Message received. This crush isn’t mutual.
Padded and dressed, I exit the tent, finding Jack leaning against a nearby tree.
The agitation I heard in his voice wears heavily on his face. His lips are twisted into a harsh scowl, and his eyes, hidden by furrowed brows, narrow in anger.
“I’m sorry. Can you zip me up?” I sigh, turning around and exposing my back to him.
Jack’s fingers brusquely fall on my lower back, and the zipper meets the top of my shoulder blades in a flash. I’m lucky he didn’t catch my skin or my hair in his haste.
“Consider it noted I should make Blake wait and be late next time something like this happens.” I ruefully smile at him. “Sorry. That seemed like that was torture for you. I know you’re used to seeing—uhm—more attractive women in their underwear than me.”
Jack’s expression softens a fraction. His hand reaches out and cups my face. “Dessy, if you think that was the fucking problem, then we need to talk later,” he says, his eyes moving over my shoulder. “But right now, the search party is way too close to finding us, and Lucas said there was a reporter from theChawton Falls Chroniclelooking forward to this game, so we need to run and hide.”
“Diana is here?” I ask, snapping my attention to the hill where Lucas-as-Mr. Darcy is leading a group of people. A mop of red hair sparkles in the sun piled high on the woman’s head. Diana is one of those people you can pick out of a crowd miles away, and today is no different. I’ve also been trying to get her to do an article about the fair for years, and she’s never actually come. “I wonder why she’s come this year—” I turn my attention to Jack. Oh. Right. Mr. Big-League Hockey Player was probably the draw. “This is a wicked big deal! Her event articles gather so much traffic, and maybe if she enjoys herself, it’ll help keep attendance up the next few weeks.”
My hands quake with excitement, and Jack reaches out to grab one, tugging me out of view. “Then we should probably get a move on, Lydia. I can’t ruin you behind the crew tent.”
“You could really…” I say as I let him pull me along at a hurried pace. We bob and weave through vendor carts. Fried everything fills the air and makes my mouth water. Oh, a fried Oreo sounds oddly enticing.
“Do you think we could put on a good show for her? Are you feeling up to it?” I ask as he continues dragging me past the food booths. “Your apple crisp smells heavenly this year, Mrs. King,” I holler.
Jack swings me around, and my back hits the stone wall of the old ruins on the property. His hands fall next to my head, and he cages me with his body. “How good of a show are you talking because I saw children in that group.”
I gulp.
“I don’t know. I don’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. After I scarred you in the tent, I think it’s safe to say I shouldn’t be the one taking charge here.”
“So you want me to take charge?” he asks a decided gleam that looks dangerously closer to desire than disgust passes through his sapphire gaze.
No, they’re not sapphire. They’re navy. When have they ever appeared this intense? This foreboding?
“That might be best. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put you in that position back there. I’m just used to—”
“Shh. You didn’t scar me, Aulie. I’m fine. Okay? Now take a second because I hear voices coming, and I’m going to get back into character.”
“Right. Character. Back into character.” I shake my hands at my side, trying to let my embarrassment slip away. “Okay, we’re good. Go.”
Suddenly, Jack grips my neck, raising my chin so my eyes connect with his. With one look, he incinerates every nerve ending in my body, and I feel more likely to collapse than the structure behind me.
“Hello, pet,” he says, running the pad of his thumb over the lower part of my cheek. Slowly, his grip softens, and he trails a finger over the bare skin of my neck and traces the hollow space north of my collarbone. “Hell, you are beautiful, you know that?” He plays with the edge of my sleeve.
Want pools in between my thighs. His left leg falls just so, placing pressure there as if he senses it. He lowers his mouth to my ear. “Beautiful andmine.”His teeth find my earlobe. My breath hitches, and he smirks. “Are you regretting leaving a scoundrel like me in charge?” He meets my eyes again, that dangerous gleam growing more potent in his gaze.
The practical side of me that’s grown smaller by the day knows I shouldn’t be pleased with this situation. I’m nobody’s plaything, and Jack isn’t serious. He’s playing his part—remarkably well.
But after five years of feeling nothing but pain and misery, left for dead with the rest of my family—the fire currently licking me back alive is too good, too addicting to let go of. Maybe what I said to Sabrina earlier holds some truth. Maybe it’s time to say to the hell with my good sense and chase some joy for once.
And for Peter Noone’s sake, when a wildly attractive hockey player puts on a regency costume that hugs him in all the right places slams me up a dilapidated castle, maybe I’d be a foolnotto take advantage of the situation.
“You’re going to have to do far more than that to shock me, Mr. Wickham.”
“What would it take, pet? I owe you after the tent.” His nose brushes against my cheek.
“I don’t think that reaction is what we’re going for.”
His lips curve into a dangerous, playful smirk. “I’d argue you misjudged my reaction.”
“You were frustrated.”
