.

  She smiled and ducked her head against my chest. “I know, but with your arms around me, it won’t matter. We’ll be as close as we can get. That’s what I want more than anything.”

  My trembling was getting worse. The excitement, need, and desire inside for this one girl, mixed with how much I loved her, was almost too much.

  “Take off your shirt, River. I want to feel you against me with nothing between us,” she said against my chest, then moved back just enough so I could do as she asked.

  Her breasts moved up and down quickly as her breathing became more rapid. Her eyes were on my shirt, and I reached for it to pull it over my head. Her tight pink nipples teased me, and the idea of feeling them against my bare chest brought me dangerously close to coming in my jeans. This might be more than I could handle.

  Dropping my shirt, I stared at her, waiting. I needed her to make the move. I was afraid of scaring her. Without hesitation, she lifted her arms to wrap around my neck as she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her breasts against me.

  “Fuuuuck,” I whispered in a groan, unable not to respond verbally.

  “It feels so good, doesn’t it?” she said with a soft moan.

  “Yes,” I replied, moving my hands down her back until they slowly cupped her bare butt. I lifted her up, pressing her against me, and then she wrapped her legs around me, putting her center right over my crotch. The heat from her seared through my jeans. The image of her being open like this and pressed against me just about made my knees buckle. I had to sink onto the bed, holding her.

  She moved her hips slightly, and the heat in her eyes ignited. “Oh, that . . . oh,” she said softly. She was moving her sensitive clit over the ridge in my jeans. I held her still.

  “Don’t, baby. This will be over before it begins if you do that. I can’t handle it. I’m already too close,” I told her, my voice low and gravelly.

  “OK, well, can you get naked, then, too?”

  The fact that she was turned on enough to ask me something so brave and out of character had me smiling. Addy was asking me to get naked. If I was asleep, I was going to wake up so fucking pissed.

  Addy

  Listening to Franny talk about our dinner date with Captain in two nights’ time was hard. I wasn’t ready to see him, much less have dinner with him. As a ma
tter of fact, as soon as Franny left for school that morning, I was calling in sick. I didn’t want to face him today. Not after the roller coaster last night.

  I went from feeling like we were connecting to feeling totally rejected. I actually wanted him, but he had tossed me aside because I hadn’t had sex in ten years. To make things even more brilliant, when Brad had joked that he’d put a corn cob up the ass of a particularly difficult guest, which was the only thing that had made me laugh that whole shitty day, Captain had come stalking into the kitchen like a madman. He was furious because Brad had made me laugh? Was that unacceptable?

  “And I told Cameron how tall my dad is and that he has big muscles. He has big muscles, doesn’t he, Mommy?”

  Yes, her father had muscles. Not the body-builder kind but the tough working-man kind. I nodded and took a mouthful of my oatmeal. He also had really amazing eyes, and his lashes were long and dark compared with the highlights in his hair.

  “She said her daddy was bigger, but I know he’s not. Mine is more handsome. I know that. I don’t think anyone has a daddy as handsome as mine.”

  She had a point there. I wasn’t going to comment, though. I just kept spooning up my oatmeal.

  “Do you think he’ll be at my birthday party?”

  Franny’s birthday wasn’t for another five months. I had no idea what the future held for us and Captain. I had never lied to her before. I’d been honest about everything. Except, of course, keeping the truth from her about the reason we were in Rosemary Beach, but that had been a temporary omission.

  “I don’t know, Franny. That’s a long way off, and we’re just now easing him into our lives. He could move away.” I’d heard he’d never planned on sticking around here for long. “He could visit you when he has time. I just don’t know right now.”

  The light in Franny’s eyes dimmed some. I hated to be the cause of that, but how could I promise her something I wasn’t sure of?