Irresistible Desire

Where's my engagement ring!?

"His name"?

" Grant. "

"Grant? Grant who?"Jacob demanded.

"I won't let you get in trouble." She set her jaw.

"I promise you I won't. But I need to do something  -  you didn't let me have Michael. " There was such ferocious anger in his request that she worried about him.

"No!"

" Gracie, please."

He was holding her so close, so very close, but she wasn't afraid. There was just some part of her that refused to place him in the same category as other men. Did that make her a fool, or was she being given a precious chance to fight the lessons of the past and seize something glorious?

"Grant Freddy." It was too hard to resist the temptation to tell the one man who'd ever cared about her.

"Thank you, Gracie . Thank you." His embrace tightened, his potent masculinity surrounding her.

Close contact didn't scare her. It was only when anything sexual happened that she was that fourteen-year-old again, backed up against the door of the cupboard, with the handle digging into her back. Her mind had been black with fear and betrayal as the object of her teenage crush had destroyed her innocence before it had a chance to blossom. But perhaps her childhood heart might've recovered from that, if something worse hadn't happened.

Jackson's hand moved up and down her spine, soothing strokes that relaxed her. "Thank you for telling me."

"You had to know," she whispered. "I won't steal your happiness to find my own. I'd run with Simon before I'd do that." He deserved better than a woman so damaged she'd resigned herself to a lifetime of loneliness.

"You're traumatized." He kept stroking her. "We can get you counseling if you want."

She started shaking her head before he could finish. "The thought of exposing my thoughts for a stranger to pick through ... no. I'd rather trust you with my secrets."

He was silent for a long time and she thought that she'd asked too much of this man who guarded his emotions so carefully. He'd offered her a pragmatic bargain. There had been no mention of gentler, softer feelings.

"I am honored." His heart thudded under her cheek. "But, I might not be the best choice. I want you."

"Will you force me?"

"Never."

"In my heart, I've always known that."

Jacob was stunned by that calm acceptance of his promise when he was starting to see that Grace had experienced only fear and violence from the men in her life. She hadn't said anything to indicate further abuse, but if the young maintenance man had noticed her developing beauty, what had other, older men noticed? And what had they done to his sweet Grace? He stifled his questions for the moment, aware that
she was emotionally wrung out. "How?" he asked instead.

A pause, then, "You might hurt me with indifference and coldness but you'd never physically abuse me."

He winced at her honest response. "I'm not indifferent to you." But he was a cold man. He'd had to become one to survive his solitary childhood.

He needed Grace's fire as his anchor against the coldness swallowing him alive, needed her to be the candle in the darkness that brought him back home. And though he'd never let her know, he needed her love. Because he did, he fought for her. "I will always be there for you, but I know of a therapist who specializes in sexual trauma." He'd made it his business to find out that information earlier today.

Grace tensed. "I don't know..."

"Can you try, cara? She might help you in ways I have no knowledge of." His need to encourage her spirit overcame his desire to be her strength. Faced with her pain, his first instinct would be to reassure and shield, possibly thwarting her recovery. The therapist would be far tougher, forcing Grace to use the courage that had let her successfully raise a child, to heal herself.

This time, it was her hand that stroked his spine. "I'll try ... we can learn together."

What was she offering to teach him? He didn't care. He'd take whatever she could give him. It was a disturbing thought.

Grace awoke in Jacob's guest bedroom on Sunday morning, wearing his big white shirt. Rain beat overhead, a rough lullaby that signaled the return of the storm. Warm and comfortable, she had no desire to rise.

A sharp knock on her door made her scowl. "Come in."

Jacob pushed the door open and stood in the doorway, clad all in black. "We have to talk."

She yawned and pulled out one hand from her cocoon to pat at the bedspread. "Sit."

There was an inferno in his caressing gaze. " Cara mia, I am only a man."

Her heart thundered. "Please?" Why was she making him do this? Was she testing his promise that he wouldn't force her to do things that terrified her?

Sighing, he came and sat beside her. "Happy?"

"Maybe," she teased. "Where's my engagement ring, Jacob Wolfe ?" She was trying to be lighthearted, for what right did she have to demand anything?

To her surprise, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a finely made gold ring with tiny shards of diamond embedded in the beautiful scrollwork. Despite its simplicity, she knew it was no ordinary ring.

Her hand trembled as he slid it onto her ring finger, under the rain-drenched sunlight falling through the skylight.

"Jacob, this is so lovely." Her voice was barely a whisper as, sittingup, she stared at the ancient gold.

His smile was slow. "The ring was my paternal grandmother's. Her name was Gisele and she was married to my grandfather Joseph for over fifty years."

Her eyes smarted with tears. No one had ever given her something so precious, so from the heart.

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm not." She rubbed at her eyes with her free hand.

" Gracie." He reached out and pulled her from the blankets and onto his lap, pressing her cheek against his chest. Instead of fear at the intimacy, she felt a fierce sense of belonging. "Why do you cry like this?"

The sudden change in the cadence of his voice startled her. "You sound so Italian."

"I am Italian." He stroked her hair in that way of his. She'd never imagined that such a big man could be so incredibly tender. "Have you stopped crying?"

"Yes." She kept her head against his chest. "Thank you for the ring.

"The ring has been sitting in a vault for ten years. You will bring it to the light once more."

The words made her heart swell. She didn't know the details of what they'd done to each other, but she knew that the results had devastated the man holding her so very carefully. The feel of his hard body made her want to luxuriate in him, but the slight tension in his muscles reminded her that this wasn't fair.

She moved off his lap. "I'll meet you downstairs for breakfast  -  I'll cook."

"I would like to have a taste of your culinary skills. "
"What would you like to have? "
His lips quirked. "Whatever you're cooking."