I frowned. “It’s not the same thing.”
Andrew nodded. “There’s magic here, Morgan. A legacy that you don’t understand, that you won’t understand until you are bonded and become the Huntress. I know that it seems too difficult now, but after the bonding, it will all be easy. Your strength, your knowledge, your powers will all meld together, and it will just…make sense.” He sighed. “I know that Cal seems like a total asshole for telling you that he can’t develop feelings for you. I also know that he has good reasons for doing it. But those reasons are for him to tell you, not me.” He shrugged. “Kelly thinks it’s not going to matter in the end. She thinks that Cal will do what is right no matter what. She thinks men are stupid sometimes…she wanted me to tell you that, those exact words.” He smirked. “She also wanted me to tell you that Cal doesn’t trust himself, but Kelly trusts in him to do the right thing.”
I stared back at Andrew as he grew quiet and closed his eyes once again, sensing a double meaning behind his words. Everyone in this place speaks in riddles. He’ll do the right thing. What the eff does that mean?
When Andrew opened his eyes again, he leaned forward and planted a chaste kiss on Kelly’s forehead. I felt pity for their situation. Pity mingled with something else, something like longing. Andrew clearly loved this woman, loved her with all of his heart. He didn’t deny his feelings for her no matter what the cost, no matter how much it pained him or how much he lost. I envied that. I wanted a man to look at me the way Andrew looked at Kelly, even with her being unmoving and physically unavailable. I wanted that kind of unconditional love and I wouldn’t accept anything less.
“Cal might have his reasons,” I said. “He might be lying to himself or not trust himself, but I’ve learned something in my life that I will not forget. Men cannot be changed. They cannot be made to feel something that they don’t want to feel. I’m not going to have sex with him out of duty or as some lusty byproduct of bonding with him. I deserve better than that and with all due respect, if Kelly was any kind of oracle, she would see that from a mile away. I will not bond with Cal, not while there’s a chance of anything more happening between us, not while he’s denying the possibility of anything more developing. I don’t need to have sex with him.”
Andrew’s smile reminded me of the one my mother had often given me. It was the kind of smile that was meant to placate a whining child. He reached his hand across the bed as he moved down the length of it. “Why don’t we go and see the training facilities. You need to know where they are regardless. You’ll have to start training your body so that you’re in better shape to defend yourself, with or without the bonding.”
I eyed his hand suspiciously, sensing once again that there was some hidden meaning behind his words. His smile widened, losing that parental edge and my reservations slipped away. What harm could there be in visiting the gym? I lowered my guard and slipped my hand into Andrew’s.
What could possibly have been going through my mind when I agreed to come to the training room? I shifted my gaze from one chiseled, muscle-bound man to the next, gawking down the line like some horny teenager. There were ten in total. All deliciously shirtless, wearing loose-fitting track pants, bodies gleaming with sweat as they moved in unison, Cal in the lead, through what Andrew informed me was a karate kata.
For warm-up, he had told me before leaving me behind to stare and squirm.
The men hadn’t seemed to notice my entrance, apparently so entranced in their kata, so dedicated to their training, that none, not even Cal, had shifted his eyes to me. But I wasn’t fooled. They all knew I was there, even Cal. The electricity in the room had spiked and was growing, crackling with excitement, arousal, and my own frustration.
I swept my gaze over the men, coming to a rest on the one I found most appealing. Oh yeah, this is definitely not the way to avoid thinking about Cal. Not when he moved with such fluidity, his massive body flexing, his muscles pumping with each strike and kick. It was mesmerizing. And though my gaze strayed to the others, I always returned to him as if pulled there, hungry for another ogling. Despite the sting of what felt like yet another rejection from him, I continued to gawk, feeling safe to stare when his back was to me.
I licked my lips and pulled at the collar of my shirt. The room’s air was thick with the scent of male musk, and my body buzzed as I inhaled it like a ravenous slut, certain that I could detect Cal’s smell mingled within.