Chapter 12 #2
“However…” She paused, taking a moment to nibble at her plump lower lip, and Evander felt the small, thoughtless motion land somewhere low in his gut. “However, I must confess that I fear I have been using you.”
Evander almost barked out a laugh, completely taken by surprise.
“How on earth are you doing that?” he asked, unable to hide his grin.
Helena’s blush grew deeper as she swept her eyes down his body—and Devil take him if he did not feel heat sweep through him from head to toe.
“When I touch you… or when you touch me… it quiets something inside me,” she confessed, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper.
“I felt it when I fell into your lap in the carriage. I felt my whole body come alive, and I did not want to move. And when I took off your gloves at the inn, and my fingers grazed your skin… I could think of nothing else for days after.”
She drew in an unsteady breath, and Evander felt he could die on the spot.
“It takes the awful noise in my head and turns it into something else entirely. Something I crave.”
Every tendon and muscle in Evander’s body hardened at her words as he instantly longed to know what she was speaking of. Was it possible? Even without her remembering the letters he had sent her, could she still feel the connection to him the way he felt to her?
“What does it feel like?” he rasped.
Helena swallowed, and the movement drew his eyes down the pale line of her throat, to the place where her pulse beat visibly, wildly, against her skin.
“It feels as if… as if I am burning from the inside,” Helena answered, her voice gone breathless. “As if something soft and tender is unwinding every knot this wedding has tied in me, and pouring warmth into its place.”
Hope, brighter than ever, reignited in Evander’s heart.
“I do that to you?” he rasped out, barely able to breathe himself.
“Apparently,” Helena murmured, almost shy, as though it embarrassed her to admit how much power he held over her without even trying.
Her hand rose to rest against her own throat, tracing the same path his gaze had taken, as if she could hold the feeling in place.
“If this is what happens when you are merely near me, I dread to think what might happen if you touched me on purpose.”
“I need to apologize again for earlier,” he whispered, slowly raising his left hand. He paused just before touching her, letting his hand hover just a few inches away. “I would never, ever hurt you.”
“You thought I was someone else,” Helena replied, her gaze wandering to his hand. “I know you would not hurt me. I am not afraid of you.”
His eyes dropped over her slowly, taking in the loose fall of her hair over one shoulder, the thin cotton of her nightgown clinging against her skin, and the faint, fading marks circling her throat that he knew were not his doing.
His jaw tightened at the sight of them, but he said nothing of it, too consumed by the nearness of her to trust himself not to touch her.
“Perhaps you should be afraid,” he murmured, his voice dropping low and rough.
“Should I?” she whispered, tilting her chin up in challenge.
“Why do you insist on doing this to me, Helena?” he asked, his voice low and rough in the quiet of the corridor.
“Doing what?” Helena breathed.
“Standing so close. Looking at me the way you are looking at me now.”
Every rational thought urged him to release her, to step back into the shadows where he belonged and leave her untouched, unclaimed, and safely tucked away from a man who was more beast than gentleman.
Yet his hands refused to listen. One remained curled at her waist, and the other rose to cradle the curve of her jaw, tilting her face further into his palm so that she could look at nothing but him.
“Helena,” he rasped. Unable to help himself, he dragged his fingertips slowly down the length of her spine and felt her shiver beneath the touch in answer.
Still, he fought to hold on to whatever remained of his composure.
Even with her trembling in his arms. “I need to know,” he implored. “Do you and Jeremy love one another?”
Helena’s pliant body went stiff at once, but she did not answer.
He pushed on, needing to know once and for all if the woman he loved was truly in love with someone else.
“I… As I have told you, we have been good friends for years,” she replied. “We love each other.”
The way she averted her gaze, the hasty way she said it—she was lying, and Evander could not take it anymore.
He moved, pressing her back against the wall and pinning her there with his body as his fingers kept holding her chin up so she would look at him.
The desire in her eyes only deepened, tinged now with something closer to nerves than fear.
She lifted her hands to his chest, not to push him away, but as if she needed something to hold on to.
Still, he did not move. Not until he had his answer.
“Tell me the truth,” he growled.
“That is the truth!” she whispered vehemently.
“Then why do your body and your eyes protest so much?” he demanded.
Again, Helena hesitated.
“Why do you keep asking me if I love Jeremy?”
“You want to know why I keep asking? You want to know why I tried to stay away from you?” Evander asked.
“It is because I crave you more than anything. Any touch, any taste, any pleasurable sensation I have had in the past is nothing compared to what I feel when I am in your presence. Even now, you have no idea how difficult it is for me to refrain from kissing you.”
Helena’s pupils blew wide in an instant, eating away that startling green he loved so much.
“Kiss me, then,” she breathed, her nails digging deeper into his biceps and driving his insides crazy.
“What?” Evander croaked. He could not believe it.
She wanted him to kiss her? It was everything he had ever wanted.
He began to struggle with his thoughts, torn between giving in to what they both wanted and finding out once and for all what was going on.
“What are you asking me, Helena? You are getting married.”
“No… It is… You do not understand our arrangement,” Helena whispered. “I am not so sure even I understand, but Jeremy is my friend and just my friend. We do love each other, but it is as friends love one another.”
She squeezed his biceps harder, and that was when he felt the engagement band on her left finger pressed firmly into his muscles. It did not cause him physical pain, but it struck him deeply in his mind as a sharp reminder that Helena was not his to kiss. Even if she begged him to.
Evander let her go and took several steps away.
“Evander, wait,” Helena whispered as she reached for him.
He shook his head, taking another step back even though his body screamed at him to do the exact opposite. He had lust. He had desire… but he also had honor.
“No,” he croaked, feeling a fresh wave of pain blast into his chest. “Not like this. I will not kiss you, not while you are wearing another man’s ring.”