Page 41 of The Boxer’s Belle

At his sides, his hands clenched into impotent fists. There was no one to fight, to hit, no one, save himself. And his fingers did not itch for a fight. No, they longed to trace the gentle swell of Bella’s hips beneath her damp dress.

It was impossible—their situation. Clearly, he could not be trusted alone in her presence. Every time she offered him a crumb, he tried to snatch the entire loaf. And each instance left them both devastated.

But the mere thought of leaving, returning to town, leaving her, left his gut churning. Too selfish to leave. Too in love to stay.

Fingers clasped his elbow. West whirled around to find those dark eyes boring into him.

“Bella, I⁠—”

“No, Miles Weston. It is my turn,” she insisted, voice tight with fury.

West’s chest ached. He deserved this—this and so much more. She’d never chastised him for his crimes, not truly. He nodded. “Say your piece.”

“As if I need your permission, you infuriating arse!”

He waited a moment for her to continue, then raised a brow when she did not.

“Ugh!” Bella stamped her foot with a little squelching sound. “You keep deciding for me. I ask you to go, and you insist you’ll stay through winter. I request a singular breath to gather my thoughts, and you pack to leave the county.” Her cheeks flushed beneath the droplets that danced between her freckles.

“If you do not want this—want me—then that is that. I’ll not beg. Even when I had nothing, I had my pride. But then you kiss me like you might die if you do not, and I cannot account for it.” Bella’s eyes searched his for a breath, two.

Every time he’d convinced himself he was sparing her heart—that the denial of his own was somehow noble—he had broken it instead. She’d handed him the small, tender pieces of her soul time and again, and instead of trusting the words and actions of the most capable woman he’d ever met, he thought he knew better.

Bella’s fingers tangled with each other. “You may speak now.”

His breath caught while he searched for a beginning. “Lord, I am an infuriating arse. But, Bella, you must know— Surely you must— I love you. I’ve been in love with you for as long as I’ve known what that meant. This situation—our stations—it is impossible, but my feelings have never wavered.”

Bella’s damp lashes fluttered. “I— What?”

“You’re a lady, and I’m… me.” West gestured to his rain-soaked frame. “A stable master’s son.”

“The title may have mattered while Father was alive, but he is gone. And as soon as you learned of it, you ran off.”

“Your brother had returned. You were recovering. You no longer needed me to watch over you.”

“I never needed you to watch over me. I wanted you.”

“You…”

“Wanted you. Yes, I’ve always wanted you, you daft fool. But I never know if you will be there.” The soaked cotton of her dress clung to her arms as she wrapped them around her ribs. Strands of her hair clung in wet clumps across her forehead and throat.

“Bella… I— May I touch you?”

At her nod, his hands fell to her shoulders before he pulled her against his chest. She slotted there against him as though he were carved from her contours. Perhaps he was—made precisely for her.

“I thought— I did not want to take advantage of you after your injury. Not the way I did after Draycott’s first attack. It nearly destroyed me when I realized I had pressed for too much while you were frightened and vulnerable. You were right to hate me for it. But I could never live with myself if I repeated my mistake.”

Bella jerked her head free. “Is that truly how you see it—our night together? A mistake?”

West shook his head. “It was the best night of my life. But that does not change the fact that it never should have happened. I never should have pressed you.”

A tiny fist met his bicep—surprisingly sharp. “Oh, you… you… pudding-headed lout!”

“Pudding-headed lout?”

“You are a simpleton, Miles Weston! My faculties were perfectly intact. I asked you to kiss me. I undressed you. I touched you. You were the first choice of consequence I ever made. And it was absolutely perfect until you ruined it the following morning.”

Well-worn memories, tinged with the devastation he’d wrought, rewrote themselves. This new light through which to view them left West’s breath trapped in his chest. “I— But we⁠—”