“Maybe I can find another way to impress you. Like my shoe size?”
Now she really wanted to know what was going on with his name. Not that she’d admit it. She guessed the more interested she acted, the less likely he’d be to share it. But he wasn’t getting off without sharing something. “You went from carefree jock to someone else. Tell me how that happens to a guy. How do you become a different person?”
He leaned his head against the back of the love seat. “It’s a long story.”
Finally. She curled her legs under her and watched him. “We’ve got nothing but time.”
“You’re ability to prolong pleasure is . . .” He lifted their hands one more time and kissed hers. “Let’s say annoying, though I’m tempted to use a stronger word.”
“Wait until you experience my stamina.”
“Okay, you win.” He let go of her hand.
She hated the loss of his touch but understood. He needed some space and she respected that. “I thought that might do it.”
“It isn’t pretty.” He rubbed his palms up and down on his thighs.
For a guy who held it together and thrived on conflict and danger, the idea of spilling secrets made him twitchy. Some of his usual rock-hard control faltered. She could see it in the way he moved. The fact that he moved at all.
“I don’t want pretty. I want truth.” She touched him then because not touching him proved too hard. She reached out and rested her hand on the cushion by his hip. Let her fingers make slight contact. Through his pants, but still they touched.
“You say that, but—”
“If I knew who took Tiffany I would kill the person myself. I dream of doing it and don’t feel an ounce of guilt.” There it was. Every ugly word about how fury and the need for vengeance pumped through her. She didn’t share it often, but with him it felt right. Like some odd form of encouragement. “Is your past less pretty than that?”
“About the same.” He didn’t move, but he seemed to slouch down until his shoulders rested against the cushions. “The best way to describe it is to tell you a story.”
“Nice.”
“Let’s hope you think so in a few minutes.”
For the first time since she met him, she sensed wavering. The dip in his usual confident demeanor shook her. Still, a rush to know more caught her in its wake. “Try me.”
For a second he didn’t say anything. Stray noises from the downstairs apartment and a slam of a door in the hallway blurred in the background. The usual hum of apartment living didn’t throw her off. She blocked it all and focused on him, willing him to talk. After another almost minute of silence, he did.
“There once was a very angry young man.” He seemed to be searching for the right words, but then shook his head. “Not the usual hormone-driven entitled type. He wasn’t angry about something stupid that happened on spring break or some slight in the weight room. Rage filled him, consumed him. Guided every decision.”
The sharp whack of his words echoed through the room. Tension encircled her, pressed on her like an invisible hand until the weight on her chest threatened to explode.
“How old was this man?” She didn’t bother to ask who he was because she knew. While she couldn’t imagine a younger, less assured version of him, he didn’t hide the fact there was one.
“Twenty-one.”
“A boy.” Not that much younger than her, but she rarely thought of the guys she knew in college as grown men. Half of them seemed to be mentally stuck in high school, reliving the glory days. Not that she saw him like that at all.
“One who had grown up fast and ugly.” He sank deeper into the cushions as his usual perfect posture and knife-sharp control faded. “During class, he’d plot. His attention centered on one man.”
“Who?”
“A man who didn’t deserve having even one person thinking about him. An evil piece of shit.” The words punched out of him as the anger he spoke about seemed to snap to life and curl around him.
A mix of frustration and wariness clogged her throat. Her mind stayed trapped in the hazy middle ground between fearing what came next and the driving need to hear more. She brushed the back of her hand up and down the outside of his leg. The move wasn’t sexual. She just needed a connection with him, to give him a sign of silent support.
“The angry young man made plans. Lots and lots of plans. He ran, worked out, bulked up, performed drills. He practiced at the gun range and became an expert shot.” His hands lay on his lap and every now and then his fingers would clench and unclench on the front of his thighs. “He ignored everything else and stoked his fury until it blocked out every other emotion flowing through him.”
With each word, the anxiety grew inside her. It bounced and pinged until her muscles begged for her to get up and move. But she sat there determined to listen to every word. To chip away at the painful information packed away inside him.
He blew out a long breath. “Then he met someone.”
Her stomach took another wild turn on its roller-coaster ride. “A woman?”