The Bound Heart Read Free

didn’t move away as he leaned over and placed the box with the silken sample back into her basket.
    “I know you’re not like other men,” she whispered, slightly turned to his chest.
    The warmth of her radiated against his chest. His neck tightened and heat pooled low and tight.
    She really had no idea.
    “I don’t know exactly, but…”
    “Olive…” His hand wrapped around hers and brought it to his chest. Somehow, they had turned to face each other.
    She moved closer, her face still turned down.
    His fingers tightened around hers.
    “I’m not sure you want to do this, Olive.”
    Why was he hesitating?
    Jamie brought her head up with his free hand. Her eyes were overly large. She was so beautiful, no artifice, no pretense.
    “Don’t you like me?”
    His face softened at her ridiculous question.
    “Oh, I do, Olive, very much.” He gentled his voice and leaned closer so the world became just them, their warmth, and their breath. “You need to know, I don’t want soft and sweet. What I want, what I need, Olive, is like a shadow over the sun. Step back and leave this storm cloud well alone.”
    He knew as he said the words, he meant them. He would step right back at a single word.
    She looked at him, taking in what he said, what he meant.
    “I’m the sun?”
    He nodded and pleasure broke over her face before she dropped her head and moved up against him.
    Heat slammed into his body as every muscle tightened with need. Need to rush forward. Need to pull her hard up against him, to feel her soft breasts pressed onto his chest, pressed into his mouth, his hands, his face.
    Yet he held himself still.
    Tentative fingers touched his waistcoat, then fiddled with its small black buttons. With her body so small next to his, it was an act of pure will not to wrap her up against him.
    “Men have been rough with me before, Mr. Edwards, and I have healed. I will not be beaten, but I’m stronger than you might think.”
    His hand tightened around hers. He would find out their names; London was a small place.
    “I would never hurt you, Olive. It’s nothing like that.”
    Olive nodded, still fascinated with his chest. Her fingertips stilled. She must be able to feel his heart. It was pounding so hard the air should be thick with its beat.
    Outside the sounds of the street drifted up in the stillness. The sound of carriage wheels and horses hooves on cobbled streets, thuds and steps downstairs in the bookshop, the creaks, and groans of the wood.
    He held his breath. Consciously, trying to calm the wild need screaming inside him to take, take, take right now. Yet the better part of him was resolved, whatever her answer, he would honor it. Then he breathed out, a heavy, ragged sound.
    She must know he was affected, that what was happening meant a lot to him. Yet the choice had to be hers.
    Gradually, her face lifted.
    He was heavy and thickening with want. Chanting her acceptance in his mind.
    She’d made her decision.
    Something fluttered in his belly.
    Suddenly, he was as nervous as when he’d tried his first tie. Worried at failure and success both.
    “Do you want to see my brace now?” a whisper.
    Red blotched up her neck again.
    Olive, sweetheart, you have no idea.
    “If you don’t mind,” he said softly.
    Her cheek under his thumb was the satin of innocence. Soft, smooth, of course, yet somehow through that layer, a communication was transferred, a charge, an elemental crackle under the skin, which warned him yet again, her fragile flesh was filled with the very thing he had built an adulthood of rules and discipline against.
    Don’t let them in son, they’ll crawl into the very soul of you and leave only a shell. But his father’s words seemed a long way off right now. Instead she drew him in like a man to his ultimate vice.
    The raised flesh of her lips tugged damp as he ran his thumb over them. It was a stroke designed to smear perfect lip paint; however, on her clean face, it was a wishful thought that