“Then you need to get yourself out of this place and away from Kaspar, Sir.”She lifted her hand and brushed her fingertips through the stubble at my chin.“I’d like to enjoy that life we were planning together.”
“Mmmm.”Darting from her touch, I kissed the ends of her fingers and, as though the digits spoke directly to my balls, a spike of arousal surged through me.“Sounds good.”
“What about you, though?”Unease flashed in her expressive eyes.“Are you okay, Sir?No one will tell me anything.”
“I’m okay,” I reassured her.“They did an MRI earlier and found some lesions, but they seem to think those are old and nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, thank God.”She sagged against me, as though the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders.
“Wait, what?”Pleased though I was to hold her so closely, I couldn’t understand her relieved reaction.
“I thought you might have collapsed because of what I did to you.”She frowned.“Do you remember any of that?”
Sliding my fingers between hers, I concentrated on her question.Did Iremember what she’d done?
“The decanter?”The solution came to me in hazy memories where I saw flashes of me waking up on the floor of my unit with a searing pain in my head.Turning my head in the flashback, I recalled seeing the decanter on the ground beside me.
“Yes.”Her voice was quiet.
“You smacked me with the decanter?”Disbelief echoed in my voice.
I couldn’t believe that a woman who was clearly so devoted to me would have done anything so malicious, but then, she had been my prisoner, and people in captivity often acted rashly.If what Caroline had told me was true, though, that was no longer the case.Leaving Ian’s regime meant everything was different.
She was no longer my captive, so by a process of elimination, I was no longer commander general.
Faltering, that idea bounded around my head.If I wasn’t the commander general, then who the hell was I?
“I apologized many times for doing so, but I guess you don’t remember.”She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth.“And you punished me, Sir.Maybe youdoremember that?”Her tone morphed into mischief as she cajoled me from my melancholy on the subject.
“Not specifically,” I murmured.“But I bet I did.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t me who caused all of this.”Her gaze flitted around the white room.“I wanted to get away from you then, Sir, but I never meant to hurt you.”
“I suppose we hurt each other.”I sighed, still pondering on my sudden identity crisis.The Adam Harper who’d made the decision to leave Britain had enjoyed time to process his choice, but it was all a shock to the version of me sitting in a hospital bed.
“Yeah.”Her brow rose.“What a pair, eh?”
“Less Romeo and Juliet, and more Bonnie and Clyde?”I sniggered, relieved that the comfort of our chemistry still seemed more important than my sudden confusion about my identity.
I couldn’t yet recall everything, but I believed every word she was telling me.Caroline needn’t have told me about the decanter issue at all.She could have kept that less-than-impressive moment of our past in the dark.Yet she’d chosen to tell me, and to express her regret, and I appreciated that.Her honesty solidified my instinctual urge to trust and protect her.
“Can you forgive me all over again, Sir?”A crease appeared in her smooth brow.
“Of course.”There was such certainty in me as I reached for her face and caressed the side of her jaw.“I know how much you mean to me, little girl, even if I can’t remember every small detail of why.”
“Thank you.”She leaned into my palm.
“And knowing me, I’m sure I’ve done some pretty shitty things to you.”
I didn’t go into specifics, but the truth was, Icouldrecall some of the insanely hot but degrading things I’d ordered her to do in the past, and while none of them justified smacking me over the head, I supposed I could see why they’d had a cumulative effect.Over the years, I’d relished them.Power and privilege had certainly gone to my head.
“You were...”she hesitated, as though looking for the right words.
“Go on.”I buried my fingers in her hair.“Tell me.I want you to be honest.”
“Challenging, Sir.”She smirked.“But you looked after me, Adam.Yousaved me.”She protracted the final two words.“Without you, the so-called president would have killed me.”
“I had to get you out of there.”
