Page 63 of A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

Tentatively, she reached for the top button of his doublet.

Jacks’s eyes flashed open. “What are you doing?”

“Your clothes are wet,” she whispered as she slowly undid the first button with a soft click. It was a small sound, but somehow it filled the room.

Outside, the rain lashed hard against the thin window, shaking the glass, but Evangeline could still hear the sound of every button as she undid one after another.

“This is a very bad idea,” Jacks murmured.

“I would have thought you liked bad ideas.”

“Only when they’re mine.”

He stood very still as her fingers reached for the bottom button and carefully slid it through the hole. For a second, therewas no rain, there was no breathing. There was just the two of them.

Carefully Evangeline parted the fabric of his doublet.

Then she felt Jacks’s hand braceleting her wrist.

“My turn,” he said hoarsely. And she swore she could feel his voice on her skin as he reached for the ties of her cloak.

His bare hands were hot from the gold dust. Evangeline could feel the burning tips of his fingers as he carefully undid the knot at her neck. He barely grazed her skin, but she was suddenly on fire as he pushed the cloak off her shoulders.

She wore a dress underneath, but it could have been nothing for the tortured way he looked at her. She didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to move, for fear that his hands would stop there, that he would leave her in the damp dress, that he wouldn’t reach for the ties at her breasts.

He took a deep, ragged breath and then his hands were on her waist, gently guiding her onto the bed, pressing until she was lying on top of the quilt. She could feel the flower petals clinging to her damp skin as Jacks hovered over her, his knees on either side of her legs.

His eyes lowered.

Her stomach dipped as he reached for the straps of her gown and slowly slid them over her shoulders. She felt even more light-headed as his hand moved to the velvet bodice of her gown. He carefully undid the hidden clasps that held it together, and eased it down over her hips, leaving her in nothingbut a silky chemise. It should have made it easier to breathe, but instead she forgot how.

What was breathing? What were words? The only thing Evangeline knew was Jacks’s hands were on her, hot and curious as they slid up her hips to her waist. She might have sighed when they grazed her breasts. His hands were so hot, she could feel them through her slip. Then she could feel them on her skin as he slid one hand under her chemise and rested it on her heart.

The room spun faster, and this time it had nothing to do with golden dust.

The only magic in the room was that of touch and heartbeats and Jacks. And for a moment it was perfect. He felt like hers and she felt as if she was his.

Evangeline didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to speak for fear of breaking whatever enchantment was on them now. But she also wanted to touch him, she wanted to be closer. If this was all the time she was going to have with him, if in the morning he said goodbye again, she wanted more.

She reached up for his shoulders. “My turn again.”

She pressed her hands against him, guiding him to lie down, to let her be the one to touch him as she started with his doublet, which he still hadn’t taken off.

She slid her hand under the damp fabric, ready to take it off of him. And that’s when she felt it. Her fingers brushed against a slip of paper.

Jacks murmured something that sounded likedon’t.

Or maybe she only heard the word in her head.

His eyes were shut, dusted in a perfect layer of gold. And he was suddenly still, save for the rise and fall of his chest.

He’d finally fallen under the sleeping spell of the gold dust.

Her hand was still inside his doublet touching the edge of the paper. Was this why he’d stopped her before?

She felt a little guilty as she tugged the edge of the page, but not nearly enough to stop her from pulling it out of the doublet. It was miraculously dry, although it looked rather worn, like something he’d folded and unfolded in order to read over and over. And immediately she recognized the faded handwriting.

It was hers.

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