Chapter 9

46K 867 71
                                    

Jacob didn't say anything. He simply touched my cheek with his fingertips. It was the lightest, gentlest of touches as if he was afraid anything more would shatter me.

I was afraid of that too—of the emotions swelling inside me, filling me to overflowing, my body almost unable to contain them.

"My conduct around you has nothing to with nobility, Emily. Nothing to do with once having been a gentleman." Then, as if he liked saying my name, he repeated it in a murmur. "Emily." His lips came closer, closer, his eyes never leaving mine.

My nerve endings sizzled at the intensity in his gaze, the feel of his cool fingers on my skin and the sheer masculine presence of him towering over me. "Then what is it about?" I managed to whisper past the lump lodged in my throat.

His thumb traced the line of my jaw, across my chin and down my neck. I thought perhaps he hadn't heard me over the pounding of my heart but then he said, "I don't know." He watched, absorbed, as a trail of goosebumps formed in the wake of his fingers. "I've never felt so drawn to someone before. Not like this. But I can assure you there's nothing honorable about what I feel."

"Then what...?"

"It's primal. Basic." His mouth curved into a crooked, devilish smile that had me gasping for air. "Savage."

As if the word had flipped a switch inside him, he reeled back and dropped his hands to his sides. His eyes shuttered closed and he breathed deep and hard as if trying to regain his composure.

Savage. The word hung above us like a guillotine, ready to fall at any moment.

"I'm sorry." He opened his eyes and stared at the hand that had touched me, a look of utter horror distorting his handsome features. "I don't know what's happening to me," he whispered.

I didn't know what to say to that so I clasped both bunches of violets in one hand and gently took his hand with my other. I placed the palm against my lips and kissed it.

Slowly, like unpeeling layers, his face relaxed and returned to the perfect proportions I admired. "Talk to me," I said. "Tell me what's wrong."

He shook his head.

"Jacob, if you are to be my spirit guide for the next little while then I need to know what's troubling you. I might be able to help."

"You can't help." He pulled his hand away. "You're the problem."

My heart missed a beat. He hadn't said I was part of the problem but I was the problem. "Do I...scare you in some way?" I tried to wade through all the possibilities of what he might mean but I could only come up with one. "My unnatural ability to see ghosts can be disconcerting—."

"No. It's not that." He laughed ruefully. "You don't scare me in the least. It's—." He shook his head and started again. "It feels like I'm losing my humanity. Every day I'm with you, every hour, every minute, gets harder and harder to—." He pressed his lips together and closed his eyes.

I waited but he didn't continue. I didn't know whether I should prompt him or if that would only anger him, or upset him. I reached out and caressed his cheek instead. The hard, chiseled line of it gave his face a regal quality, commanding and majestic. Fascinating. The skin was soft, cool, and I sighed, enthralled.

With a matching sigh he opened his eyes. And stepped away. "You shouldn't do that," he said but there was no anger in his voice, or alarm. "We must go."

"But I haven't told you what I wanted to say," I said. He waited, feet apart as if steadying himself on a rocking ship. "I wanted to do something for you in exchange for the service you rendered me."

The MediumWhere stories live. Discover now