Page 37 of The Wolf and the Wildflower
“Willing to what?” she asked, centering herself against the unfamiliar sensations washing over her senses, hoping for time to collect her wits and think.
“Touch me.”
Against her better judgment, she shifted even closer to him, seeking something she did not fully understand.
“Are you afraid?”
“No.”
“Liar,” he said tenderly, the dark blue of his eyes firing with amusement. “You sounded like a little rat just now.”
“It was more like a frog,” she whispered shakily.
The duke smiled, the slow curve of his mouth languid and sensual. “You are a rather interesting character.”
Jules knew she should step back and create a proper, respectful distance between them. She should not touch the duke in any regard, for surely that would irrevocably cross the boundaries of professionalism. Perhaps for now she only stood on the precipice and there was time to retreat.
No other sense comforted, assured, aroused the senses than touch conveyed, and he had not permitted touch or given one in decade. Jules wanted to gift him this…yet she was terrified to allow his exploration.
Why must this be so complicated?she cried silently.
Jules felt caught in a vortex of complex sensations she had no hope of ever controlling. The scientist inside Jules viscerally rejected the idea. Yet she was positively transfixed by the smallest of touch against her cheek. It was with a sense of shock she realized she had denied herself the familiarity of touch with those she called friends. It had been imperative that no one was allowed too close or else her lifetime’s disguise might be discovered, and the consequences could not be imagined—the scandal for her entire family, losing the treasured freedom to live her life unfettered, losing her dreams of being a noted mind doctor, and then suffering the fracture of her family. To protect her secret and all she stood to lose, Jules did not know the hug of her father, a friend’s arm tossed over her shoulder, or afauxlover’s initial seduction.
Her mouth dried because with James, she felt a sense of belonging that was a dangerous delusion. He was a duke and a patient of her father. There was nothing about her that could ever belong in his world and life, not even as a friend.
Still, without removing her regard from his, she reached for him. A fine tension had wound itself through the duke’s body, and his eyes were too intent as he watched her. That unsettling sensation, swirling and deep, landed once more inside Jules.
There was something about His Grace and her reaction to him that frightened Jules’s heart, even while his mesmeric personality tugged her dangerously closer. Though her fingers reached out to him, he leaned away, the move instinctive and cautious, like a wounded animal uncertain of the toucher’s intent.
He would have endured touch starvation, and he would have acutely wished for the touch of others only to be denied. What did he feel now that her fingers were scant inches from his mouth? “Are you afraid, James?”
“I fear nothing.”
The words were like a feral hiss, the coldness leaping into his eyes raking against her skin and stuttering her heartbeat. Jules sensed then there had been a time when the duke had been so afraid, it had stripped him of everything he thought he knew about himself. Yet somehow, he had reforged himself by conquering the idea of fear.
A stunning recognition flowed through her.He had buried that fear in the stillness…and perhaps all emotions.
Jules took a quick breath, lifted her hand to his face, and lightly touched his chin. He reared his head away as if she had planted him a facer. Cheeks burning, she started to lower her hand, only for him to catch it, holding that single digit in a too tight clasp. His chest lifted on a harsh breath, then a slow, controlled one. A tremor went through the hand that held her finger before he released her.
Jules stood there, her hand suspended in midair, as wings of indecision took flight in her belly. She wanted to tell him that everything he felt was normal. She wanted to inform him of all the psychological theories she had learned about sensory deprivation and the true power of touch to human beings. It was one of the first senses humans developed, and it would have been one of the most painful to lose. An awful ache crowded her throat, and Jules held his eyes as she lifted her finger once again and lightly touched his cheek.
His skin…it was cold yet hot. Silky yet hard and unyielding to the soft pressure of her finger. Those long, inky lashes lowered, and his eyes closed. He turned his face ever so slightly, brushing his nose against her finger.
“Not enough,” he said gruffly, a flush of color staining the savage elegance of his jawline. “More.”
The command burned through her, and those terrible sensations of fright and thrill clutched at her chest. That element of fear gave birth to a deeper sense of curiosity and hunger to understand this man before her, and with a small murmur, she leaned closer and explored.
…
The brush of Jules Southby’s fingers was delicate, searching…shaking as they swept up James’s shoulders and traced a path to his throat. Ah…what was this feeling wending through his chest? It was unfamiliar and…puzzling. This person—thiswoman, he was damn sure of it—was a mere speck in his life and would soon flit from it.Unimportant. A simple touch from this creature should not be so interesting. Her fingers caressed the hollow of his neck, and James saw the instant she felt the shakiness of his pulse. Those slender fingers tensed, pressed a little deeper into his skin, absorbing the erratic nature of his heartbeat.
Her gaze widened and those green eyes burned a little bit brighter. She held his regard as her finger stroked up his throat to his chin, an infinitesimal movement that echoed unendingly inside his body. This was the intimate gesture of a person struggling for a connection, and something inside of James reached for it…reached forher.
That cold place inside him yielded by the smallest increment and he leaned into her caresses, breathing deep of that scent that was wholly Jules Southby’s, enjoying the feeling of being anchored to something this soft and precious. He almost laughed at his absurd thought. There was nothing precious about a single touch. Yet he felt starved for it, hungrier than those times when he had not eaten or drank water for days.
Brutally honed instincts which had kept him alive for a decade said he should not conquer this hunger but allow it to be a part of his life. This feeling she roused inside him should not be pushed aside as a speck. James wanted meticulously to explore it—to break it apart so it could be understood, then he would absorb it and let it fill him until he was satiated.
Nothing less would do.
