Chapter 14 #2
She still didn’t turn. Let him come to her, if he wanted to talk. Let him make the first move for once.
More footsteps. He circled into her field of vision, and she looked up to find him holding a rectangular wooden frame.
“What’s that?”
He thrust it towards her awkwardly, like a child offering a gift and half-expecting rejection.
“For you. For your work.”
She took it, and her breath caught.
A hand loom. Small enough to use while sitting, but beautifully crafted—smooth wood, perfectly balanced, with a comb so fine she could barely see the individual teeth. The warp beam had been carved with a delicate pattern of vines and leaves, and the whole thing gleamed with oil and care.
“You made this.”
It wasn’t a question. She knew his work by now and recognized the precise craftsmanship, the attention to detail that marked everything he created.
“You need proper tools.” His voice was gruff and dismissive, but there was a hidden tension underneath it. “The spindle was adequate, but for weaving you require—”
“It’s beautiful.”
He stopped and stared at her.
“It’s beautiful,” she repeated, running her fingers over the smooth wood. “Tarek, this is… I don’t have words. This must have taken you days.”
“I had time.”
“You had more time because you were avoiding me.”
The words came out sharper than she intended. She watched his jaw tighten, saw the flash of something—guilt? frustration?—in his green eyes.
“I was not avoiding—”
“You absolutely were. Ever since we kissed, you’ve been—”
“I needed space.” The words were bitten off, almost harsh. “I needed to think.”
“About what?” she asked, even though she knew.
About me. About us. About that kiss that still burns on my lips whenever I close my eyes.
His hands clenched at his sides. “About the fact that you are a guest in my home. Under my protection. And I—” He broke off, looking away. “I should not have touched you like that. It was a violation of your trust.”
“A violation?”
“Yes.”
She carefully set the loom aside and stood. He took a half-step back, but she closed the distance, refusing to let him retreat.
“Was it a violation when I kissed you back? When I pulled you closer? When I made that sound—you remember the sound—because I wanted more?”
His eyes flared green.
“You don’t understand what you’re—”
“Then explain it to me.”
She reached up, laying her hand against his chest. His heart pounded beneath her palm, fast and hard and desperate.
“Explain to me who you really are. Explain what you’re so afraid of. Explain why you live alone on this mountain, pretending you don’t want the very things you keep offering me.”
“Jessa—”
“I found something yesterday.”
That stopped him. He went very still, the tension in his body ratcheting up another notch.
“Found what?”
She retrieved the tapestry from where she’d hidden it and held it out to him.
For a long moment, he didn’t move. He just stared at the rolled fabric like she was offering him a poisonous snake.
Then, slowly, he took it and unrolled it. He stared at the face looking back at him—his own face, but cold and commanding and nothing like the male who stood before her now.
“Where did you find this?”
“In the alcove. Behind the curtain.” She watched his expression carefully. “It was damaged so I mended it.”
His fingers traced the repairs, finding the places where she’d patched the frayed edges, the tear, and the deteriorating embroidery. His touch was reverent, almost pained.
“You shouldn’t have—”
“Seen it? Fixed it? What, exactly, shouldn’t I have done?”
“Any of it.” But his voice was hollow and defeated. “This was supposed to be destroyed.”
“But you kept it.”
“I couldn’t—” He stopped. Started again. “It was the only thing I brought with me. When I left. I meant to burn it but I couldn’t.”
“Left from where?”
Silence. Long and heavy.
“Who are you, Tarek? Really?”
His eyes met hers, and in their depths she saw something raw and vulnerable. All his carefully constructed walls were beginning to crack.
“That name has no power anymore.”
“Names have power,” she quoted back at him. “You said that yourself. What’s your true name?”
He set the tapestry down with exaggerated care. His hands were shaking.
“My true name is buried along with the male I used to be.”
“But he’s not really buried, is he?” She stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body.
“He’s still in there. He’s still part of you.
I see him every time you help Dani or build something beautiful.
Every time you look at me like you’re starving and I’m a feast you’ve forbidden yourself to taste. ”
A rough sound escaped him, not quite a laugh.
“You are testing my restraint.”
“Am I?”
She rose on her toes and kissed him.
This time, there was no hesitation. His arms came around her immediately, crushing her against his chest, one hand fisting in her hair to tilt her head back. He kissed her like a man drowning—desperate, consuming, utterly without control.
And gods, it was everything.
She melted into him. Her hands found his shoulders, his neck, the silky fall of his hair. She opened her mouth to him and he made a sound that was almost a growl, deepening the kiss until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.
The world narrowed to sensation. The hard planes of his body against hers. The scrape of his teeth against her lower lip. The heat of his hands sliding beneath her shirt, finding bare skin and making her gasp against his mouth.
He walked her backwards until she hit the wall, pinning her there with his weight. One thigh pressed between hers, and she whimpered as she arched into it instinctively, chasing friction, chasing more.
“Jessa.” Her name was a harsh rasp. “I cannot… If you keep making those sounds…”
“What sounds?”
She rolled her hips against him with another needy whimper.
“Like that.” His forehead dropped to hers. His breath came in harsh gasps. “That sound. As if you want—”
“I do want.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Then show me.”
His eyes flared bright, pure green flames in the darkness. For one endless moment, she thought he would give in. She thought she’d finally broken through those walls and found the male hiding beneath.
Then his hands fisted at his sides and he stepped back so sharply she nearly stumbled.
“I can’t.”
The words were wrenched from somewhere deep inside him, raw with pain and want and despair.
“Tarek—”
“I can’t, Jessa. Not like this. Not when I’m—” He broke off, chest heaving. “I need to… I have to…”
He was gone before she could respond. Running out the door and into the darkness of the forest, leaving her breathless and aching and more confused than ever.
She slumped against the wall, trying to steady her racing heart. Her lips throbbed. Her whole body throbbed, still humming with the echoes of his touch.
What is he so afraid of?
She looked at the tapestry, still lying on the table where he’d left it. The cold, commanding face stared back at her—a male of power and authority, everything Tarek claimed he wasn’t anymore.
But that male was still in there. She’d felt him in the kiss, in the barely leashed hunger, the desperate restraint, and the way his whole body had trembled with the effort of holding himself back.
He wasn’t afraid of hurting her. He was afraid of wanting her too much.
She touched her swollen lips and smiled.
I’m not afraid, she thought. And I’m not giving up.
The night air beyond the den was cold and dark, but somewhere out there, Tarek was fighting his own demons.
She would wait. And when he came back, she would be ready.