Page 63 of The Scholar's Key
“Percy,” he mumbled as he nuzzled her, “Nothing… no one… has ever felt so right before.”
“Will you hold me for a while?” she asked, hating the tremor in her voice, but after what they had just experienced together, she felt a need to be close to him, to know that this had some meaning – for she knew, no matter what happened in her life, she would never forget this.
“Always,” he said, his voice rumbling underneath her ear as she lay her head on his hard chest.
“Do you mean that?” she asked, hating her vulnerability and how much she had come to depend on it.
He stroked a hand over her hair. “Anytime you need anything, Percy, you know that I will be there for you.”
She nodded, knowing the truth in that, even as she wondered in what way he was referring. “Thank you.”
She wasn’t sure how long they lay together, but at some point, she must have dozed off, for the next thing she knew, Noah was gently shaking her shoulder.
“Percy,” he whispered in her ear, “the sun is beginning to rise.”
“What?” She bolted upright and glanced out the window. “Oh, no.”
“We best get you home before anyone is awake to see you.”
“I cannot believe I slept this long.”
But, oh, it had felt so right to be curled up in Noah’s arms. He might not have as broad of shoulders and as wide of thighs as she had imagined her man to have, but he was deceptively attractive and had greater character than any man she had ever met.
Now was the time to tell him how she felt – and see if he returned her affection.
“Noah—”
“Don’t.”
She frowned at him as she stood and began to dress.
“You do not even know what I am going to say.”
“I have an idea,” he said, rising himself and beginning to pull on his clothes with more aggression than she would have thought he had within him. “You feel that, in this moment, we have a closeness, a tenderness, and you were going to say something about your emotion toward me. Am I right?”
“I suppose you are, yes.” She swallowed hard, not liking where this was going.
“It is just the moment, Percy. We shared an intimacy as close as two people can get. You will return home and soon enough you will remember this with fondness and nothing more.”
Percy had to bite her tongue to keep from lashing out. As it was, she didn’t hold back. Who was this man? Where was the gentleman who had made love to her and then held her so tenderly? “How dare you tell me what I feel?”
“Both of us should know the truth,” he said, and she realized then the problem – he was protecting himself.
“Do you think that you do not mean anything to me?”
He didn’t respond as he stepped behind her and began to fasten her dress. She didn’t protest as she had no other way of dressing, but she had been too proud to ask him during an argument.
“I know that I mean something to you,” he said quietly. “But soon enough someone else – someone better – will come along and you will be glad that you have not further attached yourself to me.”
“How can you say that?”
“I know it to be true.”
The expression on his face was one of such conviction that she knew he fully believed in what he was saying.
“Did something like this happen to you before?”
He averted his gaze. “We need to go.”
