The Bound Heart (6 page)

A flush of pleasure spread through her at Evie’s words.

“I just don’t want to see you get sucked up into a man’s life, a man who’s all kinds of wrapped up with the less obvious things people want to do together in sex. Now I have no problem with who he is and what he does personally, but is that really the world you want to walk into Olive? You’re not as tough and worldly as you ought to be given where you grew up.”

“He’s the only one I’ve ever wanted, Evie. The men who’ve stepped up, who have shown interest in me… they aren’t for me.” Men who faded into the background. Men who didn’t think they could get better than a crippled girl.

Jamie was… he was exotic, he was strong and made her feel alive. Made her dream, dream for more out of life, to be more in life.

“Oh sweetheart. He’s a good man. I’m a fair judge of that. I’m just protective of you. It’s not what you would do with him, it’s him working with others, he’s got his ways to keep people from getting close. No woman I know whose gone with him stuck it out.”

The idea of him with other women certainly didn’t feel good. His work was very intimate…

“I like his photo plates, Evie. I like the way he touches me. I… I think about the rope.”

Evie, ran her arm over Olive’s cheek.

“Maybe I worry about you for nothing. Just remember, men have a way of consuming everything in a woman’s heart when she falls in love, of drawing her into their worlds. Hold onto your own dreams, Olive.”

Olive reached out and hugged Evie.

A man who gave her so many new and sought after threads wouldn’t want her to stop her embroidery. It wasn’t a big leap from cords, threads, and twine to rope.

“I’ll be fine, Evie. Trust me; I need to do this. Trust me to be all right.”

Evie nodded. “I’ll be here if you aren’t.”

Outside on the street, the evening traffic was starting to file in. Carts with goods, carriages and cabs carrying people home, to their clubs, or out for the evening were rushing past. All the gas lamps were already lit.

Olive looked at the address on the crumpled piece of paper in her hand.

Doubt flooded her.

What was Jamie doing living in such a well to do neighborhood?

The money Evie had given her and the small bit extra she had would be enough to take her one way, there or back, not both. Returning in time for work was the most important. So she would have to get there as cheaply as possible.

The horse drawn omnibus was an hour wait and then only took her so far; the rest, she had to walk.

After a few minutes the walking heated her up creating a hot pocket of air between her coat and her clothes. making the cool crisp night air a wonderful balm as it moved over her face.

She traveled a good hour before she stood across the road from Jamie’s house.

Olive stepped off the curb and onto the street. The entrance to his tall bluestone townhouse was a few steps away. Her legs were strangely weak. The brace, sure and tight around her calf, felt like the only thing holding her up.

Down the road, a cab rounded the corner and came up the street. It was one of those old aristocratic sell offs, worse for wear, but a cheap ride home.

Olive stepped back onto the sidewalk, waited for it to pass. Instead, it pulled up right in front of his house.

Panic shot through her chest.

Was he going out?

She couldn’t possibly approach him on the street. If Jamie was leaving she would come back tomorrow, try again. But she was not so desperate as to stand on the street and catch his attention.

The large, black, glossy, front door opened.

Jamie didn’t step out.

Instead, a woman glided down the steps followed by a man carrying photographic equipment. It was Edgar; he took those pictures for the shop.

Olive took a step closer.

Heat pushed out of every pore.

She knew what had happened inside, what Jamie had been doing, and what Edgar had taken photos of.

Her eyes as she regarded the woman.

She was…exotic. But maybe that was simply because Olive knew what she had just done. She was wrapped in a hooded cloak. A luscious swathe of velvet. There was no poverty. No working class clothes or practicality, probably no big boots either. No, the woman looked just as soft, fur-lined pockets would feel around your hands. Like being inside them was the most wondrous place imaginable.

The woman’s face stayed hidden; and as the equipment was loaded into the carriage first, she waited to the side. Then it was her turn to step into the carriage. Her movements were fluid and smooth, filled with earthy confidence as if her body was comfortable in the erotic world it inhabited. It was a state that most woman would always recognize and never personally feel.

Olive worried on her lip. She was none of those things. If this was what the women in Jamie’s life looked like…

The air pushed the woman’s perfume from the carriage window across the road as she talked softly to Edgar. A heavenly smell, like no flower and all flowers at once. It should have made dormant blossoms bloom through the cobbled stones.

Olive smelt like herself. The day was busy and the walk here long; she smelt like sweat. Not acrid or strong, but a busy, clean smell. It would not coax anything to bloom.

The carriage door shut and the coachman clipped the horses forward.

As they rolled away, the front door to Jamie’s house closed.

Half in shadow, half in the glow of the street light, she stood frozen on the sidewalk. The tree lined street, the wrought iron fences, with their neatly pruned hedges were a world away from Whitechapel.

What was she thinking?

That moody bookbinder from the workshop, the one she imagined went home alone at night was a myth. The real Jamie Edwards had women floating into his house for erotic photographic sessions all the time. He dealt in sex, had given up a solid bookbinding profession to do more of it.

And, his house, this neighborhood. It said that what he was doing paid well.

Added to her doubts was now the thought that he had stayed away from her, had held back because she was below him. He’d climbed much, much higher than a tradesman, he was wealthy.

Perhaps, she had misread the day in the workshop, as she seemed to have misread his life.

Olive put her hands deep into her coat pockets. The money Evie gave her at the tips of her fingers.

Go home and forget him. He’d forgotten about her. She should do the same.

She turned.

Walked back to the corner of the street. Took one last look at his house and started the long trek back to see if the omnibus was still running.

Who the hell?

Jamie rolled to a sitting position on the couch. Someone was at the front door.

He’d dozed off after the photo session.

Stubble scratched his palms as he rubbed his face and tried to wake up. No one was in the house to answer it except him. Okazaki was in the small house at the back of the garden and knew better than to answer his door at night. No staff stayed overnight; he simply didn’t want people in the house all the time.

The banging came again, determined beats of the doorknocker on the wood echoing through the sparsely furnished foyer below.

Maybe they’d go away. His shoulders ached and the backs of his hands had some rope burns.

The session tonight had been productive, the start of ideas for Paris; however, the pleasure that should have been there wasn’t. Madeline was striking, it was wishful thinking to say she was intuitive in her understanding of the rope, she wasn’t. However, as usual, she rallied for Edgar and as the camera sent it’s blinding flash into the small space she glowed.

With all the tension of the last week, he should have been as hard as nails, could have asked her to stay back. He had in the past, and they’d both enjoyed where he’d taken them, but now…after his taste of Olive, well he just wasn’t interested.

There it was again. Hurried, urgent thumps beat the knocker on the wood and echoed the sound up the stairs. If the door to the small sitting room had been closed, there was a good chance he wouldn’t have woken.

The clock read eleven o’clock as he passed the mantel and left the room. Then he headed down the first flight of stairs, rounded the landing, and descended the last flight. The glass panel above the door let the orange glow of the gaslights into the foyer.

The knocks came again, jarring this close.

Jamie reached over to the umbrella stand and took out a hefty walking stick, braced, and flung the door open.

Her eyes flared and she almost lost her balance as she lurched back.

He stood there, not able to place her here, now.

Some part of him did because his hand reached out and dragged her in, even before the realization sunk in.

“Olive?”

His heart started functioning again and so did his head. It was late. She was walking around at night…in London. Anything, absolutely anything, could have happened to her. She was a beacon to the depraved with all her soft, luminous light.

His stomach roiled.

She stumbled as she stepped in and her brace clicked an arrhythmic staccato as she moved restlessly on the tiles. It flared something fierce in his belly, which flew up into a tight mess in his chest as he closed the door and placed the stick back in the umbrella stand.

Then he turned and confronted her.

“Olive, what were you thinking?”

His hands clasped her shoulders, slim and fragile bones under tender white skin. God damn it, they’d snap in the wrong hands. He shook her hard.

“Answer me, Olive.”

She was too passive as he shook her, her usual gumption missing. He felt a flutter in his chest.

Then his eyes registered her face. She looked wretched. Under his palms, she was freezing cold.

“I,” she shivered. “I’ve been waiting outside.”

His eyebrows came down and his jaw clenched his teeth together.

“Blast it, Olive.” His arms slipped around her back, behind her legs, and lifted her up.

She wriggled.

“I can walk. I’m just cold.”

A spike of anger flashed through him at her ridiculous statement. At her disregard for her wellbeing.

“You’re frozen.”

Then to his satisfaction she rolled into his chest and ran her arms around him sending his heart wild.

He took the stairs two at a time.

She was not light in a full lift, but his proclivities had him fit and strong. You didn’t haul a woman up in rigging for pleasure and not develop some strength.

Satin soft hair rested under his chin.

“This was ill thought out,” he growled into her. “Highly inconvenient to call this time of night, you do realize that?”

Each step up, his heart beat faster; his mind flashed images of her pale skin framed by his bedding. And rope, lots of soft, loving rope, coiled around her, imprinting her flawless porcelain skin with pink rivulets and indents.

Her hands moved up and down his back and she pressed her face into his shirt. It sent shivers through him and a roaring need to make sure she was looked after.

“Mr. Edwards,” she whispered into the cloth, her breath seeping heat onto his chest. “Jamie.”

Fuck, you’re not going to do anything. Nothing.
His conscience needn’t have bothered; he was in full agreement. Warm her up and get her home.

She shivered again, and then didn’t stop.

As if once started, her body was going to shiver and shake to room temperature.

Get her warm.
Right, he could do that. He just needed to keep her out of his bed, out of his studio, and more importantly, get her out of his house as quickly as he could.

“Jamie?”

Her breasts were soft and warm against his chest. There were some wonderful rope ties that made every soft curve of a woman defined, arched her back, and presented her breasts.

Olive curled her hands into his shirt as she pressed her face closer. The women he knew didn’t do that. Didn’t do genuine vulnerability. Didn’t look to him for real sanctuary.

It made something move about in his chest.

“Shhh.” He didn’t trust himself to speak, and she had the good sense not to say any more.

He went up the two flights of stairs and stood her in front of the sofa where he had been dozing. A quick glance and he confirmed the fire could still be resurrected.

“Sit.”

She complied, her face down, her body still shaking. She was cold, but it was also because she was upset.

He went into his bedroom across the landing, pulled the dark duvet from the bed, brought it back, and wrapped her in it.

A perverse pleasure curled around him as he wound her up in his linens.

His smell.

His.

She doesn’t belong with you, let her go.

His jaw tightened. He was torn between two directions.

Her hands grabbed the edges of the bed cover and tugged it closer, wrapping herself tighter.

His head got lighter, and his mind raced ahead to thoughts and images that tightened through his body. Ideas he’d struggled to come up with all night flew into his mind of how he could progress the rope.

Olive avoided his gaze.

This was a crossroad of sorts. It would have taken her quite some time and no small amount of courage to come here, to see where he lived and to still knock on the door.

Jamie walked over to the sideboard. Took two glasses and poured them both a drink.

“This will help.” He placed hers on the small table next to the sofa as she shook and looked down.

“Are you going to avoid looking at me?”

“No.” she sounded indignant at the suggestion yet she still avoiding looking in his direction.

Hell, he’d need some time to gather courage in her shoes.

Jamie drank down the scotch in a few much-needed gulps, put down the glass, and then set about stoking the fire.

Looking back, she had the glass in her hand, her face pulled into a sour grimace.

“Drink it all. It will warm you faster than the cover.”

Smoke wafted into the room and up to the ceiling before the kindling caught. He threw a couple of larger cuts into the flames. The activity gave him something to do. Some time to process her being here. Some time for her to find her next burst of courage.

He had not imagined this possibility, and he had imagined what he thought were all of the possibilities.

She’d surprised him, caught him off guard.

He was agitated at the uncertainty, pleased at her gumption, annoyed at the intrusion and unexpected event, and wishful above his right to be.

Hell, his hands were shaking as he fed the fire.

“How long have you been outside?”

She mumbled something into the quilt.

“How long?” His voice was harsher than he intended.

Olive cleared her throat and straightened her back. “I was outside when they left.”

“They?”

Oh.

“That was hours ago, Olive. If you wanted to see me, why didn’t you come in then?”

But he knew. He could feel it in her, a desolateness despite her brave posture.

“You could have simply left and gone home.”

He stood. Looked back at her as she sat there taking in the room.

“I walked back to the trolley cars. One came but I changed my mind…” her voice was a fragile whisper in the space.

“Have you eaten?”

She nodded. “I found something to eat before I came back.”

A weak woman wouldn’t have found his address and come here. They certainly wouldn’t have walked away and come back again.

He wanted to reach out, cup her cold cheek, and feel the silken skin that covered his Inari Okami, his fox goddess.

He paced in front of her.

“Do you know why they were here?”

She nodded.

That taste in the workshop, as wonderful as it was, had been a mistake. It hadn’t made it easier for him to let go and it seems it had only encouraged her to take her determination to another level.

If he cared fractionally less, he would take what would be mutually enjoyable, but it went deeper than that. She went deeper than that.

He saw her light. He saw the brightness in her. A glowing wondrous thing that spoke to a part of him deep on the inside. Spoke to the man he wanted to be, the man he hoped he was becoming. By letting her go, by pushing her away he was more of that man. A man who sacrificed his own wants to a higher good.

That glowing essence she emitted would be something to behold in anyone, but for a woman who had grown up where she had, had been through what she had, that light was something astoundingly beautiful.

To have all the veils lifted on the hardness of life and within humanity, to see the worst in people, of what life had to offer and still glow.

He didn’t want to somehow make it dull.

Behind him the fire caught; the wood and kindling crackled in the room.

She tugged his bedcover closer to her as he moved around the room. He saw the white creases of her knuckles as she clutched at the cover.

However, there was something else working him as well.

The truth was he was held together by the most fragile of threads, the rituals of his life, of his passion, and the discipline of his mind. She was as shiny and bright as a paring knife.

And, now he had her in his house.

The woman who could fell him.

The woman his secret heart dreamed of; simple, open, and agonizingly beautiful in her ordinary glow.

Upstairs was his attic workroom, his rope, and tools of his pleasure.

Not a far walk for either of them. And a world away if he was to do the right thing… and he would.

Stick to the plan. That was the best course of action for him and for her.

He walked over to where she sat. She wasn’t looking at him just yet. The light picked up the red in her hair small streaks of fire in her auburn locks.

“Warmer?”

“Yes.” She gave a soft cough to clear her voice. “Thank you.”

She was unexpectedly demure, but that didn’t fool him. She was like water that eroded stone.

Jamie slipped his hands into his pockets. He’d touch her if he didn’t and that struck him as particularly dangerous.

Two years he’d tried to put her off, and where were they? They were here, at night, in his house, and him with his hands rammed in his pockets as if that was going to help either of them.

“Isn’t someone waiting up for you? A parent? Family?”

“My sister.” Her eyes met his. “I said I was meeting someone and not to expect me.” Red welted her cheeks.

Oh, God, help him.

His body still remembered the feel of her on his tongue. The taste of her in his mouth. The soft heat of her breast in his hand. The damp satin of her sex.

He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets.

“I’ll get you home.”

Her eyes dropped to his britches. His state was obvious and her color rose.

The inside of his chest hurt. She had no guile whatsoever.

Olive worried on her lip and stared at his shape pressing the fabric of his trousers, growing further in the tight revealing fabric as she stared.

He took a hand out of his pocket and reached out. Her breathing changed as he slid his fingertips across her cheek. The feel of her skin was softer than swan down. Her chin was stubbornness encased in silk as he lifted it so their eyes met.

Her open gaze was a little sad and yet determined; it beat at his heart, challenged him to go where dragons lived. But he wasn’t that kind of man. He was a man who had built rules to keep the dragons out. Rules he intended to keep.

“That’s not for you, Olive.” His voice was quiet in the room.

Hurt flashed across her face, followed fast by that stubborn look of hers, challenging him. Always challenging him, his demure beauty.

“Why? I don’t want to go.”

“Trust me, Olive. This is the best way.”

Olive shrugged away from his hand and pushed the comforter back.

“I know what you like.” Her face was very red now. “Evie told me. I…”

He stepped back.

“Don’t do this, Olive.” Excitement and pleasure, they coursed through him. But he was also determined.

Be that good man.

He needed to be strong for both of them.

“Let me take you home.”

She stood. Her own determination painted on that transparent face of hers.

Then, she launched herself at him.

Fast and strong.

He staggered back as her arms came around him.

The surprise and then the hot, soft feel of her in his arms pressed his resistance to the limit.

She pushed her lips against his.

Their teeth bumped.

The kiss was clumsy, almost funny as it blazed a path straight down to his cock with its honest need.

Every impulse wanted to curl her under him, immobilize her with his weight, and feel the softness of her everywhere.