Page 39 of C is for Captive

“You did spend weeks pretending you couldn’t talk.”

“Successfully.”

“Fine. You’re a very good liar about everything except this.”

“Except what?”

“Things you care about.”

He looked at her then, and realized she was no longer smiling. She put down her cup and moved closer.

“You’re afraid there’s nothing there.”

He said nothing.

“And you’re afraid there is.”

His jaw tightened, but her small hand settled over his where it rested on the console. That was the problem with someone learning your silences. Eventually they stopped protecting you.

“I don’t know which is worse,” he admitted, and her thumb moved softly across his knuckles.

“If there’s nothing there, we’ll keep looking.”

We. One small word, but it hit him with ridiculous force.

“And if there is?” he asked.

“Then we’ll figure out what it means.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“No. I’m making it sound like you don’t have to do it alone.”

He turned his hand beneath hers and closed his fingers around it.

Twenty years. He had spent twenty years believing that finding his mother was a task that belonged only to him. Now Amy said we as if there had never been another possibility. He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her palm.

Her breath caught, and he felt her response all the way through him. He lowered her hand, but she didn’t move away. Neither did he.

The air between them changed. It had been doing that with increasing frequency. Last night she’d been naked in his arms, soft and trusting and beautiful, and she’d offered him everything he’d wanted.

He had stopped. He didn’t regret stopping. But that did not mean he’d stopped wanting. His body had spent the intervening hours reminding him of that fact with relentless enthusiasm.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and his body immediately reacted.

“How are your wounds?”

“Better.”

“Your ribs?”

“Better.”

“Your wrists?”

He rotated one.

“Better.”