Lone Wolfe (9 page)

 
          
‘Something
like
that.’ The intimacy of the moment still seemed to
wrap around them. ‘Annabelle never spoke about him,’ Mollie said quietly. ‘Not
that I asked. I was only eight when—’

 
          
‘He
died.’ Jacob’s voice was flat, cold. Mollie realised she shouldn’t have said
anything. They could have moved on, away from this startling intimacy, the
sharing of memories, secrets. Yet even now she didn’t want to. She wanted to
know.

 
          
‘It
must have been so hard,’ she whispered.
‘For you,
especially.’
Jacob flinched at her words. Mollie wished she knew what to
say. No words seemed adequate, appropriate, so she said the only thing she
could think of, the only thing she knew she really meant. ‘I’m sorry,’ she
whispered.

 
          
‘I
told you, you don’t need to apologise for the truth,’ Jacob told her. His
expression hardened into something unfriendly and even mean. It was hard to
believe that a moment ago he’d made her heart beat with awareness and desire.
Now, taking in his tightened mouth and narrowed eyes, so endlessly dark, it
hammered with something close to fear—yet not for
herself
.
She was afraid for him. ‘The truth,’ he continued in the same brutal tone, ‘was
that he was an utter bastard. He terrorised his wives and his children, he
drank away the family’s money, and when he died I felt—’ He stopped suddenly,
his face twisted in an agony of grief. He drew a shuddering breath and looked
away, every muscle tensed.

 
          
‘Jacob …’
Mollie said, inadvertently,
instinctively, for something deep in her called to the broken-ness she saw in
the man before her. She lifted her arms, reaching out as if to do—what?
Hug
him? Even though she knew Jacob
Wolfe would probably be appalled by the thought of a hug, she couldn’t help
herself. She wanted to reach him. Touch him.

 
          
His
face cleared, as if a veil had been drawn across that deeper, darker emotion;
he hid the broken edges, the jagged memories, and coated them with blandness.
‘You asked,’ he said. ‘And now you know.’ His mouth curved in a slow smile.
‘Satisfied, Mollie?’ he asked, touching her cheek with one finger. Mollie
jerked under the caress, for that was surely what it was. Slowly, thoughtfully,
his face still a hard mask, Jacob trailed his finger down her cheek, igniting
sparks of awareness along her jaw, to the sensitive curve of her neck. He
lingered there, his finger touching her pulse, a witness to its frantic
hammering.

 
          
Mollie
remained rooted to the spot, amazed at how such a simple, little touch could
affect her so utterly.
So disastrously.
She felt as
she was filled with bubbles once again, bubbles made of the most fragile glass,
and they were popping one by one. She didn’t know what would be left when they
were gone. She didn’t know what would happen, what could happen.

 
          
What
Jacob wanted to
happen.

 
          
He
watched her carefully, noting her reaction, and in her appalled shame Mollie
wondered how the mood could have changed so suddenly, how the charged
atmosphere of anger and regret had turned so quickly to something just as
dangerous.

 
          
She
swallowed convulsively as Jacob rested just one finger in the curve of her
neck, stroking that smooth, secretive skin lightly, as if he were learning a
landmark. And she didn’t move away.
Didn’t protest.
Didn’t do anything except submit, her body yearning for his deeper
caress.

 
          
After
a long, pulsating moment, the only sound the hitch of her own breath, he
trailed his finger from that curve to her collarbone, pausing to stroke the
hard ridge of bone, the skin stretched so achingly taut over it, and then let
it drop lightly yet quite deliberately to the V of her T-shirt—
his
T-shirt.

 
          
Mollie
heard her sharply in-drawn breath as his finger nestled there in the soft dip
between her breasts, stroking the skin softly, as if asking a question.

 
          
She
felt heat flood through her—and he was touching her with only one finger! She
glanced up and saw the clinical, detached look on his face and shame replaced
that liquefying heat. He wasn’t affected at all.

 
          
‘Don’t—’
she whispered. She didn’t even know what she wanted to stop, the look on
Jacob’s face or the touch of his hand. Her body certainly didn’t want him to stop;
her body wanted hands, mouths, lips.
Everywhere, everything.

 
          
‘Don’t
what?’ Jacob asked in a voice of lethal softness.

 
          
‘Don’t
tease me,’ Mollie said, for surely that was what he was doing. He used
seduction—sex—like a weapon, the most powerful one he had. She wished she had
the strength to step away but she didn’t. She closed her eyes, briefly, in
silent supplication,
then
opened them. She drew a
steady breath. ‘What do you want from me, Jacob?’

 
          
‘Now,
that’s an interesting question.’ Smiling faintly, Jacob drew his finger back
along her collarbone, up her neck and then lightly across one cheek. She felt
as if he’d marked her, as if she’d see a livid red line where he’d touched. She
even glanced down at herself to check; there was nothing.

 
          
His
hand rested on her cheek, his thumb caressing the fullness of her lips. ‘I’m
attracted to you, Mollie,’ he said, and inside she quavered at the knowledge,
both with wonder and trepidation. ‘And you’re attracted to me.’ His thumb
rested fully on her mouth; she couldn’t speak even if she wanted to. ‘We’re
alone here, for the foreseeable future. Why not make the most of it?’

 
          
He
sounded so reasonable, so affable,
so
bland.
Why not make the most of it?
As if it
could—or would—be so simple and easy. She knew it would not. She knew Jacob
knew it too; she could see it in the blazing blackness of his eyes. He was
provoking her with this seductive suggestion. It was a challenge, a reaction to
her intrusive questions, her instinctive sympathy. It wasn’t the easy suggestion
he made it sound. It was a punishment.

 
          
Somehow
she found the strength to step away; Jacob let his hand fall, easily, without
regret or apology. ‘You mean an affair,’ she stated flatly.

 
          
He
paused, his eyes narrowing slightly. ‘Call it what you will.’

 
          
‘No
strings,’ she clarified, because even though it was so obvious she still had to
say it. Jacob Wolfe was not a man who cultivated relationships.

 
          
‘None.’

 
          
And
for one gloriously tempting moment, despite the dark reasons for his suggestion
that she could only guess, she could imagine it. Every nerve and sinew of her
body clamoured for it, because when had she ever indulged in something so
sensual, so basic and pleasurable, as an affair? She’d had a few mediocre
relationships in university, but nothing that remotely came close to what Jacob
Wolfe was offering. And for the past five years she’d been living the life of a
reclusive nun, caring for her father, working as much as she could, barely able
to make ends meet. Even in Italy she’d been too busy visiting gardens and
healing her own grief to really pay attention to any men.

 
          
Yet
here was Jacob Wolfe, darkly dangerous, utterly beautiful, suggesting they have
an affair.

 
          
Sex
.

 
          
It
was outrageous.
Incredible.
A little
alarming.
Tempting.

 
          
And
yet she couldn’t do it. And she knew Jacob knew it too. Perhaps that was the
only reason he’d suggested it in the first place.

 
          
She’d
seen something in Jacob’s eyes, something real and dark and wounded, and knew
that she couldn’t get involved with this man.
Couldn’t keep
her body and heart separate.
Jacob Wolfe would hurt her. Maybe he
wouldn’t mean to, maybe he wouldn’t want to, but he would.

 
          
She
would let him. She didn’t know how to have a no-strings affair, and she wasn’t
about to start with a man like Jacob Wolfe.

 
          
‘I
… I can’t.’ She took another step away, and then another. Jacob didn’t say
anything; in the shadowy room she couldn’t quite make out his expression. And
she suddenly didn’t want to know it, didn’t want to wait for his mocking reply.
So she did the only thing she could think of, the only avenue left to her.

 
          
She
ran.

 
          
Jacob
watched Mollie flee the room, heard the distant slam of a door. He pictured her
stumbling through the gardens, tripping on tree roots, her hair a molten stream
behind her.

 
          
What
a mess. What a mess he’d made. And he’d done it intentionally, out of a sense
of self-preservation so basic and elemental. It had been a warning, both to her
and
himself
:
don’t
get close to me. I don’t know what I’ll do. What I’m capable of
.

 
          
Sighing
heavily, he pushed away from the desk and nearly stepped on the parchment
Mollie had dropped in her surprise and distress.

 
          
The Mollie Rose.

 
          
Jacob
had no idea what had possessed his father to preserve the rose like some
child’s drawing; all he could think was that his father had been in one of his
rare, sweetly lucid moments. Like when he’d built them a tree house, or brought
them Christmas hampers from Hartington’s. Moments the children had revelled in
with hesitant incredulity, they’d been so rare. Of course, when he’d burned the
tree house down a week later, or destroyed the hamper’s contents in a drunken
rage, Jacob was the one left picking up the pieces, taking the hits.

 
          
Until
that one night, when he’d refused. In that moment of defence—
defiance
—he’d ended one life and changed
everyone else’s for ever.

 
          
He
sighed again, the sound halfway to a groan, hating that these memories still
claimed him. Over the years he’d pushed them so far down he could almost
pretend they didn’t exist.
Had never happened.

 
          
Almost.

 
          
In
dreams they taunted him. They claimed him and made him their captive.

 
          
And
now, back at Wolfe Manor, it was worse than ever. He felt them rise up inside
of him, felt the ghosts clamour around him, whisper their taunts in his ears.

 
          
You’re a thug.
A drunk.
A murderer.
There’s no good in you at all. You hurt
everyone who comes close
.

 
          
And
he’d proved that yet again, when he just tried to seduce one of the sweetest,
most innocent women he’d ever met. He recalled the look of astonishment and
even hurt in Mollie’s eyes when he’d suggested their no-strings affair, the
exact thing he’d intended not to do, knowing Mollie would refuse. Knowing she’d
be bewildered, offended. Knowing it was
wrong
.

 
          
And
yet he’d done it. And Jacob knew why.

 
          
She’d
asked too many questions.
Drawn too close.
Seen
something inside of him he wouldn’t even acknowledge to himself.

 
          
Jacob—

 
          
She’d
reached for him, and he’d almost wanted to go, to find comfort and safety in
her arms. What a joke.

 
          
So
he’d done the one thing he knew would make her back off. Run away, even. He’d
propositioned her.

 
          
Jacob
straightened, shaking off the thoughts and recriminations. He closed his mind,
allowed a comforting, controlled blankness to steal over him in a numbing fog.
He felt his heart rate slow, his body still. He took a deep breath and let it
out slowly.
Better
.