Page 16 of It's You
“It’d never happened to me until an hour ago when I looked at you. I don’t have all the answers. I promise.”
She searched his eyes, but couldn’t shake the feeling that he was holding back something significant. She felt like she was looking at the tip of a very large iceberg.
He smiled at her.
“Stop listening!”
His eyes danced merrily. “Are we on theTitanic?”
“Seriously. Quit it.” Then something occurred to her, and she clapped her hands triumphantly. “No! We are not on theTitanic. My turn!”
He stood up. “I think I should quit while I’m behind.”
“One more question. If you answer it, you can touch me.”
He turned and faced her, hands on his hips, eyes narrowed. Because he had just faced the sun or because he was suspicious, she couldn’t tell. He wet his lips with his tongue and nodded curtly.
Darcy stood up before him. He was taller than she was, and she stared straight ahead at his throat for a moment, adjusting to his nearness, almost undone by the warmth of his body on the skin of her cheeks. She waited a moment before looking up at his face, seizing his eyes as mercilessly as he once had hers.
“Why did it take you twenty years to come back?” she breathed.
His eyes burned for her. She could see the copper joined by molten gold, churning and fierce.Darcy, Darcy, Darcy.She heard her name over and over again in his head like a litany. Was he blocking her from hearing his thoughts by repeating her name?
She looked away.
“You don’t have an answer,” she whispered, wincing at the disappointment she heard in her own voice.
“I do.”
She captured his eyes again.
Then why?
He looked down.
“Do you remember what I said? When you told me not to touch you?”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me. That it was a sacred pledge.”
He nodded.
“But I had to learn some things. Before I could come back.”
He hadn’t stepped away from her, and she stepped forward. One step. Close enough to him that the front of her sweater grazed his shirt. She felt her nipples harden into pebbles under her sweater and heard his breathing change, almost imperceptibly, like she shouldn’t have been able to hear it, but she could. It caught for just a second, then picked up cadence again. Faster. Louder.
“What things?” she asked.
“Control.” He growled the word deliberately, his voice thick and low.
Her eyes fluttered closed, listening to the sound of his breathing.In…and out…In…and out.She realized that as she stood before him, her breathing had changed to mirror his, so that every time they took a breath, the tips of her sensitive nipples grazed his chest through taffeta and cotton.In…and out…In…and out.They touched like magnets, and she could feel the force field between them, pulling her toward him with every breath, making it almost impossible to retreat. She felt languorous and dizzy, almost hypnotized, until she thought she might faint.In…and out…In…and out…
“Darcy…” he whispered.
“No!”
Her eyes flew open, and she stepped back from him, taking a deep breath that filled her diaphragm. She held it to break the rhythm between them. She turned her back to him, pressing her palms against her flaming cheeks.
He reached for her. “But you said?—”
