“You can talk to him after I talk to him. There are things you don’t understand. Things that I’ll explain.” She opened her mouth to speak but Jack kept talking, “Not now, in the morning.” He dipped his face closer and touched his mouth to hers then left it there. “You can trust me, Belle. I’ll take care of it.”
She pulled slightly away, her eyes left his and he felt her body start to stiffen again so he ran his hand down her spine, something that caused her to stop bracing and start to tremble.
He noted this for future reference too.
“Belle,” he called.
She didn’t look at him when she asked quietly, “Why?”
“Why what?”
Her gaze moved to his nose and she replied, “Why everything? Me, tonight, what happened. All of it.”
His hand went back to the side of her face and he demanded quietly, “Look at me, poppet.”
After a brief hesitation, she lifted her eyes to his and only then did he speak.
“I’m not going to explain why. I’m going to take the time and show you why.” His hand moved down to her jaw and his voice got deeper when he went on, “And I’ll do it until you get it. Until you understand how lovely you are.” His thumb moved along her lower lip as he continued, “Until you understand how interesting you are.” His thumb left her lip and his mouth replaced it. “Until you understand why I’d drag you to my room to f**k you. And until you understand why I want to do it again.” He brushed his mouth against hers before he murmured, “And again.”
As he spoke, her body became soft and yielding in his arms, her hands slid from his chest and her own arms curved around him.
When he finished, she dropped down and rested her cheek against his chest, her forehead pressed to his neck and she whispered, “You have to know, this isn’t me. I don’t know who this is. I don’t behave like this,” she paused then, for emphasis, she added, “ever.”
“Like what?”
She replied in a barely there voice. “What we did tonight. I don’t do things like that. I know you want me to think it’s all right but what we did was wrong.”
Her long hair was spread across his forearms and he gathered it in a hand to twist it softly in his fist before he replied, “There was nothing wrong about what we did.”
He felt her shake her head against his chest but even as she disagreed with him, her arms grew tighter.
“Jack –” she started to protest.
“Belle,” he cut her off. “What I saw of you tonight with Miles was wrong. Very wrong. What we have is not.”
“Jack –” she began again but he gave her hair a gentle tug, she stopped speaking and tilted her head back to look at him as he dipped his chin down.
When he caught her eyes, he spoke. “If you let me in, poppet, even a little bit, I’ll prove it to you. I promise you, I’ll make you understand. This, whatever it is, and we both feel it, is right.”
He felt her grow still and watched her tongue wet her lips before she said words in an awful voice that left no doubt how much it cost her to say them or, indeed, the terrible feeling behind them. “I’ve done that before, with a man, let him in. It wasn’t smart.”
It was Jack’s turn to grow still.
He wanted to know what she meant but understood intuitively that conversation was also not for the moonlight but for the daylight when she was eating breakfast in his bed after he’d made her come and after she’d done the same to him.
“I’m not that man,” Jack returned firmly.
She started to pull away but his arm around her grew tight and she stopped.
“Jack, you have to listen to me,” she demanded, a hint of desperation in her voice.
“No.” He slid her back up his chest so they were face-to-face and went on, his voice turning fierce. “Tonight is ours. Tomorrow morning, I’ll explain how it is and, if you’ll share it with me, you’ll explain. Then I’ll take care of everything.” She shook her head and his fingers holding her hair wrapped around the back of her head to stop her movement. “Belle, you can trust me.” He dropped his forehead to hers and repeated his oath in a forceful murmur. “I promise you, you can trust me.”
He watched close up as her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
Then they opened and focussed on him.
Then she whispered in an aching voice that registered painfully somewhere deep in his gut, “You promise?”