She still didn’t speak as if the swirling desire had stolen her vocal cords. She reminded me all over again of the woman I’d saved. The slave with her sliced tongue and tattered bravery.
I shook from passion and pain. I crippled with need and nastiness.
Christ…
Her fingers quaked a little as she stroked the velvet casing before cracking it open. One hand flew to cover her mouth while the other quaked harder, distorting the jewellery inside. “Oh…”
How could one little sound reach into my trousers and fist me?
How could one woman reach into my chest and rip out my goddamn heart?
A tightness wrapped around my neck that had nothing to do with the awkwardness of giving someone a gift or the agony of preventing lust from winning.
Did she like it?
Did she hate it?
Would she wear it, or was it too steeped in painful memories?
The tightness dropped into my heart, wrapping bands of cold anxiety around the smoking muscle. The same pressure entered my lungs and legs and fingertips. A pressure demanding I touch her, kiss her, comfort her.
What sort of lover was I when I couldn’t even kiss her forehead without fear of demanding more? What sort of man was I when I couldn’t control myself around the woman he loved more than anything?
I pursed my lips as she touched the bracelet. My hands clenched together, finding another thread of strength to sit beside her and not explode into a million pieces of want.
I needn’t have worried about the Hawk’s craftsmanship. It was as if he’d reached into my brain and stolen the idea directly from the source.
Pim’s fingers ghosted over the bright gold pennies dangling from the bracelet. Not copper or brass or any other unprecious metal. These pennies were pure gold to resemble how, even at the start when I’d tried to give her a penny for her thoughts, she was worth every wealth in the world to me.
Inlaid in the face of the perfectly stamped pennies sat a diamond. The glittering stones distorted the pennies’ face, changing the numerical value from one cent to untold value.
Because that was how I saw her.
Her freedom was priceless.
Her secrets were invaluable.
Every part of her treasured and coveted.
No matter how much money I had or how much time I could steal, I could never show her how much I’d fallen in love with her.
Her eyes glossed with shock as she looked at me—truly looked at me and saw past my guards and barriers to the agony I was in. “I don’t know what to say.”
Even my teeth ached from sitting so close and not having her. “Then don’t say anything at all.”
“But…I have to. I have to find a way to thank you. To show you how grateful—”
Gravity was the last element to smash my self-control. The couch cushions, long since broken in by prior sitters, collapsed beneath me. My hipbone collided with hers; our legs flush against each other.
And that was it.
My hand ignored my half-hearted command not to touch and soared up to capture her cheek. “I’m the one who’s grateful.”
“But—”
“No buts. I need to say this…” My fingers tightened on her skin, already craving more. I denied those urges. I hadn’t planned on this. I didn’t want to strip myself down to the bone. But holding her cheek, staring into her mask-rimmed eyes with rubies dangling like tears beneath, I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“I need to tell you how sorry I am. That I ran from the prison because I finally saw how you must see me.” I shook my head in dismay. “After so long in silence, why did you give me what you never gave him? Why let me do the exact thing he was trying to do?”
She frowned as if in a dream she couldn’t understand or control. “You were never like him. Ever.”
“I was. I am. I told you at the start I was after your mind rather than your body. I didn’t know why at the time. I blamed it on my need to conquer things I didn’t understand, but now I know different.”
Her skin heated beneath my palm. “Know what?”
Running my thumb over her bottom lip, I whispered, “Isn’t it obvious?”
The tip of her tongue tasted my finger, sending a full convulsion through me. Her voice echoed with every desire I felt. “Not to me.”
I squeezed my eyes, fighting every bellow to kiss, to touch, to take. I’d started this. I had to finish it. I had to tell her the truth. “It’s because I’m in love with you.”
She gasped, jerking in my hold.
I could stop there.
I could kiss her and show her through actions just how true that was. But now I’d opened the vault, I had to tell her everything.
Everything.
Pressing my forehead against hers, our masks crinkled and joined. Feathers from hers and silk from mine, both of us disguised but still so aware of who the other was. So aware that we’d found each other, despite all the shit in the world.