“Grace, wait…”
“No.”
“Grace, yes. Wait,” he said, bringing his hands to her shoulders. She finally paused. “I want this too, I do, but the repercussions of us doing this—”
“I don’t care what the repercussions are.”
James shook his head.
“Then you don’t understand it.”
Grace pulled away from him, folding her arms across her chest as she did, stopping only a few steps away from him. Confused, James waited for her to speak. Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long.
“I am not… Equipped like other people,” she said after a moment of silence. “I never…” She shook her head, seemingly unsure of her own words. “That is to say, I didn’t think that I could feel these things.”
“These things?”
She twisted around to face him, looking like a frustrated angel.
“This. Desire. Want.” She swallowed, her gaze dropping. “I had accepted that I wasn’t the sort to experience the sort of things my sisters did. The thought of being with someone never inspired anything in me. When I kissed Lord Bartley, it was as if I was kissing a stone and I thought, well, perhaps there was something I lacked.”
“Grace, there is nothing lacking in you.”
“I don’t mean to garner kind words. I mean to say that, before you, the idea of laying with someone, in that sense, was less appealing than cold porridge.”
James blinked. Then, he stepped toward her, reaching for her elbow to turn her back to face him. Thankfully, she did.
“What are you saying?”
“Just that, I didn’t think that any of this was possible.” Her gaze lifted to meet his and his heart missed a beat. “And if I seem eager, I am. Because I’m afraid that it’s fleeting.”
So that was it. She was afraid that this feeling between them was a flash in the pan, an anomaly to her reality. While to him, it felt more permanent than anything he had ever experienced.
James’s fingers trailed down her forearm, gripping her hands in a light squeeze.
“I understand. But speaking as someone who has some experience here, I must tell you that this, whatever this is between us, is not how it usually feels.”
“It isn’t?” He shook his head. “What’s different?”
James let out a breathy laugh, uncomfortable with exposing so much of himself. Yet, here Grace was, honest to a fault and still standing. If she could be honest with him, then he could do it too.
“With Catriona, there was an attraction, yes. But it was containable.”
“Containable? I don’t understand.”
He shook his head again.
“I mean that we liked each other, were always pleasant and never confrontational. We never argued, or even disagreed. And while we found each other attractive, it wasn’t like this.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. This is something I’ve never experienced before. But if I was a betting man, I’d place a fortune on the notion that this isn’t a common occurrence.”
It was Grace’s turn to shake her head.
“It must be.”
“Why?”
