CHAPTER 82
A Hand at Her Back
They talked first because talking had become the bridge Daniel trusted most. Elise told Marcus what the previous night had done to her, carefully at first, then with more honesty as Daniel's hand remained around hers.
She did not make it sound simple. She did not make it sound like fantasy had erased him.
She said that being seen by another man had frightened her because she had wanted to be seen, and that wanting had made her turn toward Daniel, not away.
Daniel listened until his chest hurt.
Marcus did not interrupt. His attention had the strange steadiness of his touch, even when he did not move at all. He watched Elise the way he had watched the empty ballroom, not greedily, but completely.
'And you?' Marcus asked Daniel at last.
Daniel almost laughed. 'I am apparently a man who can spend forty minutes discussing a shoulder before anyone touches one.'
Elise smiled, and some of the fear left her face.
Marcus's mouth softened in a restrained curve. 'That may be wise.'
'It doesn't feel wise,' Daniel said. 'It feels like standing at the edge of a pool arguing about the temperature while already knowing I am going in.'
'Do you want to go in?'
The question was direct enough to make Daniel's stomach drop. He looked at Elise. Her hand tightened around his, not pleading, not pushing. Present.
'Yes,' Daniel said. 'But slowly.'
Marcus nodded. 'Then slowly.'
The word seemed to rearrange the room.
Elise turned slightly in her chair so her back was no longer pressed to the leather. Daniel saw the small movement and understood what she was offering before she said anything. Her shoulder. Her upper back. The next named threshold.
'I would like him to touch my shoulder,' she said, and the tremor in her voice made the sentence more powerful, not less.
Daniel's throat went tight. The first impulse was to say no. The second was to say yes too quickly, before fear could catch him. He chose the third, the one they had earned.
'Report,' he said.
Elise turned to him fully. 'I am nervous. I want it. I want you beside me. I do not want to move away from you.'
Daniel nodded. 'Then I stay beside you.'
Marcus stood only after Daniel gave the smallest nod. He moved around the table with such measured control that Daniel felt every footstep. He stopped at Elise's other side, leaving Daniel's side open, making no triangle that excluded him.
'May I place my hand on your shoulder?' Marcus asked.
Elise looked at Daniel.
Daniel could barely breathe. He gave another nod.
'Yes,' she whispered.
Marcus's hand settled on her shoulder.
Nothing dramatic happened. No one crossed a room. No one broke a vow. A man's hand rested over dark fabric and warm skin beneath it, broad and still, his thumb carefully unmoving. Yet Daniel felt the contact as if it had been placed on the inside of his ribs.
Elise closed her eyes.
Daniel watched her face, terrified of being replaced by the expression he found there. But what he saw was not departure. It was revelation. Elise experiencing the touch, then immediately turning toward him with it in her eyes.
'Report,' Daniel said again, because he needed words to keep from drowning.
Her eyes opened. 'It feels safe. It feels dangerous. It feels like you are letting me be honest.'
The answer nearly undid him.
Marcus did not move. 'Daniel?'
The fact that he asked mattered more than Daniel wanted it to.
'I hate how much I want to keep looking,' Daniel said.
Elise's lips parted. Marcus remained perfectly still.
Daniel forced himself to continue. 'And I love that she looked at me after.'
Marcus lifted his hand at once, not because he had been told to stop, but because the first touch had reached its end.
Elise reached for Daniel with both hands, and he took them. She did not thank Marcus first. She came back to her husband first.
Daniel held onto that like a vow.