His other hand came to her jaw and he turned her to face him.
When her eyes met his, he looked a mixture of concerned and irritated and asked in a curt voice, “What’s in that head of yours, poppet?”
She studied at him for a moment then two, all she could think was that he was criminally handsome even looking concerned and irritated.
Then she burst into tears.
She covered her face with her hands and tried to roll in the opposite direction but he caught her and pulled her to him, positioning them both on their sides, his legs still tangled heavily with hers, his arms tight around her.
“Jesus, Belle, what is it?”
She shook her head and his fingers wrapped around her wrist and pulled one of her hands from her face.
“Belle, talk to me,” he demanded.
She moved her other hand and looked at him, tears still streaming from her eyes.
“That morning after I met you, I walked down the hall to my room thanking my lucky stars that I met you,” she announced, her voice quiet and trembling and she felt his body go still but she ignored it. “Then I… then things…” she hesitated, “then everything happened. And I said the most awful things to you.” A sob surged up and tore free and she shoved her face in his chest. “And I just realised I was wrong. I was wrong!” she cried and then pressed her hand into his chest, not to get away but to let go some of the feeling she felt.
She tilted her head back and shouted, “I spit on my stars!”
Then she burst into another wave of tears and shoved her face in his chest again, the sobs rocking her body.
Jack let her cry, stroking her back with one hand, the other one gliding through her hair then up, his fingers sifting in only to glide back through.
She got control of her tears (not much, but some) and tilted her head back again. “I’m not crazy and this isn’t hormones,” she declared hotly.
“All right, love,” he replied in a gentle voice.
“I’m just not good at being rude,” she explained. “Rude is the worst. And what I did was beyond rude. It was unforgiveable!” she ended on a near shout.
Jack stopped stroking her back and hair and leaned into her so she was on her back again and he was looming over her, legs still tangled with hers.
“I think that’s for me to decide, don’t you?” he asked and her body jerked.
She stopped crying and stammered, “Wh… what?”
“It’s for me to decide if what you did was unforgiveable,” he repeated, his hand coming to her face and gently wiping away her tears.
He was right.
“You’re right,” she whispered and held her breath.
He must have noticed it because his eyes dropped to her mouth and they were smiling. “Poppet, I forgave you a long time ago. Around the time I saw you resting your forehead against a toilet seat, talking to our child.”
“That’s not very romantic,” she blurted then her eyes grew wide at yet another display of her rampant rudeness and he burst out laughing.
He shoved his face in her neck and his arms went around her before he rolled them to their sides again and looked at her.
“Okay, how about when I caught you pushing Baron out of your room one of the first nights after you moved into The Point?” he suggested then went on. “Or when I saw you sleeping in the hayloft. Or when I kissed you later. Or when you tried to stop me from fighting Miles. Or when you kissed me in bed the next morning. Or, just after, when you got out of bed and tried to make rules. Do you want me to go on?” he asked.
Belle shook her head, though she kind of did but her heart had stopped beating on his first suggestion and she was having severe difficulty breathing. If he went on she might accidentally suffocate herself and then where would they be?
His face got closer. “Even if I hadn’t forgiven you, time and again, I would have done it when you told me you thanked your lucky stars when you met me.”
“Jack –” she began but her cut her off and he was using his low and rumbly voice when he did it.
“We’re not speaking of this again. It happened. It’s over. This is us moving on.”
That was nice, really nice, but Belle felt the need to apologise.
So she said again, “Jack –”
He interrupted again, “Am I understood?”
“Jack –” she tried again.
His face got even closer. “Belle, tell me I’m understood.”
“You’re understood,” she whispered and then stubbornly she went on. “But I want to say I’m sorry.”
She caught his smile right before his hand cupped the back of her head and pressed her face to his throat, his other arm holding her tight.
“My love, you already said it when you guided me into this room,” he told the top of her head and then he kissed her there.
Finally her body relaxed into his and she wrapped her arms around him.
“I need to tell you something else,” she said to his throat and she felt Jack’s large frame get tight.
“Belle, I’m feeling pretty f**king good right now, don’t piss me off.”
She thought about his warning then took another risk.
“It’s just that, I think you should know… I feel safe with you.”
His tight frame grew statue-still.
Then it relaxed.
Then he murmured, nearly inaudibly, “It’s the gift that keeps giving.”
She thought she heard what he said but to be certain, she tilted her head back to look at him and asked, “What?”
He looked down at her. “Nothing, poppet.”
She decided to let it go, got up on an elbow and looked down at him. Then she tilted her head in enquiry and watched his face grow soft when she did it.
“Do you want dinner?” she queried.
“Not right now,” he replied, rolling to his back and taking her with him, his hands going into the hair on either side of her head and holding it back. “Right now,” he started, bringing her face closer and when her lips were against his, he went on, “we’re going to work up an appetite.”
And they did.
By the time they ate, they were ravenous.
And it was safe to say even well before he ate the delicious steak Belle cooked for him, Jack Bennett didn’t know what hit him.
But he liked it.
Chapter Fourteen
Breakfast at the Cottage
Calvin
Calvin Cole looked at the picture of his ex-wife and James Bennett in the paper and not for the first time in the past week he clenched his teeth.