Page 20 of The Champion
“I know you have desire for me, but I need you to tell me what youfeelfor me.”
I groaned low and kept kissing her neck and jaw, moving up to her earlobe.
“At least try.” Freya dried another tear away, her tone pleading. “Tell mesomething.”
I stopped kissing her and leaned my head against hers.
“Try,” she repeated.
“I already told you how I feel about you.” Pulling back to meet her questioning gaze, I reminded her: “That day when you were in my apartment and we kissed, you asked me about the woman who was here. I admitted that the reason I was with her was because she reminded me of you.”
“Her name was Yvonne.”
“Hmm. Could be. Doesn’t it tell you something that every woman I’ve fucked for the past six years has been a brunette like you?”
“That day with Yvonne, you set me up. You knew we were coming, and you wanted to hurt me.”
Her accusation stung, so I defended myself. “If I did, it’s because I’m tired of you hurting me.”
Her eyes widened. “How am I hurting you?”
I clammed up and sucked in my lips. I’d already said too much. Baring my emotions was dangerous and I didn’t want Freya to see me as pathetic or weak.
“Victor, don’t you get it? You speak of sleeping with women similar to me in looks as if that’s your twisted way of showing me that you’re attracted to me. That’s fucked up.”
“But Iamattracted to you.”
“Yes, I figured that much when you snuck into my bedroom eleven years ago. But I need something more from you than lust and desire. I need a bond and commitment. It’s how my heart and brain work.”
“But you liked kissing me that day, didn’t you?” I was back to cupping her face and leaning my forehead against hers. “Imagine what it would be like if we took it further. The thought of having sex with you, Freya… it drives me insane.”
She didn’t reply but her eyes turned downward, and she seemed sad.
With a bent index finger, I lifted her chin and looked deep into her eyes. “Even if I can’t express in words what I feel for you, you’re smart enough to know.”
“No, I don’t know. Linea says that people make the mistake of projecting their own emotions onto others. I would like to think our kiss meant as much to you as it did to me, but how could it when to you I’m one out of a thousand women that you’ve kissed?”
“That’s different. Those women meant nothing.”
“And I do?”
“Yes. I’ve been trying to seduce you for a decade. Trust me, that kiss was a massive victory to me.”
“Ahh, I see. That’s what this is about to you, isn’t it? This is all about your ego wanting to prove that no woman can resist you.”
“Come on, Freya. It’s been more than a decade since you rejected me the first time. I think it’s been established that you can resist me. But why keep it up when I sense how much you want to give in?”
Freya pulled back a little. “I’m aware that everything comes with a price. Our kiss was passionate but left me thinking about you every day. Now that I’m staying in France to help with the species salvation project, I would have to see you every day for five more weeks. You might be used to having sex and moving on, but I could never do that. It’s not that I don’t want the experience. It’s that I’m unwilling to pay the price of a shattered heart.”
“I’m sure that you overestimate what I mean to you.”
Freya closed her eyes and sighed before meeting my gaze again. “No. But I clearly overestimated whatImean to you.”
It felt like she had dumped a bucket of cold water on my head. “Freya, don’t think that I…” I wanted to assure her that she mattered to me, but I had no experience expressing what was in my heart. My tongue felt as if someone had tied it up.
“So, I was right then, earlier tonight when I said that French people don’t have the capacity for love?”
It had pissed me off when she first threw that remark at me tonight while we were dealing with Bjorn, the lovesick Northlander Explorer. If Freya understood how I suffered in silence from my longing for her, she wouldn’t say stuff like that. Clearing my throat, I answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “Don’t stereotype my people as shallow and callous when evidence proves that you’re wrong. We love our friends and pets as much as you Northlanders do. It’s not that we can’t love, Freya, it’s just that we have deemed romantic love dangerous. And yet, Belle and Banni have left France to be in romantic relationships and they’re French.”
