And she’d almost thrown her chance at a good marriage away. All because she’d blurted out the truth. She lifted her chin, and gritted out, “Please. Don’t leave me alone again. I need you. I need your help. Surely we can manage this.”
“I didn’t leave you, Jack. I’m sorry I hurt you so. I…I had to go. I can’t explain it. But if I had not gone away, I would have been destroyed.”
“I’m so sorry,” she replied. “I had no idea you were suffering so.”
“I didn’t wish you to. I did not wish anyone to.”
She wondered at the price he had paid to keep that hidden from the world. “But I must leave now?”
“Stay, Jack,” he breathed, taking her hand in his, his strong grasp swallowing hers up. “Stay.”
Chapter Seventeen
James stared down at their hands entwined and wondered what the hell he was playing at. He had just told her that she should go, and now he was keeping her in his rooms.
It was dangerous.
Heshouldlet go immediately, but he could not.
Their hands. They looked so right and it felt so…right. He was not the sort of man to use those words, not in conjunction with a woman. He enjoyed women. He enjoyed the pleasure that he could give them and that they could give him in return.
And he enjoyed trying to find ways to make them happy. But he had never, not once in his entire life, felt as if he had found his own puzzle piece. Only this felt…more.
It felt extremely strange.
“This is dangerous,” he whispered.
“I know,” she murmured back, “but I like it.”
“Like it?” he echoed.
A soft breath rushed out of her, and her brow furrowed as she leaned into him. “I feel…”
“What?” he prompted, barely able to breathe, barely able to speak in her presence at the feel of her hand in his.
“Alive,” she replied, her voice low and humming.
Damnation.Alive.Yes, that was it. That was the word.
That sensation hummed through him like the richest, deepest, most remarkable temptation that any man could possibly have ever felt in his entire life. “I am a bastard to let you stay.”
“You would have been a bastard to make me go,” she countered. “Are you so very concerned?”
“I’m concerned about your brother,” he admitted, tilting his head down, stunned to find that he longed to pull her to him and never let go. Reason was slowly slipping away from him. All protests were diminishing under an onslaught of need forher.
She shook her head, which sent her curls tumbling over her shoulder. “Because he is your friend?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, wondering if he was truly losing himself. It didn’t feel that way. It felt as if he was finding himself instead. “Because I promised him.”
“What did you promise him?” she asked, her eyes searching his.
“That I would not be alone with you.”
“Too late,” she said, giving him a slightly mocking stare. But then her gaze warmed. “You cannot make promises about me to him. You cannot control what I do. So, if I wish to be alone with you, you cannot make some sort of manly pact to ensure it does not happen.”
The power of her words struck him. They made sense, and yet every single word felt as if he was betraying his friend, and that was hideous. “I am sorry. I—”
She stopped him then. “I see the only way to make you quiet is…”