Page 37 of It's You
No!Her mind broke through the haze of white-hot desire she felt for Jack Beauloup.You don’t want this. Not yet. You came here for a reason.
She tore her mouth away from his, trying to catch her breath, swiping the back of her hand across her lips as much to protect herself as to prevent herself from seeking his lips again.
His chest heaved up and down. “Darcy, you’re like…an addiction to me.”
She swallowed, resting her forehead against his. She skimmed her hands down to her hips and removed his fingers from her waist gently, lacing their hands together by their sides. She didn’t know what to say. Her body longed to feel his, flush and naked, beside her. But their intense, explosive chemistry aside, she needed to understand the strange bond that seemed to pull them together.
He leaned back, capturing her eyes with a smile. She was grateful he didn’t look disappointed in her for breaking off their kiss.
“Want me to make a fire?” he asked, glancing toward the fireplace.
“I think we just made one,” she whispered, still feeling limp against him. Something occurred to her. “Didn’t I see smoke as I drove up?”
“I had one in my bedroom before you got here,” he answered, dropping a sweet kiss to her lips before pulling back. “I’m sure I can stoke it back up if you want to?—”
“Oh! Um…”
Yes!screamed her body.Let’s go up to his room and—No! You’re here for answers, insisted her head.
“Darcy?”
She looked up to see Jack’s amused eyes and teasing grin. Her internal battle must have been playing out on her face.
“What?”
“I’m just kidding.”
She exhaled shakily, sitting down on the edge of the couch and watching as he kneeled before the fireplace with his back to her, rolling up newspaper, and laying kindling under larger logs that looked newly chopped.
“Jack.”
“Mmm?”
“I have to understand what’s going on.”
He kept his back to her, reaching for matches on top of the mantle, then squatting down again.
“Ask me anything.”
“How come we can read each other’s minds?”
“We can’t do that. We can only hear each other’s thoughts when we’re looking at each other. It’s called eyespeaking. It has to do with the binding.”
Eyespeaking. Huh. So he did know more about it, as she had suspected. She decided to let it go for now.
“Okay. The binding. Tell me about that.”
He grabbed a poker and moved the logs around to better catch the heat, then replaced it, turning to her. She had never seen him more beautiful than he was tonight, his face watching her, lit by the growing flames of the fire behind him.
He approached her, sitting on the leather trunk in front of her that doubled as a coffee table. His knees touched hers, and he reached out to take one of her hands, stroking her fingers gently as he started speaking again.
“There’s a legend in my family. It says that a man will find his, um…his woman the summer before his eighteenth birthday. If he believes he’s met the one to whom he should be bound, he kisses her, and…well, it says that for them it will feel as though the world disappears and is born again around them.” He looked up from their hands, his voice a whisper. “Ever felt like that, Darcy Turner?”
She nodded. “Once.”
“It was you.”
He said this so tenderly, the timbre of his voice almost made her cry. She squeezed his hand lightly, and he raised her fingers to his lips, bowing his head, resting his lips on the back of her hand.
