AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Stop looking at me like that,” he growls.
“What do you mean?” I ask, my question coming out in a breathy whisper that blare my feelings loud and clear.
“Like you want to eat me,” he says. “Get over here.”
He grabs one of his silk shirts from a dresser on the far wall. “You can wear this, and we’ll find you proper clothes in the morning.”
He was bossier than I remembered. It reminded me of Landon and a little pang went through me.
“What did you think about just then?” he asks, watching me closely.
“Just an old memory,” I say, smiling sadly. I walk towards the bed and take the shirt.
I turn away from him. Peeking over my shoulder I see that he is steadfastly watching, obviously with no intentions to look away and give me privacy. His eyes dare me to keep going.
Amazing even myself, I let my ripped shirt and bra slide off my arms, baring my naked back to him. I can hear his breath quicken behind me. I slide off my jeans next until I’m standing completely bare except for the tiny lace pink thong I had been wearing that morning. I hear him give a soft moan behind me. Thinking that I had tortured us both enough, I slide on the shirt, admiring its fine craftsmanship and the delicious way it feels on my skin.
Turning around, I have to stifle a gasp as I see how flushed and out of breath James appears, a large bulge pushing against his pants. Averting my eyes, I slide into the bed. It feels like heaven against my aching body. Evidently it was good to be King.
Sliding across the bed so James can get in behind me, I feel a little like a bride on her wedding night than someone who gave up her virginity centuries ago.
I’m nervous, and James looks nervous as well. When I lay down, he tentatively slips an arm around me, pulling my body close to him.
We fit perfectly. Like two parts of a whole. Just like I always thought we would.
He buries his face in my hair, a lazy sound of contentment coming from him that helps ease my troubled mind.
Here at least tonight we could forget about all the questions and the trouble and everything else that would face us when the bright light of morning came.
Tonight, it was just us, just as we always were.
"I missed you,” he murmurs against my hair. A sob gets caught in my throat.
"Me too."
It seems too simple of a response for how I really felt. If only he could see into my heart, see all the pain and agony I had felt those first years after I had left England, after I left him. Then there would never be a doubt in his mind that I had loved him, that I still loved him. That I have loved him more than anyone else has ever loved a man. He had been my whole life. We had been on the cusp of starting an amazing adventure together. And then it all disappeared.
I’m surprised when I hear his breathing steady, signaling that he had fallen asleep. His head is nestled into my neck, his arm grips my body tightly. I wanted to stay up as long as possible just so I could memorize this...how it felt.
I knew what would happen in the morning, all of James’ walls would be back up. All the questions would be asked, and I would have to come up with an answer. My mind races as I think about trying to tell him about my past.
In retrospect I shouldn't have been so angry with Liam that he didn’t believe me. It was an incredible story. The idea that someone was involuntarily thrown across time; it just sounded too crazy to be true. And here in the 1400s, it seemed even less likely that someone would believe something like that. I mean I'm pretty sure that people in this age still believe that the earth is flat. To get people that still believe that to believe in the impossible idea of time travel...it didn’t even seem possible.
I sigh.
James was never going to forgive me when he heard my story. He would probably commit me in fact.
His arms tighten around me and I snuggle in deeper behind him.
I listen to the sound of his breathing. I memorize how it feels to be in his arms so that when the inevitable comes, either that he doesn’t believe my story and I lost him for good, or I disappear again, I would have this memory. I would have this night.
Home. That’s what he felt like to me.
I breathe him in—deep, healing breaths.
I feel myself slide into sleep with each long inhale and the soothing monologue of his breath that almost sounds like a whisper in my ear. Surrounded by him, I welcome the surrender into oblivion where Juliet Caris wasn’t broken, and James Kensington is my lover. Exhaustion takes over then.
I eventually fall into a restless sleep, images of my past creeping in like monsters in the night as usual.
