chipped at my weakness. “Don’t,” I demanded hoarsely. “Don’t look at me like that when you don’t mean it.”
“I do mean it.” He leaned in to brush his mouth over mine again, and he groaned before burying his head in the crook of my neck. The rasp of his unshaven cheeks against my skin made me shiver. His hands moved around my back and he crushed me to him. “I need you to forgive me.”
Astonished, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t lift my arms to return his embrace. What was happening?
Jamie sighed against me and then lifted his head. But he didn’t let me go. His hands rested possessively on my hips. “I love you. I never stopped loving you.”
My heart stopped.
“You don’t treat someone you love the way you’ve treated me.”
Remorse darkened his face. “I know. I wish I knew how to take it back.”
“You pushed me away when you were in prison. You know that, don’t you? It started back then. I’d tell you I loved you, and you stopped saying it back. I counted how many times.” Fresh tears filled my eyes as I stared up him, thinking of all the years we lost and not because he was in prison. “Twelve times. Twelve weeks I visited and said I love you, and you never said it back. It started then. You hated me then, didn’t you? You blamed me for telling you about the diaries.”
Disbelief slackened Jamie’s expression, and his grip on me turned bruising. “Jane, no. No. I didn’t then and I don’t now.”
“Then why?”
“I didn’t …” He exhaled shakily. “I didn’t plan to push you away. But I guess I did, and once you were gone, I needed to hate you.”
A score of anguish cut through my chest and I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me.
“No, Jane.” He bent his head to me, gazing fiercely into my eyes. “I didn’t believe I deserved happiness. I don’t believe it. Not after what happened to Skye under my fucking nose. Not after I lost you. Not after the things I stood by and let happen in that place. Coming after you, hating you, I knew it would mean we’d be ruined forever. That I could never get you back.”
Horrible understanding made me relax against him. Oh, Jamie. “It was self-destruction.”
He flinched and looked down at where we touched. “I don’t deserve you …” His eyes returned to mine, tears shining in them. “But from the moment I saw you again, I wanted the past seven years to have been a nightmare that I could wake up from.” He stumbled back, scrubbing his hand over his face. “Tell me to leave, Jane. Tell me to get the fuck out of your life because I can’t let go of what they did to me. I can’t move on, and you deserve the chance to move on.”
I couldn’t.
Whether it was right or wrong, I still wanted justice too.
But more than that, I wanted him.
I loved him.
Why couldn’t I stop loving him?
“Jamie.” I took a step toward him. “I can’t tell you to leave. I want you to stay, but if you do, we’re a team. You respect me, and I respect you. The first time you insult me or try to make me feel less than I am, I will walk away for good.”
“A second chance?” His chest rose and fell in shallow breaths.
I nodded, my heart beating hard. “If we don’t at least try, then those bastards really did win, didn’t they?”
Suddenly, I was in Jamie’s arms and he was kissing me like I was oxygen. The familiar taste of him, the hungry emotion in his kiss, flicked a switch in me. Everything else, all the worries, all the forgiveness that would be a daily endeavor to overcome, were gone. It was just me and Jamie. As if the last seven years had never happened.
His growl of need vibrated down my throat, tugging deep in my belly. We stumbled against the wall as Jamie gripped the back of my neck with one hand and slid the other down my stomach. His fingers hooked inside the waistband of my jeans, yanking me into his body.
I kissed him harder and clung to him, my fingers digging into his back as I lifted my leg, my thigh pressed to his hip as I undulated against the hard heat of him. He bent his knees and then rolled his hips up into mine so his erection nudged between my legs.