Ilove theewith the passion put to use / In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
For some reason, the words of an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem returned to Clay in the aftermath of his wild, foolish, impassioned lovemaking with Ara. He had read the book she had given him all those years ago. Of course he had. Had kept it with him, the last part of Ara he had left. Perhaps the only true part of her she’d had to give.
The book had traveled alongside him through the Continent. It had spent many nights beneath his pillow. The spine had cracked, lines underlined by his pen, corners carefully folded down to mark his favorites. He had railed over some, revisited others. He had run his finger over the careful dedication she had inscribed more times than he cared to admit or count.
To Clay from Your Ara. When you are ready for Volume II, you know where to find it.
But she had never been his, had she? And though he had known where the second volume was, he had never searched for it. Absurd, but he wondered as she rose from his bed now if she still had it tucked away somewhere. If she had ever looked upon her matching volume and thought of him.
If she had ever thought of him at all.
But why the bloody hell should he give a damn either way? Why should it matter? She had betrayed him. Hurt him. Broken him. Had withheld his son from him. He did not owe her a bloody thing. The lust between them had always existed, and it had not changed.
If anything, their circumstances served to heighten the tension disproportionally, and it was surely that which fogged his brain now, which made him remember the sonnets and the poems and the way he and Ara had once been together. They had been a fiction. She had manipulated and used him, betraying his trust and changing him forever in the process.
He had already shown her more kindness and leniency than she deserved.
And yet, the sharp knife of guilt stabbed him in his gut.
Why did he feel like such a cad?
Why did the way she held her shoulders, curled inward as if to protect herself, the sheen he thought he’d seen in her blue-violet eyes before she rolled away from him, the almost violent way she had fled the bed, affect him? Why did he find himself weakening for her, wanting her, needing her the same way he once had when he had been too innocent to know better?
There was something about the sight of her pale back and thin arms and legs, the indentation of her spine, the curtain of her copper curls, the way she scrambled to her nightdress—my God, she was as small as a bird, every bit as dainty—something that hit him simultaneously in the gut and the heart. She seemed so alone. So helpless.
He couldn’t shake the notion he had somehow hurt her with his words. And he hated hurting her. Could not bear the thought. Every instinct in him cried out to protect her. To keep her at his side. In his bed. To hold her to him and never let her go.
He had learned nothing in eight goddamn years.
Still as bloody stupid as ever. But he could not seem to save himself. She would always be his ruin. His temptation. His Achilles heel.
“Ara,” he found himself saying. “Do not go.”
She ignored him, threw her nightrail over her head, stabbing her arms into the sleeves.
“Ara,” he said again, rising from the bed, stalking to her without a stitch.
Wordlessly, she spun on her heel, retreating from him, her small feet softly padding across the carpet, back to her chamber. His legs were longer, his strides easily eating up the advantage she had on him.
But then she stopped suddenly, her back still to him, her entire body going still, her gaze settling upon the battered volume he had placed, unthinkingly, upon a side table. He realized the moment she recognized the book. Shame replaced the myriad other emotions whirling through him.
“That is the book I gave you.” Her statement emerged as half question, as though she could not believe he would have kept the thing all these years.
He did not blame her, for he could scarcely believe it himself. But he had carried the book—Volume One—about with him, unwilling to part from it. It had been a reminder of the man he had once been, the man who had believed in love and second chances and good hearts. The man who had believed in the heart of a slip of a thing, a small flame-haired goddess who had appeared in the forest one day and had made him believe he could be worthy of her love.
Until she had stripped him of his beliefs and his hopes.
Until she had taken his love and crushed it beneath her dainty heel.
“Aye,” he bit out reluctantly.
She spun about, facing him, then averting her gaze when she realized he was indecent and unrepentant, his entire body on wanton display. Her cheeks turned a shade of scarlet to match her hair. “You kept it?”
His cock was beginning to stir, and he could not face her or this dire conversation whilst sporting a prick that was hard enough to hang a bucket of coal from it. “I…found it recently, and I thought perhaps you would like it returned to you. It is yours, after all. The volumes go together.”
Why did he feel as if he was talking about the two of them rather than the bloody poetry volumes? And why had he offered to return the book?Hisbook? He had read it so many times that he could recite any number of the poems verbatim. She had gifted it to him.
“It would seem the years were not kind to this little volume.” She offered him a slight, tentative smile. “Why did you keep it?”
