Guarding Temptation - Talia Hibbert Page 0,7
on the coffee table.
“Someone shared my address,” she whispered, her blood cold and sluggish, creeping through her veins. “They know who I am.”
“No,” he said firmly. “They know you’re from Nottingham. They might know where you live—but you’re not there anymore. And we’re handling it.”
“The police won’t do anything.” Her lips were numb. “Not until it’s too late. They never do. I knew a girl who ran a feminist sex blog—”
“Don’t think about that,” he cut in. “Don’t think about any of it. And don’t look at that shit anymore.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped, the words a reflex fuelled by fear.
If she’d meant to push him away, it didn’t work. The opposite, in fact. Sweet-edged shock ripped through her as his hand cupped her cheek, the callouses on his palm rasping against her skin. He turned her face until they were eye to eye. “Nina. Love. Please don’t look.”
His familiar voice, low and rich and raw, felt like comfort. So did his touch. But he’d felt like comfort before, only to tear the connection away moments later. So she set her jaw and did the same, jerking away from his hold. “Alright. Fine. Whatever.”
“Are you okay?”
God, why did he have to care about her? And why did she have to love him? Her voice hard, she clipped out, “Obviously.”
“You want a hug?”
“I would honestly rather die.”
“You’re safe with me,” he said, ignoring her completely. “You know I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
It was absolutely ridiculous, but it was also true.
God, she was a mess. She felt like she might fall apart at any moment. She wanted to fall apart, and James was the one person she could do it around, but not right now. Not with everything that lay between them.
He studied her for a moment, his gaze warm and sweet as hot chocolate. Then his hand caught hers. When she tried to pull away, he held on tight and shook his head. “We need to talk, Cupcake. Maybe now isn’t the greatest time, but I already left things too long.”
Oh, Christ. She felt as if her breath was too hot for her lungs. Embarrassment prickled across her skin. “James. Don’t—”
“Nina. Please. Please let me try to fix this, because…” He broke off, swallowing hard. “I can’t lose you. And I feel like, if this nightmare hadn’t happened, I might have.”
She stared down at their joined hands, his fingers longer and thicker than hers, her skin darker and softer than his. She catalogued the little nicks and burns scattered across his knuckles and tried not to freak out. Tried not to hate him for speaking like this, speaking as if she meant the world to him, when things between them would never be the way she wanted.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His thumb swept slow, rhythmic circles over the back of her hand, the action easing her tension even as his words ratcheted it up. “I fucked up. Massively. Enormously. Worse than whoever invented pop-up ads.”
A smile crept onto her face without permission. “Continue.”
He let out a little chuckle, shaking his head. Then his expression softened, becoming almost… vulnerable. “Nina, when I was touching you—I couldn’t think. I just couldn’t. Which is ridiculous, and doesn’t excuse my being irresponsible, but it’s the truth. Then as soon as we were done, I just felt so guilty, and everything was flooding back into my brain at once, and it made me… Well, I was thoughtless. I shouldn’t have treated you like that. I’m sorry.”
She nodded slowly. Parts of that speech soothed the jagged wound inside her, but others seemed to tear it open further. She wanted to sort sensibly through the two sensations, wanted to approach their issues in a calm, reasonable, mature way—but she wasn’t calm, reasonable, or mature, so in the end she blurted out, “What the fuck, James?”
He blinked, running a hand over his jaw. “What?”
“I mean, okay, thank you. For the apology. But… how were you irresponsible? What, exactly, did you feel guilty about?”
He opened and shut his mouth like a fish. A very handsome fish. A very annoying fish. Finally, he said, “I told you. I shouldn’t have done it.”
She jerked back as if he’d hit her. “You mean you shouldn’t have done me.”
“That’s not how I would put it, but… No. I shouldn’t have. We can’t just—and then—like it doesn’t even—” Yet again, James appeared to have been hit with the inarticulate stick. Apparently, sex was the one thing he could not talk fluently