Jacob (16 page)

“Wow. I’m like... Wonder Woman!” She scrambled up onto her knees in the bed, bouncing on the mattress a little in her excitement. She placed her hands on her hips and struck a pose. “You know, fighting for truth, justice and the... the Demon way.”

“I thought that was Superman,” he noted dryly.

“Shut up.” She dismissed him with a crooked grin. “I’m having a moment here. You know, I could lose the whole hunting and killing part of this, what with the yuck factor that comes with that.” She shuddered from head to toe theatrically. “But I’m totally digging the special powers. I wonder how come they’re only showing up now?”

“I wish I could answer that. I am as baffled as you are,” he said.

“Well, the first time I noticed anything was in the library after—” She made an awkward dodge, clearly to spare him his guilt, but Jacob felt it like a smarting slap all the more. “When I could suddenly read your language.”

“No, earlier than that,” he said quietly. “Just after you fell out of the window, you were assaulted by your empathy with Saul. Remember?”

“Oh yes. Then that was the first time. Right after you caught me.” She gave a wry little laugh. “Maybe it’s you after all. Maybe you
are
contagious.” Isabella noticed his brow shoot up in sudden contemplation. “Oh no, you don’t. It was just a joke,” she said hastily. “I won’t listen to you say what you’re thinking.”

“It would only be guesswork,” he reminded her with a troublemaking grin tripping across his lips.

“Well, stop guessing,” she commanded, punctuating the demand by leaning across him so she could punch his shoulder.

“You certainly are a bossy little thing,” he observed, purposely reaching out to cup her shoulder in his hand, preventing her from leaving her position across his body before he wanted her to. He ached to feel her, in any way possible. There could be no harm in a little innocent exchange of body heat.

“Yeah, well, I’m regretting ever letting you catch me that night,” she huffed, taking no notice of his machinations as she blew back her hair in that charming habit she had. It was an invitation he could not resist. His hands crept into her gorgeous hair, the luxuriant strands settling between his fingers.

“Hey, sweetheart, it was either me or the concrete. One of us had to do it.”

“At this point I’m thinking the concrete would’ve been less painful... and less complicated.”

Jacob knew she was being a brat, trying to tease and be funny, but her comment struck a sore chord in him. “Has it been?” he asked, seriousness flooding his voice. “Have we been painful for you? Have... have
I
hurt you, Bella?”

Isabella quieted, looking down into those solemn dark eyes from her position atop him, knowing that her answer would be vital to him. As was her way, she thought carefully for a long minute about her response. He would get the truth, as he always had.

“Only once,” she admitted softly. She felt his fingers curl tightly into fists in her hair. It touched her that he was so concerned for her. “But not the way you’re thinking, Jacob. It was that time, in the library... ”

“Then it is what I am thinking. Damn, Isabella, I am so sorry.”

“Jacob, listen to me. It wasn’t what you did.” She turned her head away, a flush staining her cheeks. Unable to look in his eyes, she confessed to him, “It was what you didn’t do. It was... when you stopped.”

Her face was so hot by that point that she could imagine she was as red as a ruby, but she had needed to answer him honestly. Jacob was motionless beneath her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him, not having the first idea of how her bold declaration would be received. She was outspoken when it came to the things she was certain of, but this was all new territory for her. She couldn’t even feel him breathing.

Then, just as suddenly, he was hurtling himself off the bed, dumping her off his body, leaving her to bounce on the mattress. Perplexed, Isabella scooped up the hair that had fallen over her face and threw it back behind her. Her sight restored, she saw Jacob pacing the length of the room, his hands running raggedly through his own hair.

“Jacob?”

“Isabella. Do not speak,” he barked.

Isabella’s feathers ruffled. She crashed both hands onto her hips. “Well, I’m sorry you find what I have to say so damn offensive! Excuse the hell out of me! I promise it
won’t
happen again!”

Fighting back tears, unwilling to make any more of a fool of herself, Isabella scrambled off the bed and marched for the door. She grabbed the knob and jerked, but nothing happened. She checked the lock, all too aware this was ruining an excellent exit, and tried again. The door remained stuck. Isabella couldn’t suppress the sob aching to escape her chest much longer and she stomped her foot in frustration. If she hadn’t been so furious, she might have realized Jacob had come up behind her. As it was, she jumped nearly a foot into the air when he touched her shoulder.

“What?” she demanded, whirling around.

Very slowly, Jacob stepped closer to her, herding her backward into the door before resting first one palm, and then the other, flat against the door on either side of her shoulders. Then, in purposeful increments, he leaned his body closer to hers. By the time he had made full and secure eye contact with her, the barest of spaces separated their bodies. He was bathing her in the dangerous heat of his potent body, and her heart was pounding in double-time.

“Bella,” he began slowly, her name rumbling out of his throat as if it were a rough purr, “you mistake me. Do not ever,
ever
make the error of thinking that I do not want you, little flower.” He leaned even closer, his chest moving so near that she had to turn her head. His husky tone fell to a whisper as he engaged her ear, bathing her neck with a hot exhalation of unsteady breath. “On the contrary. If I pull away from you, you must know that it is because I want you so badly that when you say things like you just did, I am so plagued by my reactions that I am fearful of losing control.

“Bella, there is no safe haven inside me when it comes to this consuming desire to take you as my mate. My sense of morality has abandoned me as well. Even my safest, surest thoughts have joined in the clamor burning through my body as it demands yours. Do you understand? Mistake me not, little flower. I do want you. So badly it hurts. It hurt me too, as it hurt you, that day in the library.”

“If so much of you is feeling the way you say,” she said quietly, “then why are you ignoring it still? Especially now, knowing the prophecy and all?”

He pulled back slightly.

“I do not want you coming to me in a headlong rush because ancient scribbles, whose truths and purposes are merely theory at this point, dictate to you how you should feel about me. How few hours has it been since you told me how much I terrify you? You are frightened still, despite what you say. I can feel it and read it in your thoughts. Consider how that makes me feel!

“You are an innocent, Isabella. You cannot even say the word
sex
, and you blush when I say it.” Jacob inclined his head with a purposeful glance, making her cover her telltale cheeks with her hands. “However much your body responds to mine, and believe me, it does so in beautiful magnitude, your mind is not yet truly made up. I will not force that decision on you. Not mentally or emotionally, and certainly not physically.” His dark pupils searched her face so thoroughly she felt as if she couldn’t possibly have a single secret left. “But do not mistake my need to put distance between us as anything but what it is, merely an effort to keep myself under control until such time as you do make up your mind, of your own free will, prophecy or no.”

“But, Jacob,” she said, her hand coming up to toy with the open lapel of his shirt, “when we were in the library, and before that, even, we didn’t know there
was
a prophecy.”

So simple. So logical. So true. Jacob’s hands curled into fists against the door, his longing and emotions straining at the very ends of their overtaut tethers. His senses clamored for her input. Even the warmth of her scent filling his nostrils couldn’t begin to soothe the cravings of those other senses left destitute.

Jacob clenched his teeth for a brief, tight moment.

“Isabella, you must be careful what you say to me,” he warned her roughly. “I am holding on to my control by the thinnest of threads. Understand, the consequences of that control snapping will be something you cannot take back, cannot change. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I do. And I want you to understand something as well,” she countered quickly. “I may be a virgin, but that’s only because no one got my attention long enough to change it, not because it’s so all-fired important to me. I admit, I have always hoped I would have a special first experience, but when I think about it, I can’t help but decide that I already have. Jacob, I could never have dreamed up the way you make me feel. I have never felt so much like a woman as I have when you have put your hands on me, when you have touched your mouth to me.

“No one has ever seen me with the passion that you do,” she breathed with silky intensity, her sensual whisper driving over his every last nerve like eager fingertips slipping up his spine. “It’s such an amazing feeling, to be craved like that. Some women have sex all their lives and never feel that. So, my innocence is now just a matter of physicality. Emotionally, I became very much a woman in your arms the very first night we were together.”

Jacob sighed, an indulgent exhalation of breath that stirred her hair against her cheek.

“The naïveté in that statement alone serves to remind me of how innocent you truly are, Bella.”

The blunt putdown, whether intentional or not, had Bella resisting the urge to slap him. His condescension was really beginning to irritate her. Inexperienced she might be, but at least she knew she had stumbled on something extraordinary with him. Different worlds, even so much as being species apart, and yet she understood this was a precious connection. An opportunity.

Even though it intimidated her, even though it was clearly cloaked in danger and good reasons to feel more than a little fear, she wasn’t about to let it flutter away like a fickle butterfly. Perhaps the whole of her life had been a lead-in to this encounter with Jacob and all the rapid changes that were accompanying him. Perhaps, all along, her hunger for knowledge had been a subconscious search for Jacob and his people. Maybe there was such a thing as destiny, and maybe he was hers. Isabella knew there was only one way to find out and that it was a discovery she craved beyond reason.

“Fine. I understand,” she said with a little shrug, turning her head slightly so he couldn’t see her eyes. “If it’s really that important to you, I’ll go have sex with a human male first. Then I’ll know what I’m talking about before I broach the matter with you again.”

Jacob felt the statement the same way he had felt the blast of Elijah’s intervention the first night he had touched her. It slammed into him with breathtaking brutality, destroying his sense of direction and balance. Rage surged through him, turning his eyes into glistening black voids. The idea of another man touching that precious skin, kissing her sweet, delicious mouth, was more than he could stand. What she was suggesting this time was too much. Beyond too much.

“Over my dead body... over my
obliterated soul
will I ever allow such a thing.” The declaration was a cross between a growl and a soft roar. Bella could see him shaking from head to toe, could feel it vibrating through the door behind her. In all of an instant, the cool, sophisticated Jacob disappeared and a possessive beast reared its head in his place.

Now that’s more like it
, Isabella mused, with a mental smile.

“But”—she blinked her wide eyes up at him in all innocence—“you just said—”

“I said forget it, Isabella!” the Enforcer exploded, the pressure of his hands on the door at her back making the wood pop and creak ominously. “No one is going to touch you, do you understand?”

Isabella thrust her fists onto her hips, her delicate jaw thrusting out stubbornly.

“Well I’m not going to stay a virgin for the rest of my life, Jacob!” she declared in frustration. “Eventually someone is going to have to touch me, because I have no intentions of being a nun! Especially not now that I know what it can feel like to be wanted by a man and to want him in return. And since you think I’m too fragile for you, it will have to be someone else!”

Isabella suddenly found her head enveloped in those enormous hands of his, her eyes forced to meet his, compelled to see the fire of jealousy she had stirred up in his black gaze. His emotions buffeted her like a wildly breaking wave; his sudden, desperate covetousness and gripping fear battered her psyche like a million piercing daggers. The idea of another man touching her ripped at his insides, physically and spiritually, the cruelty and poison of it stamping his soul like a tattoo. In all of a heartbeat she regretted her game. She had never meant to hurt him, only to motivate him past his conflicts.

Jacob knew he had no justification for feeling this way, especially in light of the hastily sketched rules of conduct he was trying to force on himself and her. Yet a savage need to sear her to his side, body and soul, was strangling him brutally. He would kill anyone who even thought about touching her. In that moment he swore it to himself, and with his desperation-charred eyes, he swore it to her.

“Never,” he rasped, the word falling from him on hot, rapid breaths. “Do you hear me, Bella? Never will any other man be allowed to touch you.”