"That's a silly question," he said, stroking my cheek. "An unnecessary question. I've never made a secret of my feelings, Bianca. I know you're a skeptic, but you must have realized that I fell for you right away."
I leaned my cheek into his hand. "Why haven't you ever said the words, then?"
He bit his lip.
I watched that vulnerable action with rapt attention.
"I wanted you to say it first. Not for pride, and not for my ego, but for my heart. I haven't said those words to anyone since my parents died, and I didn't want the first time to be met with a rejection. I was afraid you would get spooked and run again. I preferred to give you time rather than break my own heart. Can you understand that?"
I nodded, feeling crushed under the weight of my own skepticism. I hated what my baggage had done to him, what it might do in the future, all of the pain it had caused him, because there was no cure-all for my issues. One big one was rearing its ugly head even as I had the thought.
"But why?" I asked him, my voice much smaller than I liked it to be. "That's what I don't understand.
His brows shot up, and he gave me a genuinely baffled look. "Why?"
"Why do you love me?"
His eyes got so soft, changed in an instant from confused and into that impossibly tender look that got me every time. "You want me to break it down for you?" he asked succinctly.
I nodded.
He traced a finger across my brow. "I can do that. I'd enjoy that actually. You're my favorite subject, Love. I'll start with your eyes. I fell in love with those first. One look was like a punch to the gut. You have these ageless eyes on such a young face. I just knew that you had seen bad things, lived bad things, and from the start, I knew that you could understand pain. Understand loneliness and despair. Understand feeling hopeless and helpless and alone. I fell in love with your eyes first because I looked into their depths and saw the other half of my soul."
That got to me, and my eyes filled with those humiliating tears that I couldn't seem to avoid lately.
He traced a tear down my face, giving me his fondest smile. "I freely admit that was enough to catch me, and you're going to tell me I'm crazy, but I've been around the block too many times to count, and I was experienced enough to know, right from that first meeting, that I was falling for you. I didn't understand it until after our first time together, wouldn't have given it that name, but that doesn't change the fact that I was lost from then on. But let's get back to my favorite subject."
He reached across the tub, turning the water off. He plunged that hand back into my hair to cup the back of my head.
"Next, I fell for that hard-won composure of yours, that steely self-control. When I got you to smile at me, or even to acknowledge my presence, it felt like an accomplishment. I've never needed the chase, never wanted it, really, but I relished it with you, even knowing that it was trouble for me, that you were trouble."
"Next, hmm, let's see, that's harder to pin down, because that was a lot of things at once. I'll lump it all together and say that I fell for your reaction to me next. Your submission. I've never felt anything like this kind of chemistry before. The way you trembled at my touch, that innocent response that you couldn't hide, and that I couldn't doubt. And then we made love. After that, I couldn't call what I felt for you anything but love, not to myself, even knowing that you didn't feel the same, at least not like I did-not yet."
There was such an adoring sort of understanding in his eyes that I felt something raw heal inside of me. Yes, my natural skepticism had hurt him, but at least he seemed to get why I was this way. He seemed to get me.
He wasn't done.
"And then there were your paintings. Those dreams in your eyes. The world cannot have been a beautiful place for you, but it becomes so beautiful through those paintings of yours. You put your soul into those paintings, and nothing in this world is more beautiful to me than that soul of yours."
I had always been uncomfortable with praise, any kind of praise, and his outpouring was in a league of its own, as far as compliments that moved me went. I felt so overwhelmed that it was hard to keep looking directly at him, deep into those tarnished turquoise depths, but I managed it through sheer force of will, my whole body trembling with the effort.
He continued relentlessly. "And then there's the fact that you're stunningly beautiful, and you couldn't care less about it. Your beauty devastates me, Bianca, yet you put less value on that beauty than any woman I've ever met. Even if you realized just how stunning you are, which I know you don't, it wouldn't matter to you, wouldn't make any difference at all, and I find that so charming about you."