Chapter 4 #2
“I’ll get my own,” she muttered. Something else was bothering her as she quickly reviewed Jack’s conversation with Julien about the woman Jack had been compelled to kiss.
“Suit yourself,” he said lightly.
She turned to face him. “This girl you had to kiss. It was your sister, wasn’t it? The one who’s coming for me.”
He spun around slowly, searching her eyes warily before looking away. “My half sister, yes. Lela.”
It all made sense. “So she’s not just coming to kill me because she wants her brother to herself. She wants you for a…a husband?”
Jack shrugged, holding her eyes.
“Your sister wants to bind herself to her own—”
“Half. Half sister.”
“Still, that’s…that’s…” Darcy murmured, staring at the table, unable to finish the thought.
Disgusting. His sister wanted to be bound to him?
What kind of new depravity was this? Any time it felt better, it got worse.
Any time he felt possible, she was reminded he wasn’t.
Her head hurt, and she felt like crying.
“I brought in your bag of books and your laptop. I can give you the Wi-Fi password if you need it. I put the books next to the coffee table in the living room in case you wanted to do some work today.”
She nodded, her head swimming with confusion and longing and revulsion and jealousy and anger.
“Darcy,” he…” He started.
She turned, drawn by the low, gentle sound of his voice.
It wasn’t just polite. It sounded like Jack, her Jack.
He stood by the counter with his back to her, and her breath caught at the sight of him.
The way he filled out the jeans he was wearing and the muscles of his back that she could see through the button-down shirt whose tail hung loosely over his butt.
The way his black hair grazed the collar, drying ends curled under and over and teasing her to run her fingers through its thick softness.
“I don’t approve of half-sibling bindings,” he said quietly. “But I didn’t have a choice.”
Then picked up his coffee cup and walked out of the kitchen. She waited until she heard his footsteps on the stairs before she bent her head to silently cry.
He’d never felt such sweet relief in his entire life.
Regret. He’d seen regret cross her face when he mentioned the drowning.
It was as plain as the nose on her face.
She felt ashamed. And then she’d repeated the binding vow, telling him that he belonged to her.
He closed his eyes against the rush of tenderness he felt for her.
It was like a heavy weight was being lifted off his shoulders.
Like maybe, just maybe, she would be able to find room for him in her life.
He ran the water in the shower, willing himself not to go downstairs to check on her.
He knew she was upset, but talking about his Roug roots and obscure loopholes in ancient binding laws wasn’t going to bring them closer together until she was good and ready to talk about them.
For now, it was best to keep things polite and calm.
Which was difficult when she was throwing jealousy off her body like heat.
He had never felt owned by her, personally, before.
He’d felt owned by the fact that he was bound to her, and when he had made love to her, he felt the binding strengthen.
But he’d never felt the white, furious heat of possession he felt from her just now.
Frankly, he couldn’t think of anything more arousing than the sight of his bound mate, red-skinned with fury that he had kissed someone else.
He exhaled low, stripping off his clothes, and stepping into the cold shower with an erection the size of Mt.
Washington. Seemed like cold showers were becoming his best friend.
Keeping his head in their conversation had been difficult, to say the least.
When she walked into the kitchen, he knew immediately that she had overheard them, but he was shocked—and fascinated—to see her reaction.
She looked like a goddess, a warrior, someone wild and hot and demanding.
His blood spat and hissed and boiled to see her so undone, so possessive of him, as imprisoned by the strength of their binding as he, regardless of her protestations.
He’d had a sudden notion of grabbing her and pushing down her jeans, ripping her panties away, and bending her over the table to enter her pulsing heat from behind in one fast, hard thrust. He would have reached forward to push up her pink shirt and bra, and covered her breasts with his hands, grasping them, kneading them, finally pinching the nipples with his thumb and forefinger in time to every rhythmic pump until she arched her back up against him and screamed his name.
Then he’d grasp her hips and plunge into her one final time, his hot, virile come spurting into the sweet, tight heaven of her body.
He moaned, resting his head against the tile wall under the shower, feeling his sex pulse with the fierceness of his thoughts, his terrible desire for her.
Every muscle in his body tensed, peaked, then shuddered.
Once, twice, thrice…Darcy, Darcy, Darcy…
ahhhhh. His fists curled, and he groaned aloud as he came forcefully onto the wall in front of him, riding the waves of pleasure as the cool water skimmed down his body, and his eyes reflected like melted gold off the shiny white tiles.
It was hard to concentrate.
No.
It was impossible to concentrate.
When he came downstairs, his hair was wet again, and he’d asked if she wanted a fire in the fireplace.
She had shrugged noncommittally. Which apparently he had taken to mean, Yes, I want a fire.
Please make one squatting in front of the fireplace showing off the hard muscles in your thighs and the gap of hot, toned skin between your lower back and your butt so that I can’t get a thing done.
While she pretended to be reading notes about Parmeliaceae and Lycopodium clavatum, she was really fantasizing about those thighs straddling hers and her hands stroking that gap of skin while he—
“What’re you reading?”
He hadn’t turned to her. He was still poking at the fire. Poking at the fire instead of poking her, she thought petulantly.
“Oh! Um…” She cleared her throat, pressing a cool palm against her hot cheek. “I have this theory about um, lichen and mosses.”
“What’s your theory?” he asked, twisting a little to glance over at her. The motion made his T-shirt ride up, and she could see a bit of his waist now too.
“Uhhh…” she breathed. “Theory. Um…my theory. My theory is that mosses and lichen have unknown healing properties. Medicinal. Did you know that Parmeliaceae contains a cousin element to olivetolic acid? You know, from cannabis?”
“Wow! Let’s go smoke some Parmel…whatever it is.”
Darcy chuckled. “We’d have to find it and synthesize it first.”
“Good thing I know a botanist. You lead the way?”
His eyes sparkled, and she felt herself grinning at him.
He was so handsome, crouched down in front of the fire, half smile and still wet, tousled hair.
His beard was trimmed and short, neat but emphasizing his hard, manly jaw.
She looked back up at his eyes. Surely when he shifted, she would still see him in those yellow eyes.
You’re still you, aren’t you? Even when you—
“Tell me more,” he said gently, and she saw the slightest tightening of his jaw as he turned back to the fire, breaking eye contact with her.
She knew he could hear her in his head, but he refused to engage in eyespeak. He refused to engage in intimacy of any kind with her. Yes, she was getting exactly what she asked for, but no, she didn’t like it. She didn’t like Polite Jack at all. What’s more, she didn’t want it.
She didn’t like him treating her with passionless deference.
She didn’t want him keeping his distance, and she definitely didn’t want him kissing anyone else.
It’s true she had been relieved by his words indicating his disapproval of Lela’s behavior, but it didn’t change the fact that the last lips to have touched his were Lela’s and not Darcy’s, and it was taking all of her strength not to remedy that situation.
“How about I show you?” she murmured and heard the thickness in her own voice, her words surprising her.
He twisted to face her, his bare feet swiveling soundlessly on the stone hearth.
She held her breath at her boldness.
His eyes darted to her breasts, which threatened to pop out of her shirt with the force of her breathing, then back to her face. Their eyes locked, and she saw the flames catch, copper fire leaping and crackling.
“I was just going to make some tea,” he said, his voice raspy and tight. He stood up, replacing the poker, then walked through the living room, by the couch where she sat, into the kitchen.
Tea! Tea?
Darcy’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment as he passed by. She blinked, trying to figure out what had just happened.
He doesn’t want you. That’s what just happened, dummy.
He didn’t want her?
Oh my god.
He didn’t want her.
It squeezed her heart like a vise. She swallowed back the lump in her throat, cheeks still blazing.
One truth in her life was becoming increasingly more apparent.
As Jack pulled away, Darcy’s longing for him doubled, tripled, and was starting to consume her.
There was no mistaking the change in her feelings. She wanted him. All of him.
As much as she hated the Roug part of who he was, it was still part of the man she loved.
And aside from the binding, during which he unintentionally changed the course of her life, he’d done nothing to hurt her.
He’d only tried to connect with her, to strengthen their bond, to keep her safe.
And what had she done? She’d pushed him away, called him names, told him she didn’t want him, and left him for dead.
And all the while, other women were throwing themselves at him.