He had no right.
Deliberately, he pulled his hand back from her waist and lifted his head. Her hand slid further away. The air between them cooled immediately.
“We should sleep,” he said, his voice thick, but far more normal than he would have thought possible.
She stepped back at once, nodding tightly. He pretended that he had not glimpsed her stricken look before she turned away. Jacob exhaled slowly, his brows slanting downward.
Bluidy hell.
Wanting her—nearly acting on it—was an indulgence he could not afford. Not with her future bound elsewhere. Not with the image of her father hovering so annoyingly close.
Chapter Nine
Well, that was awful.
Humiliating, as well, but that was almost too small a word for it.
What made it worse was the silence. The long, careful quiet that had settled between them afterward, heavy and so obvious. The place that had been chosen to bed down for the night allowed little space to spare, so that they sat close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed, close enough that she was acutely aware of every shift of his weight, every breath he took. And yet they had not exchanged a single word—as if something so fantastic hadn’t almost happened! As though she had not felt the world tilt.
She hadnotimagined it, that much she knew with absolute certainty. Jacob had leaned toward her, had been about to kiss her. The knowledge sat heavy in her chest, sharp and painful.
But he had stopped.
That—not thealmost, but the restraint—was possibly what bothered her the most. She would have given a limb, her sanity, twenty years off her life, simply to have his kiss. The deliberate choice—the ability!—to pull back when every part of her had felt him moving forward was what crushed her.
Elena sighed, more miserable now that she’d been during her abduction. The world had not changed outwardly. The forest still whispered and creaked around them. The night stillpressed close. Jacob still sat beside her, solid and infuriatingly composed. And yet something fundamental had shifted, though at the moment she was tortured by more questions than answers.
Her thoughts circled, relentless. Had he stopped because he simply did not want to kiss her? The question took root, deep and unpleasant. Or had something else intervened—something practical, unavoidable, heavier than want? Had he thought of her father, of Liam MacTavish and the trust placed in him? Had duty risen up where desire had no right to stand? Had the memory of her betrothal asserted itself, a reminder of promises already made and futures already decided?
She hated that all of those explanations made sense, and hated most of all that she could not tell which one hurt the most.
If he had stopped because honor demanded that he should, that was a wound she could at least understand. Painful, yes—but clean.
But if he had decided that he simply didn’t want her... that was far worse, the ugliness of it, if that be the truth.
Elena stared into the darkness ahead, her hands folded tightly in her lap, aware of the absurdity of her own reaction but unable to quell it. She had been stolen, chased, nearly killed—and yet it was this quiet, unfinished moment that undid her most thoroughly.
She found herself thinking back to something she had wondered only yesterday—whether her long, foolish childhood longing might have turned into something else if she had ever dared to act on it. If, instead of watching him from doorways and courtyards and the edge of the training field, she had once been bold enough to say something, to do something.
She wondered now whether she was bold enough.
And then the doubt crept in, cold and corrosive.
It was too late, too long gone from those early years, and even from his almost kiss. He was probably regretting his fleeting lapse of judgment or control, or whatever that had been.
