Rainey shook her head. “Forget I asked,” she said. Her hands were at his waist, and she slipped them beneath his shirt and met his taut, warm skin, ready to pick up where they’d leftoff.
“Oh, no,” Jacques said, reaching down and grabbing both of her wrists before hauling her arms up near her head. His stern expression told Rainey she’d struck a nerve. “I won’t be able to forget aboutit.”
Rainey shut her eyes at her own stupidity.“Pleaseforget about it. It’s been a long time since I didthis.”
Silence.
And then his whisper tickled her nose. “Open youreyes.”
She openedone.
Jacques’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly, but he did a good job of keeping it in check. “Didwhat?”
Rainey rolled the one open eye and made a futile attempt to turn up her hands in frustration. “This.Anything.”
She watched him inhale slowly, and a shade of concern crossed his eyes. He lowered his mouth and gently plied a kiss to hers. “The night we first went out for dinner, you told me it’d been two years since you were last kissed…” He stopped, and Rainey could see his hesitation. “That long…? Orlonger?”
Rainey bit both her lips, regretting she’d said anything. Her heart, that most uncooperative of organs, started a chaoticthrumming.
“Longer than two years,” he concluded aloud, but his expression never changed. He didn’t look surprised or horrified, just concerned and irrepressibly intent on keeping his gaze to hers. “Threeyears?”
Rainey’s eyes stung. She swallowed hard. This was not the seduction she’d planned, but she would not allow tears to intrude into this space. But to be sure they didn’t, she shook her head instead ofspeaking.
“Four?”
She shook her headagain.
“Five?” His voice was barely a whisper. It was his gentleness that made her able to look at him, and in his eyes, she was surprised to see pain where she’d expected pity. She understood then that he felt painforher.
“Six,” she found herself saying. “Not since high school. Not since theaccident.”
His frown shifted and resettled on his brow. “I don’t understand.What—”
“I was dating someone at the time,” she explained, not wanting to make him grasp at straws. “After the accident, I couldn’t leave the house. Not for anything… At first, Chase was patient, supportive, butthen…”
“Then what?” An edge sharpened hisvoice.
Rainey gave him a wistful smile. “Chase was a good guy,” she said, hoping to reassure him. “He didn’t want to hurt me, but he also didn’t know how to help me. I never blamed him for breaking itoff.”
Jacques’s brow rose in an ominous arch. “He leftyou?”
“We were seventeen.” She spoke evenly, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t grateful for his sweet and protective display. “What else could he havedone?”
His answer was immediate. “Come to see you every day. Helped you take it step by step. If you didn’t want to leave the house, he could have started by taking you out onto the porch,” Jacques imagined, troubleshooting as he went. “And then he could have taken you down the street. Then around the block. Until you were ready formore.”
She could only smile at him, at the indignation in is expression. If he hadn’t had her hands pinned to the bed, she would have reached forhim.
“That’s what I would have done,” heinsisted.
Rainey believed him. If she would have been Jacques’s high school sweetheart when she’d lost John Lee, he probably would have done exactly that. Given what he’d done for her so far, it was hard to imagine anything less. But that still didn’t mean she deservedit.
“But why?” She needed the answer. Moving forward now seemed impossible withoutit.
His brow arched, and his lopsided grin made her grateful she was already flat on her back. “I think youknow.”
Rainey shook her head. “Idon’t.”
“Yeah, you do. You just need to give yourself permission to say it. So, go ahead,” Jacques said. “I’mwaiting.”
