"I--I just thought you should know. But I have to go now." I turn to leave before I can change my mind. I don't make it. He takes my arm and tugs me back, so that I am right there in front of him and he is holding tight to me, his eyes filled with a wild desire, and so help me I just want to fall into him.
Want to, but can't.
"Jane."
I've always thought that my name was as boring as they come, but on Dallas's lips it's a sensual feast. A caress that slides over me, firing my senses and making my skin tingle.
He leans toward me, and for a moment I am lost, floating free on desire and possibility and the fantasy that this could be real and right. But it can't--I know it can't--and I lurch back, then try to pull my arm free, though he holds me in place. I let out a little gasp as he takes my other arm and yanks me even closer, so that there are only inches between us. So that I can feel his heat. So that I can imagine his touch.
And then, so help me, it's there. He still clutches one arm, but with his other hand, he reaches out and brushes my lower lip. I whimper, wanting this. Hating this.
He slides his fingers down, lightly stroking my neck and making me tremble. My breasts are heavy, my nipples tight, and right then all I want is for him to slide his hands lower and lower until he strokes between my legs and relieves the pressure that is building and building, and will undoubtedly make me explode.
This is what I've longed for. What I've dreamed of. Fantasized about. Fought against.
And I'm tired of fighting. I'm so damned tired. I want to surrender. I want to give in completely.
But I can't. I won't. So long as Dallas is pushing, I have to push back. Because giving in would be a mistake. And there are some mistakes that you can't ever come back from.
I jerk my arm, but he holds fast. "Let me go." I'm desperate now, certain that if I don't get free soon, I'll lose my resolve.
"Why?" he demands. "Because it's wrong? Because you can't stand to be near me after what happened between us? Because it's dangerous?"
"Danger? I welcome danger." I meet his eyes and call on all my strength to rip my arm free. I have to run. I have to go. "I just don't want you."
It's a brutal lie, and I hate myself for telling it.
But I hate even more the fact that I have to. Because it has to be true. I can't want this man. Forget reality. Forget desire.
Forget the fact that I still dream of him after so much time. That I still remember the way his beard stubble scratched the soft skin of my inner thighs. That I wake up imagining him inside me, his face soft with love and wonder.
Forget that he has never failed to make me laugh. Never failed to understand me.
But we're star-crossed, he and I. Like a living, breathing Shakespeare play. And what I want, I can't have.
But I don't seem to have it in me to truly want anything else.
I'm broken, and I have been for years. It's my reality now, and I'm learning to live with it. To turn the angst and the loss around and make it work for me.
It's not easy, though, and it's worse when we're together, which is why we're together so rarely. Which is why I shouldn't have come.
I sigh, already dreading my great-grandfather's upcoming hundredth birthday celebration--a party for which my mother is going all out since this may well be Poppy's last.
We're having it on Barclay Isle, a private island in the Outer Banks that has been in the Syke
s family for generations. It's a big island, but Dallas is coming as well, which means even if it were the size of Greenland, it wouldn't be big enough.
Family gatherings are the worst for me. Seeing him. Feeling the tingle in the air from nothing more than his proximity. I attend, of course. Our family isn't that big, and I would be missed. But I go with an escape plan and I stay only as long as I can endure the tension and fight my building need.
One time our fingers brushed at the dinner table from nothing more erotic than the passing of a bread basket, and I'd been rocked by an unexpected frisson of sensual awareness so powerful I actually gasped.
Fortunately, I also knocked over my wine, which not only camouflaged my reaction but allowed me to escape to the restroom, ostensibly to wash out the stain on my dress. But I hadn't cared a whit about my outfit. All I'd wanted was privacy so that I could stroke myself and relieve the hot, thrumming pressure that was pounding between my legs.
Even now, the memory is wild and vibrant, and I feel that growing, needful ache. Don't go there, I think. Just do not go there.
Easier said than done, but I focus on blocking the past and simply getting the hell out of the house.
I've descended the wide wooden steps to the first floor, and I pause to look back over my shoulder to see if Dallas is following me. But the door to the private hallway is still shut, and there's no sign of the man on the landing.