Lucky Stars (Ghosts and Reincarnation #5)(18)

“Like what?”

She replied in a barely there voice. “What we did tonight. I don’t do things like that. I know you want me to think it’s all right but what we did was wrong.”

Her long hair was spread across his forearms and he gathered it in a hand to twist it softly in his fist before he replied, “There was nothing wrong about what we did.”

He felt her shake her head against his chest but even as she disagreed with him, her arms grew tighter.

“Jack –” she started to protest.

“Belle,” he cut her off. “What I saw of you tonight with Miles was wrong. Very wrong. What we have is not.”

“Jack –” she began again but he gave her hair a gentle tug, she stopped speaking and tilted her head back to look at him as he dipped his chin down.

When he caught her eyes, he spoke. “If you let me in, poppet, even a little bit, I’ll prove it to you. I promise you, I’ll make you understand. This, whatever it is, and we both feel it, is right.”

He felt her grow still and watched her tongue wet her lips before she said words in an awful voice that left no doubt how much it cost her to say them or, indeed, the terrible feeling behind them. “I’ve done that before, with a man, let him in. It wasn’t smart.”

It was Jack’s turn to grow still.

He wanted to know what she meant but understood intuitively that conversation was also not for the moonlight but for the daylight when she was eating breakfast in his bed after he’d made her come and after she’d done the same to him.

“I’m not that man,” Jack returned firmly.

She started to pull away but his arm around her grew tight and she stopped.

“Jack, you have to listen to me,” she demanded, a hint of desperation in her voice.

“No.” He slid her back up his chest so they were face-to-face and went on, his voice turning fierce. “Tonight is ours. Tomorrow morning, I’ll explain how it is and, if you’ll share it with me, you’ll explain. Then I’ll take care of everything.” She shook her head and his fingers holding her hair wrapped around the back of her head to stop her movement. “Belle, you can trust me.” He dropped his forehead to hers and repeated his oath in a forceful murmur. “I promise you, you can trust me.”

He watched close up as her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Then they opened and focussed on him.

Then she whispered in an aching voice that registered painfully somewhere deep in his gut, “You promise?”

That was when he thought her part of the conversation might not be best left until the morning.

“Belle, perhaps you should tell me –”

It was Belle’s turn to interrupt Jack.

“You have to promise,” she demanded.

Jack’s hand left her hair and both his arms wrapped around her.

“I promise,” he muttered and started to ask. “Now –”

But she shook her head. “In the morning.”

“Belle –” Jack began but she cut him off.

“In the morning.” she repeated.

Jack’s voice dipped lower in warning. “Belle –”

She completely ignored his warning.

Before he could say more, she pulled slightly away and said, “Let’s go to bed.”

Jack didn’t move.

Belle put her hands to his chest, pushed up, broke through his arms and scooted from between his legs. She came to her feet beside him next to Baron and, one hand scratching behind Baron’s ears, she bent and grabbed Jack’s hand with the other.

“Come to bed,” she whispered.

For a brief moment, Jack Bennett sat in the window of his room looking at his woman in his shirt standing next to his dog.

After that moment was over, he didn’t need to be asked a third time to go to bed.

Chapter Four

Sibling Rivalry

Belle

Belle woke tucked in the curve of Jack’s warm, hard body, his heavy arm resting on her waist.

The sunlight was shining in her face.

The events of the night before hit her in a happy rush. Thinking about them, she snuggled into Jack and felt his arm tighten in his sleep.

This made her smile.

She shouldn’t be smiling. She should be embarrassed at how she’d behaved, what she’d done.

Belle “Meek and Mild” Abbot would be embarrassed.

No, Belle “Meek and Mild” Abbot wouldn’t be embarrassed, she’d be mortified.

But this Belle, whoever she was, wasn’t.

She wasn’t because Jack Bennett didn’t take her back to the party.

In the dark, in his study, he saw her pet his dog and look out his window.

Then he spent the next hour showing her things she’d want to see not things he wanted her to see.

And he knew straight away she wasn’t a people person and didn’t judge her. Nor did he force her to stand at his side while he introduced her to person after person necessitating that she make small talk, her most hated thing in the world (outside of the media and their microphones and cameras, she hated them more than small talk, loads more).

Instead, he protected her, took her away from the crush to someplace safe. Someplace she liked to be.

And he asked her questions and listened to her answers like not only was he interested in her responses but as if he cared.