At least this way, with his visits eked out to them five days at a time, she could forget. Forget that he wasn’t the bright one, wasn’t the one who would bring her babies. She was always going to resent him just a little for being the one who survived, and he couldn’t blame her. He couldn’t blame any of them.
How could he ask anyone to take care of him, when he hadn’t been able to care for his younger brothers?
Who would take care of him? The answer, desolate and lonely, was obvious. Nobody. Not even himself. And he couldn’t think that—he couldn’t let himself wallow in any of the feelings that arose with that admission. Feelings were the enemy.
Perhaps that was why he reached out and took hold of the hand he had relinquished a half minute before. Perhaps that was why he pulled her in, leaning down until he could smell the warm scent of her hair, until he could see the way her eyes divided into black and brown and little gold flecks. Perhaps that was why he kissed her.
He hadn’t meant to do it. He acted before his mind caught up with him. She let out a surprised gasp. The noise was enough to bring his rationality back in line. But then she took his face in her hands and pulled him in, kissing him back with a fierceness that drove all rational thought away.
Grayson let himself fall into the kiss, into the softness of her lips against his, the taste of her mouth, sweet like jasmine. The play of her fingers against the side of his face. Kissing her was like forgetting. The whisper of their kiss. The slide of fabric as her skirts rearranged as she tipped forward, leaning closer to him.
Kissing was dangerous. But it was safer than speaking, safer than the painful jolt of emotions that he needed to keep buried. Kissing was action, and action distracted from thought. Lust singed through him, driving out melancholy.
Grayson had once been told sharks needed to move to force water through their lungs, that moving was breathing. That knowledge had settled into him. He had no time to stagnate in feelings. No time to allow his old worries to catch up with him.
He opened his mouth, catching the sound of surprise she made. Their tongues met, and he pushed in closer.
He could feel the heat of her body, the press of them against each other, the curve of her chest. He pushed in between her legs, her skirts pushing back against him. A short step forward, and he ground his pelvis into hers, feeling desire spark. Again, and—
And reality intruded in the feel of fabric. What was he doing?
He pulled his mouth from hers and stepped back an inch, a sense of shame dawning in him.
“Grayson?” Her voice shook.
He couldn’t do this. For him, it had been an escape. For her?
He let out a long sigh. “God. I’m so dreadfully sorry.”
Her eyes narrowed as she contemplated him. Then she shook her head. “Put your apology in a fire pit and burn it to ash.”
“Amelia,” he said quietly. “I cannot—I must not—do this. I am sorry.”
He made himself look into her eyes as he enunciated each syllable, waiting for the hurt to take over her features.
It did not. She tilted her head to look at him. Her brow furrowed. Then it smoothed and she gave him a tight-lipped smile.
“For what, precisely, are you apologizing?”
He gathered his wistful desires and clenched them into a tight knot around his heart. The things he might feel if he let himself go down that route… They were unthinkable.
“I’m sorry.” He took his hand from hers. “I shouldn’t… The way I feel about you, I shouldn’t have…”
Her nose scrunched. She didn’t look hurt or disappointed. She looked, at first, puzzled. Then a thought crossed her mind—he could see it in the widening of her eyes—and she pressed a fist to her mouth to hide a laugh.
A laugh. He didn’t understand at all.
“Ahem.” She brushed an imaginary piece of something off the shoulder of her gown, straightened her spine, and tilted her head back, peering at him as if she were looking down on him, even though she was so much smaller.
“You’re attracted to me,” she said with a lift of her chin.
“Isn’t that obvious?” He shook his head in confusion. “I said I was sorry.”
She giggled. There was no other word for it. She actually giggled. “You have no idea. I’ve wanted to do this for such a long time.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“The amusing part,” she said in a voice pitched a few notes too deep, “is that you think I will mind. You have excellent taste.”
His mouth dropped open.
“It’s bad manners of me to admit it, but I am attractive.” She gave him an arrogant look. “Many men like me. And who can blame them?”
“I…” He could remember the exact moment he’d said something like this to her. They’d been on a ship. In the harbor in Fuzhou. She must have gaped at him exactly as he was looking at her right now. “I did not say it like that.”
“Very much like it.” She reached up and patted his shoulder. “Don’t think I have not noticed. There was an apology and there were kisses, but you haven’t answered my question. Who is taking care of you?”
His breath punched out. He didn’t have the strength to resist any longer. “Nobody,” he confessed.
It had been months since he’d teased her about her megalodons. Now she was doing it back to him. He felt like a pane of glass, liable to shatter at any moment. His throat seemed full of sand.
“Nobody,” he repeated through the gravel that seemed to clog his speech. “Everybody who did was killed.” He could hear the yearning in his words. “I’m the only one left, and dammit, what do I need with something so paltry as care when I was so selfish as to survive?”
She didn’t say anything, but her eyes—wide with compassion—said it all.
She’d seen his megalodons—giant sharp-toothed beasts lurking under the surface, waiting to shred him if he ventured forth. His ambitions only seemed so large because they substituted for a want so cavernous and impossible that it would always go hungry.
“Mrs. Smith.” He was choking on his want now. He had to—he didn’t know—shove it back. Push it away. Bury it beneath the ocean waves before it ate him whole. He had to get away. “With your leave.” He nodded at her and turned to go.
“Absolutely not!”
“Then without your leave,” he told the door to her office. And he was gone before she could answer.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was still dangerously slick when Amelia returned to her office the next morning, cold enough that the paving stones were slippery and icicles formed spears down tree branches. She’d woken up throughout the night, hearing the wind howl.
Normally, when she heard wind, she thought of her mother—of that long-ago dusty, windy day when she’d been left behind.
Last night she’d thought of Captain Hunter instead. How easily he wore his arrogance. What a mask it had turned out to be. She’d thought about the burn of his kiss and the touch of his hands. But most of all, she’d thought about his telegrams. About the confidence he’d given her.
That morning, she’d come into her office, gone to her desk, and removed the stack of letters he’d given her. Over the last eight months, she’d received a slew of numerical telegrams from him. Every time she’d received a number in the correspondence sent up from the Hong Kong telegraph office, she’d felt a queasy trepidation. This was it. This was the time he would be disappointed with her.