Page 36 of Go, Rogue

What’s also true is that every time he turns that night over in his mind, he feels nauseous. As if the whole evening had been distorted, like a reflection in a sideshow mirror.

Because everything he wanted had been there within his grasp: Catherine West seeking him out. Catherine West within arm’s reach. Catherine West leaning in for a kiss.

And yet, despite what it looked like on the surface, that night wasn’t a fulfillment of his desires. It was an ugly negation of them.

Because he wanted her for forever and she wanted him for a night; within his grasp and yet never further away.

“And now?” she asks and takes a step toward him. “What do you want?”

He stares at her as discordant impulses war within him.

What do I want?

He wants to take her in his arms and kiss her again, giving himself over entirely to whatever this thing is that pulses between them. He wants to give her shoes when she needs them and keep her safe and watch every sunset of every evening gild her face.

But he also wants to be free of that kind of desire. He wants to keep his heart firmly in his chest where it belongs and not smashed on The Elphame’s decks into smithereens. He wants to lock himself down and store away his wants and impulses deep inside his mind’s brig, never to be let out again.

Because no matter how she smiles at him or thanks him for the slippers or touches her cheek, she will always and forever be an earl’s daughter and he will always and forever be a bastard sailor, and there’s no spit of land large enough to bring the two of them together.

And he just doesn’t have it in him to let her break his heart again.

“Please, Andrew,” she says and reaches for his hand. “Please tell me the truth.”

His heart bends toward that word, “please” as it always does when it comes from her. But he pushes away that weakness with everything he has.

“I want you as my wife in name only — and nothing more.”

She closes her eyes and turns her head away as if he’s slapped her. “Perhaps we should set some rules of engagement after all,” she says.

“Aye. No more kissing.” It goes wrong every time, the kissing.

“Yes, if you like.”

He doesn’t like it at all, but it is for the best. No more looking glass distortions. No more hurt.

“Captain!” the first mate calls, and they both turn to find Rogers rushing up to them. “Come quickly. There’s been an incident that needs your attention right away.”

McGann nods and follows his first mate, drowning in shame, relief, desperation, fear. And want.

Always, always, want for the woman he cannot have.