“No. Not like that.” He pressed his lips together. Took a breath. Then…said nothing.
“Like what?” I prompted.
He released that breath. “Like they…prepared…her for me.”
Several seconds of silence passed while color crept further across his face. I fought down the rising nausea. “Thatcannotmean what I think it means.”
He shuddered, expression contorting. “She knows things I don’t think normal sixteen-year-olds know.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised what sixteen-year-old girls know.”
A beat passed.
His mouth opened with atsk, and he pointed at me. “Okay. Definitely going to have to elaborate on what you mean bythat.”
I shook my head, chuckling. “Tell me what she did.”
Another few seconds elapsed in which he did nothing but trail his attention over the popcorn ceiling. I waited, ensuring he sensed my impatience with the whole crossed arms and tapping foot bit.
“She’s very…affectionate,” he said eventually.
“Ugh. Okay, stop.” That wasnotwhat I was thinking. “I don’t want more details.”
He grimaced. “I think she’ll need help once she’s with you. She thinks her only worth is in what she can offer a man.”
Ew. The NAO ideals were just the worst. Men and their worship of the almighty dick were going to ruin this planet. “That’s disgusting. And yet I’m not surprised these are the things you people teach your children.”
Everything about him sharpened. He stepped closer, gaze dropping to me. “She is the product of a timid, obedient mother, and a psychopathic father.Idon’t have children. I don’t fuck children. And if I ever had a daughter, I certainly wouldn’t allow her to act likethat.”
I snorted in his face—probably not smart. “Youare a Blood Colonel in the NSF.”
“Only Defiants call us that.”
I ignored him. “That isn’t an easy rank to reach. You really expect me to believe you’re different from them?”
“I don’t care what you believe. I’m telling you the truth—like I always do.”
We stood an arm’s span apart, glaring at each other, assessing.
The silver spark of the scalpel he used to execute people flashed across my mind. Cold crept across my skin. I lifted my shoulders. “I can’t trust you.”
“I don’t need your trust.”
“Youdo, though. You don’t want anyone else to play this game with you.” I motioned to the room around us, as if it encompassed the entirety of my relationship with him.
He said nothing.
“You’ve armed me. Hidden me in giant clothes. Killed your own men for me. You’ve done everything in your power to make sure I continue to be the one to receive your information, even though you think I’m incompetent and reckless. For some reason, you only want me, and you won’t tell me why.”
His gaze flickered over my face, but his silence screamed into the void between us. Pressure built, crushing, like sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
I let it embrace me, pushing harder on his hidden buttons. “What would you do if I were killed?”
He stiffened. His expression hardened, then iced over entirely. Those remarkable eyes fixed on mine, raptorial as a jaguar.
“Would you accept someone else?” I asked.
“That won’t happen.”
