by Janice Lynn
“You’re welcome.” His response was low, husky, a bit succinct for a man who seemed to search for things to talk to her about.
The only sound in the room was the lub-dub of Amelia’s ticking heart. Ticking? Ha. More like ba-booming. That ba-boom was probably rocking the entire ship, causing tidal waves on far-away shores.
She stared at him, wondering at why he’d crossed the room, wondering at his silence, wondering at her foolishness for just standing there, waiting, for what?
Although they hadn’t had another talk about the past, she could honestly say there hadn’t been many awkward silences. Mostly because Cole always said something to fill any conversation void that arose. Something smart, witty, flirty, complimentary, something.
Now he didn’t say anything. Not a word.
Standing with only a couple of feet between them, he just looked at her. Really, really looked at her.
Her whole body trembled and she knew something monumental was about to happen. She could see it in his eyes. Could feel it in the way his body called to hers.
After weeks of skimming the surface, of letting her pretend she was off the hook and that he’d go along with their truce and ignore the underlying currents, Cole wasn’t planning to play nice.
“I’m sorry, Amelia.”
She bit the inside of her lower lip, wishing he hadn’t broken the silence, not with those words, words that penetrated deeper than any missile.
“What for? You were great today.” Even as she said the words, she knew he wasn’t talking about today. She knew exactly what he was talking about and she didn’t want to discuss the past, wanted to keep her tone light and easygoing.
But Cole had obviously reached a breaking point.
“For kissing you, for leaving, for coming to your dorm that night, for hurting you and your family, for not being able to stay away from you even though it’s what you said you wanted.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for every mistake I’ve made.”
No, she didn’t want to hear his apology, didn’t want to feel the forgiveness welling in her heart.
Stocktons didn’t forgive, they got even.
Yet that didn’t feel right either.
“Why did you come?” she asked, needing to know what had driven him to show up at her dorm that crazy night so long ago when he’d obviously had no problems leaving her waiting on the night of his rehearsal. “Surely you didn’t believe I’d welcome you? Not after what happened?”
“I couldn’t not come.” Stepping even closer, he grazed his knuckles across her cheek as if he also couldn’t not touch her. “I tried to stay away, because I knew you wouldn’t forgive me. That was a given.” His fingers paused, tensing against her skin. “How could you? But I couldn’t stay away.”
Amelia fought leaning into his touch, fought the maelstrom of emotions swirling within her. She held his gaze, thinking him more dangerous to her well-being than any mission she might ever undertake. “Because?”
Of Clara? she wanted to ask, but couldn’t. When he looked at her as if he wanted her so badly, surely he wasn’t thinking of her sister?
“You were all I could think about, that I’d asked you to wait for me.” His palm cupped her face, his gaze bore into hers. “You’re still all I think about.”
Bells blared in her head, warning danger, danger. But he hadn’t said Clara, he’d said you, as in her. Not her sister. Her. Amelia.
Even as giddiness bubbled inside her, she had to stop him. Whether he was using her or not was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Cole had taken the cowardly way out, walking away. She could never respect that.
“Cole, don’t do this.”
Please don’t do this.
But he didn’t move away, only caressed her cheek as if she was the most precious thing he’d ever touched. “This? Is this what you don’t want me to do? I can’t deny it anymore, Amelia. I want to touch you. I’ve always wanted to touch you. You felt the heat between us as surely as I did.”
“Don’t say these things.” Don’t touch me. I can’t think when you do.
“Why not?” His thumb brushed back and forth in a slow stroke across her tingling flesh, leaving a trail of fire that burned clear to her core. “They’re true. I’ve never stopped thinking about you, wanting you. The moment I saw you again, I knew I was right to come here.”
The blaring bells cleared enough for a new warning to pop into her head, one that told her she hadn’t given Cole nearly enough credit for being the master strategist he so obviously was. She felt sucker punched.
“You being assigned on this ship, my ship, that wasn’t a coincidence, was it?” If she hadn’t been sure before, the truth shone in his eyes as clear as day, as clear as the message she was a fool was stamped on hers. “You purposely got yourself assigned to my ship.”
Anger heightened her pitch.
He winced. “It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that. Unless you’re denying you arranged this?” She spread out her arm to indicate his being in her sick ward.
“I’m not denying anything.”
The way he looked at her made her wonder at just what else he wasn’t denying. Surely much more than the reasons behind his arrival on her ship?
“How did you manage to pull off being assigned here? Getting this exact assignment couldn’t have been easy. Getting Dr Evans transferred at the last minute, unless that was just a convenient coincidence, which I don’t believe. Who owed you a favor? Or maybe it’s you who now owes the favor?” She glared at him, battling with the knowledge that he’d gone to a lot of trouble to get assigned to her ship. Why? Even through her blaze of anger that one word shouted front and foremost. “Why? Because you wanted to sleep with me and I turned you down?”
“No.”
“Odd,” she continued. “For all your faults, I never pictured you as a suck-up, Cole, but you must have been to pull this off.”
At least part of her accusations must have hit their target as he didn’t say anything. Why had he gone to so much trouble? What had he hoped to gain?
Cole’s lips clamped shut. He wouldn’t tell her. No matter how many times she asked or how she insisted, he wouldn’t tell her how he’d managed to achieve his presence aboard the USS Benjamin Franklin. But why not? Surely getting what he wanted was a prize worth bragging about?
Only he hadn’t quite gotten what he wanted, had he?
But he’d been on the path. Seducing her into believing in his goodness, making her question what she thought she knew about him, seducing her into forgetting she thought he was a devil in disguise.
Disgusted that she’d let her guard down, that she’d let him in over the past few weeks, Amelia spun, heading toward the medical office, needing to be away from him in the hope of being able to think clearly, of being able to figure out what the truth of him actively pursuing an assignment on her ship implicated.
Why was he here? Doing this? Making her crazy? She wanted to scream over and over, wanted to grab his collar and shake him, make him tell her why he was doing this after he’d so easily walked away from her. Why was he torturing her so doggedly?
She’d just gotten inside the doorway, when Cole grasped her wrist and turned her toward him. Not roughly, but not gently.
“No, Amelia.” He denied her escape, his eyes blue fire. “This time you’re not running away. We’re going to have this out.”
What was he talking about? She hadn’t run away from him. He’d been the one to ask her to wait for him and then he’d left. Always, Cole had been the one to run.
“There is nothing to have out. Nothing.” She thrust her chin upward. “We’re colleagues, working on an aircraft carrier together. As soon as this deployment is finished, our association ends.”
“Our association will never end.”
Amelia laughed. “Oh, please. Quit being melodramatic. You’re acting as if we’re star-crossed lovers.”
His hold on her arm eased, his fingers feeling more a
caress than a restraint when he asked, “Aren’t we?”
Nervous tremors crept up her spine. “No. We’ve barely even kissed.”
Kisses she’d relived a hundred times, a thousand times, but still only the kiss the night of the rehearsal dinner and the kiss in her dorm room.
When she’d told him to leave, that she’d waited for him that night and he’d left her, that his window of opportunity had closed, he’d grabbed her much as he just had, pulled her to him, cupped her face and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe, until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began, until she’d wanted nothing more than to fall back into her bed with him.
They had fallen back into her bed.
Cole’s long body had pressed her into the mattress, moving rhythmically over hers through their clothing, his hands caressing her everywhere at once, as if he’d waited a lifetime to touch her and couldn’t quite believe he actually was. Even now she could remember the silky softness of his shiny brown hair, could remember the tangy taste of his mouth, the fervor of his lips on her throat, the hard pressure of his body covering hers.
Amelia gulped, willing the memory to permanently vanish.
“Barely kissed?” He stared into her eyes for long moments, watching, waiting, then his gaze dropped to her mouth. “That’s a problem easily remedied.”
His head bent, but just as the heat of his breath touched her lips, burned her with more unforgettable memories, she turned her head.
“No.” She couldn’t do this. Wouldn’t do this.
She pulled free, moved away, turning her back to him, gulping air into her starved lungs. “Please leave.”
“You don’t want me to go.”
She turned, forcing herself to laugh in a mocking way. His eyes were so blue they pierced her. His chest rose and fell in unsteady drags of air. She took all that in, but didn’t allow herself to soften. To do so around Cole would be a grave mistake, one he’d pounce upon and devour all that she was.
“Don’t tell me what I want,” she spat at him in her coldest voice. “You have no idea.”
Although maybe he did.
A part of her didn’t want him to go. A part of her wanted him to expound on what he’d been telling her, wanted him to explain what had motivated him to show up at her dorm, to maneuver himself into working with her. Had sexual lust driven him to go against his better judgment and search out a woman he’d known would reject him? Did he really believe they were star-crossed lovers or had that only been a smooth line to throw her off balance?
“I know you want me as much as I want you,” he countered, not moving from where he stood but looking like he had to force his muscles to remain still. “But you refuse to admit you want me because of loyalty to your sister.”
No. She didn’t want him.
Much.
“You don’t know anything.” At least she sounded brave, certain, as if she meant what she said. Inside she quaked. This man held the power to rip her world apart, the same way he had ripped it apart two years ago.
“Tell me I’m wrong, that you don’t want me.”
She wanted to, but couldn’t lie to him. Couldn’t lie to herself. Not a moment longer. She did want Cole. More than she’d ever wanted any man.
And it was wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
She swallowed the knot tightening her throat. “What I want doesn’t matter.”
He laughed wryly, without humor. “What you want matters more than anything. You matter. Tell me what you want.”
She closed her eyes, praying for strength. “If what I want matters, you’ll leave me alone, Cole, because I want you to go.”
She heard his sigh, felt his frustration zinging from across the room. His tension wrapped around her like a cloak, willing her toward him, willing her to give in to her desires.
Just when she felt her strength waning, the sensation was gone. Cole was gone.
Wondering at her sense of loss when he’d done as she wanted, she opened her eyes to the empty room.
If she weren’t a Stockton, tears would have prickled her eyes. But she was a Stockton and those weren’t unshed tears blurring her vision because Cole had done exactly as she’d asked.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HEY, Sis. How are things? Still stationed in the Middle East? Life is busy. The ship was plagued with a virus, but things have calmed down. Only a few new cases this past week.
Amelia dropped her head into her hands.
Oh, God, she sounded like a polite stranger. Just as she’d been sounding in all correspondence with Clara since Cole had arrived on board. She’d told Josie a few weeks ago. She’d even told Robert. They’d both taken the news better than she’d expected but, then, she’d never told them she and Cole had kissed prior to Cole dumping their sister, had never told them about Cole coming to her dorm weeks later.
Just as she hadn’t told Clara that her ex was aboard the USS Benjamin Franklin.
She had to tell her sister. Now. Today. In this very e-mail.
Pressing her finger on the backspace key, she deleted the entire note and started over.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you, but Cole is on the USS Benjamin Franklin. He is a great surgeon and an asset to the ship, but working with him is difficult for me given the circumstances. I feel my loyalties are torn between you and what’s best for my crew. I don’t want to forgive him, Clara. I really don’t want to, but he does have a way of getting under one’s skin, doesn’t he? I always cared about Cole, thought he was a wonderful man and doctor. It’s so easy to forget how things ended when I’m spending so much time with him, when being with him reminds me of all the things I loved about him.
No, not loved. She deleted the word and typed adored instead.
How can I forget how he just abandoned you? Abandoned our family when we loved him as one of our own?
There was that word again. Love. They hadn’t loved Cole. She hadn’t loved him.
“About done?”
Reflexively hitting Send before he could read what she’d written, Amelia glanced up at the man standing in the doorway.
Oh, God, she’d just hit Send!
All the blood drained from her body to pool in the pit of her stomach.
Would she really have done so if Cole hadn’t walked in?
How did he always manage to find her? Not that she was hiding, but he always turned up wherever she was. She’d resigned herself weeks ago to the fact that she wouldn’t be able to avoid him. She wasn’t even trying to avoid him anymore. What was the point? She was being pursued, stalked by a predator more deadly than any jungle cat.
One that slid on his belly and seduced with his mesmerizing eyes and silver tongue. Just like Eve in the Garden of Eden, Amelia was defenseless against his powers of temptation. Difficult for a Stockton to swallow, but one of their greatest traits was the ability to call an apple an apple and an orange an orange. Stocktons didn’t lie, not even to themselves. Especially not to themselves.
She wanted Cole. Had from the beginning. Had he married her sister, she would never have acted on that want, but he hadn’t married Clara. Instead, he’d come for her and was biding his time until she was willing to admit she’d been waiting for him to do just that for the past two years.
She’d done what he’d asked. She’d waited for him. Two damn years.
“I was e-mailing my sister,” she said perversely, irritated with herself for her weakness.
He didn’t physically react, just watched her. “Is everything okay?”
She snorted, too frustrated to hold back what she was truly thinking from him. “Nothing has been okay from the moment you arrived on this ship. No, longer. Nothing has been okay from the moment you walked away from your rehearsal dinner.” A pause, as she dragged in an unsteady breath. “How could you have just left? How?”
A pause, a twitch of that perfect set of lips, then, “I’m not leaving you, Amelia. Not this time. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
She inhaled a breat
h meant to calm her frayed nerves. “Do you want to, Cole? Do you regret manipulating your way onto my ship?”
“No.”
Why was she trying to pick a fight? For what purpose? She closed her eyes. “Was there something you needed?”
“Other than you in my bed?”
Amelia clamped her lips closed, her heart pounding at his directness. She should threaten him with sexual harassment, should walk over and slap his handsome face, should do so many things. But all she did was release her pent-up breath.
“Is that what all of this is about?” she asked in a calm voice. Too calm really. “Sex?”
He moved closer, regarded her with speculative eyes. “What do you want this to be about?”
“I don’t want this at all, Cole. None of this.” She put her hands up in front of her. “I don’t want you here, period.”
“But you do want me.” He wasn’t asking a question. He was stating a fact.
She swore softly under her breath in a way that would have her mother going for a bar of mouth-washing soap. “Yes, I want you, but to what purpose?”
“Mutual satisfaction?”
“What makes you so sure you can satisfy me?” she taunted.
His gaze raked over her face in a lazy caress, lowered down her throat, lower, until she’d swear he could see right through her clothes, her skin, to where sweat slicked her body.
“If you’d like proof…”
“No.” She shook her head forcibly, moving away from the computer desk, away from where he stood. “I wouldn’t like anything from you except to be left alone.”
He laughed. “You’re like a broken record, Amelia. Isn’t it time you stop protesting so much?”
“Where you’re concerned I’ll never stop protesting.”
“Then the next few months won’t be dull, will they?”
How did he do that? Go from seductive devil to laughing like a good ole boy? As if he hadn’t just had his proposition turned down flat?
“I thought I’d go up deck and get some fresh air,” he said out of the blue, causing her to blink as if she’d missed part of their conversation. “I came to ask if you wanted to come with me.”