“That I’d sleep with whatever guy would sign on the dotted line?” she muttered, closing her eyes. “I don’t blame you if you did think that. After all, I’ve basically been begging you all week.”
“No, stop,” he said, pulling her back against him then turning her softly in his arms. “I am angry at him because—yes. I was jealous. That doesn’t even begin to describe what it felt to see you talking to him.”
She closed her eyes. “We were just talking. I was trying to help.”
“I was on the phone, and happened to look out the window. I saw the way he was looking at you.”
“He was trying to warn me off this,” she said, then wondered if she should have sugar coated that. “You.”
“He looked at you like I do.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“You don’t see it because you’re not experienced.”
She flinched.
“And you sell yourself short.”
“I might not have slept with a guy before but I do know when I’m being hit on. That’s not what it was.”
“And then I came down there, and he was manhandling you, and all I could think…all I could think…”
“What? What did you think?”
He cursed under his breath. “You are mine, Allegra. Completely mine. For as long as we are doing this, I cannot—will not—share you. I want you with a passion that is terrifying to me, a need that threatens to rip me apart, and yet I cannot deny myself any longer. I have to have you. I have to do this.”
She stared up at him, completely incapable of speech. She wanted him, and he knew that. And yet, the fear in his voice, the way he sounded as though he’d finally accepted a fate he’d been fighting, stirred everything up inside of her. She was Boudica, going to war, all courage and determination. “Then have me,” she demanded. “All of me, right now. The only reason we haven’t done this is because of you.”
He groaned, dropping his head, pressing it to hers. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Stop doing that. I’m not an idiot.”
“I didn’t say you were.” He brushed his cheek to hers. “But you don’t know what you’re asking of me.”
“I’m asking you to make love to me.”
“I don’t do that.”
“You don’t?”
“Making love sounds so gentle. That’s not who I am.”
“I’m not asking you to treat me with kid gloves.”
“With any other woman…it’s sex. But God, Allegra, there is something about you. Something that scares me to death. How much I want you—need you—it is all consuming. I have never known this feeling. I know I will conquer it, and I know I will let you go, but I feel like…if I let this happen, if I let you in, I will lose a part of myself to you.”
“Is that so bad?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t be what you need. What you deserve.”
“Isn’t that my choice to make?”
He gripped her face, holding her, staring into her eyes. “You promised me you understood. The limitations…what I can offer.”
