Page 43 of Inevitable
“Which doesn’t make one bit of a difference on the attractiveness scale,” I blurted out before I could think about my words. “I still think you’re the hottest man on the planet. It’s annoying. You’ve gotten even hotter and I’m just getting old and plump.”
“You still think I’m attractive?’ he asked, sounding perplexed.
“Ridiculously attractive,” I answered honestly. I’d gone too far not to be completely truthful. “I’m just as attracted to you as I was fourteen years ago. I know that can never go anywhere. Our fling was a long time ago, and it’s been over for a long time. That’s crazy, right?”
“Not so crazy,” he said hoarsely. “I’m still attracted to you, too. But you’ve been through a lot of trauma, and I’m familiar to you. Once you feel more secure, that attraction is likely to change for you.”
Ha! I was a mature adult, and I knew my emotions. Wanting to get Colin naked was not going to change forme.
Did he really think that his previously injured leg mattered to me?
He might be more guarded and a little edgier than he had been fourteen years ago, but he was exactly the same man he was years ago.
And that man had turned me inside out.
It was no different now.
Maybe I shouldn’t have blurted out the fact that I still thought he was scorching hot, but Colin and I had always been honest with each other.
The fact that he still found me desirable was something I hadn’t expected, but it made me feel less vulnerable knowing that I wasn’t alone in those feelings that had never quite gone away.
“It’s not going to change,” I said bluntly. “But I’ll learn to live with it. I want the two of us to be friends. We have a daughter, and I want us to be comfortable with each other again.”
“I’m not the same man I was years ago,” he said in a warning voice.
Yes, he was. He’d just gotten good at hiding the old Colin beneath a humorless, stoic façade that I wasn’t buying for a single moment.
His injury had made him build up a ton of defenses to push people away.
That made sense because his injury had changed his life profoundly, and he’d tried to make himself invulnerable.
It wasn’t like Colin had ever been a warm and fuzzy guy, but he’d been able to let people in once he got to know and trust them.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if he’d let anyone see the real Colin in years.
To me, that was incredibly sad because deep down there was a part of him that was very real and very human.
He also had a heart-stopping smile when he chose to utilize it.
I sat up a little and rested my head on my hand as I looked at him.
The moonlight coming from the window of my bedroom wouldn’t allow me to see his face clearly, but I’d felt his body tense up. “You’re exactly the same,” I informed him. “You just hide the person you are better than you used to.”
“You’re wrong,” he ground out in an irritated voice.
“I don’t believe you,” I said persistently. “You risked your life to save mine. You didn’t have to do that.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not still an asshole,” he said in an annoyed tone. “It was a calculated risk.”
God, he was so full of shit, but I’d let him get away with it…for now.
He’d built up those defenses for years.
It would take time for him to let go of some of them.
“Have I thanked you for coming to Lania and for everything you’ve done for me?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said abruptly. “Don’t thank me, Emma. Rescuing hostages is what I do, and you’re the mother of my child.”
