My instinct is to turn, but there is a glint in his eyes that is one part challenge and one part intimidation, and I do not let him win. I lift my chin, refusing to let my eyes wander again. “If I didn’t tell you anything about that man, why did you say we both know I did a whole lot more than kiss him?”
He wraps the towel around his waist, his damp hair teasing his defined cheeks, accenting those cutting blue eyes. “Are you saying you didn’t?”
“Did I say something that made you think I did?”
“Are you saying you didn’t?”
“Stop a
nswering my questions with more questions.”
“Then give me an answer.”
“I could say the same to you,” I snap. “I had one pain-induced memory of that man. One. Just one, Kayden.”
“That’s not an answer I’m looking for.”
“You already know the answer. He was . . .” I stop, not sure how to fill in the blank.
“Your lover,” he supplies.
“No,” I say quickly, the word lover somehow too good for that man. “He was not my lover.”
“But you had sex with him.”
An image of me tied to that bed has me gripping the blanket a little tighter. “My memory had nothing to do with sex.”
“Then what was it about?”
“Control,” I say, no hesitation in me. “Power.”
His eyes sharpen. “Did he hurt you, Ella?”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” I try to twist away from him, but his hands encircle my waist.
“What did he look like?”
“I couldn’t see his face.”
“What could you see?”
“I told you—”
“What could you see?” he presses.
“That’s private.”
“Not when my life is on the line, right along with yours.”
“It’s private and it’s not about what I saw anyway. It’s more what I felt.”
“Which was what?”
“I told you. He scares me.”
He narrows his eyes on me. “ ‘Please don’t be him,’ ” he says, repeating my words from the night before.
“I’d just had the flashback, Kayden, and the drugs and the pain made me feel helpless.”