She felt anger tear through her at his lie and got up on tiptoe to hiss, “You are so full of it.”
He glared at her a moment then his gaze moved to the ceiling as his hand slid up her back and tangled in her hair.
She steeled herself against how good his touch felt, how sweetly familiar it was even though she’d only had it for one night.
When his gaze came back to hold hers, his anger had disappeared and with one look at his gentle face, she had to re-steel herself.
“You’re full of surprises,” he murmured.
“Funny, I was thinking the same about you,” she snapped back and this, for some insane reason, made him grin.
His head dipped closer and her body froze.
“Who would have thought the woman I met last night who could barely bring herself to look in my eyes, could stand here this morning in my arms arguing with me?” he asked a question to which he didn’t want the answer and he did it in a voice that said this no longer annoyed him. Instead, it said he found it adorably entertaining.
It occurred to her what he was doing and she felt tears sting her eyes yet again.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
His face got even closer, so close their foreheads were nearly touching.
“Don’t what?” he asked softly.
“Don’t do this,” she told him. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t go flying into Miles’s arms. That ship has sailed.”
She watched his eyes flare before he lowered his head so their foreheads were now, actually, touching.
It hit her in a way that wounded her deeply that she liked that.
It felt nice.
Calvin had never done that to her. Calvin’s intimacy and affection began and ended in bed.
“Poppet,” he muttered. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Don’t, James. Just stop it.”
“Belle.”
“You played your game, you won. Just score your point and let me be.”
“That isn’t what’s happening here.”
“I’m not stupid,” she whispered. “I know who you are. I know who I am. The man you are can’t possibly want the woman I am. You can’t think I’m that stupid.”
His arms gave her a squeeze. “I don’t think you’re stupid and I don’t want to hear you talk about yourself like that. You need to give me the chance to explain.”
“I need to leave.”
“You don’t want to leave.”
“I do.”
“You don’t.”
“Trust me,” Belle returned with feeling. “I do.”
She felt his body go still and his face moved away from hers.