There. He said it again. Those three, terrifying words.
She flinched. “Pray do not attempt to charm me. It is futile.”
“Why do you not like to hear it? It is the truth.”
“Jack. Stop.” Her voice was hoarse. Raw with emotion.
At last she used his name. He had not heard it on her lips since he had caught her in his arms the night he had arrived. Hearing it now filled him with a sense of rightness. He bloody well hated the way she insisted upon referring to him as Needham. So stilted, so cold, as if they had never known each other with such vivid intimacy.
“Stop what?” he persisted, knowing he needed to push her. To prod her.
If he had a hope of winning her back, he needed to tear down her walls. Every. Last. Stone.
“You know.” She made the breathy little half sigh she always did whenever she was agitated.
All these little pieces of her he had pushed from his mind. They returned to him now.
“Tell me, Nellie,” he dared. “What has you so flustered? I have not seen you this upset since the day you climbed the apple tree and you had no drawers on.”
Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “You are a cad to remind me of that day.”
“It is a fond memory of mine, along with so many others.” His gaze dipped to the fullness of her pout.
God, he wanted to kiss her again. To feel her lips. To taste her. To make her curl her body against his.
Had she kissed Sidmouth earlier?
He chased the unwanted thought. He had given them little time. Not enough…Hell.It could have been enough. He chased that thought as well.
“You were the reason I had no drawers that day,” she said then, shocking him with her willingness to fall into the memory. “You were also the one who suggested I climb the tree.”
He found himself grinning, reliving that long-ago day, late summer, not long after they had wed. “You boasted of your tree-climbing prowess from your girlhood days as I recall it. I merely challenged you to a demonstration.”
They had been madly in love. Ridiculously happy. Everything had been golden—the sun, her hair, the air warm and thick and redolent with late summer and the scent of the apples ripening on the branches.
“I have not climbed a tree since then.” She smiled back at him, wistfully.
“You have limited yourself to dancing upon tables?” he teased.
“Yes.” Her smile died abruptly. “You are making this far more difficult than it need be.”
“I will not stop fighting for you,” he warned her.
Her frown returned. “You stopped three years ago. As they say, the ship has set sail. Let me go, Jack.”
“Is that what you want?” The question was ripped from him, from deep within, from his heart, from his gut, hissoul. “Is that what you truly believe, that I stopped fighting for you? I left because you asked it of me, Nellie.”
“You left because you betrayed me,” she countered.
He shook his head. “Not the way you think.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, as if grappling for control over her emotions. He well knew the sentiment. “What do you want from me?”
Everything.
Her heart.
Her love.
