Leah
Fuck, what had I done? I'd spent so much time trying not to want Renaud, that I didn't realize he'd stopped being that person to me. He was Jacob to me, and now it was all too late. Now, I'd found a way to actually separate myself from him, and that plan was in motion. Irrevocable motion. And I wanted nothing more than to stop it.
"Jacob," I yelped, saying his name in my mind and not the usual Renaud.
He regarded me inquisitively. There was doubtless a strange tone in my voice. But I didn't know what to say.
So I said nothing.
How did I manage this? I'd fought so hard to find a home of my own, and now I'd be leaving the only home I'd known. Him.
"What were your parents like?" I would ask him a question. It would throw us both off guard. I knew when he inhaled that I'd sufficiently shifted the situation from my little outbreak to the focus being on another one of my prying questions. Why couldn't I accept that there were things that Jacob didn't want to talk about?
I knew why now...
Because I wanted all of him. And now I was practically mocking that with this question.
He ran his thumb up my arm, stroking a line while he took measured breaths.
"My mother was my father's muse. My father was an artist, and a rarity at that, he was rather wealthy," Jacob said as if he remembered something very specific though saying very vague things.
Of course, I would pry. My curiosity wouldn't have it any other way.
"Is that where you started noticing things you'd steal for fun?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"It was when I started to think I wanted to be an artist. There was a passion between my parents, her the subject and him the artist. I realized, after much toiling, that she was as much the art as the artist's canvasses were." I noted that distant look in his eyes and his words twisted in my stomach. "I gave up creating art, but I didn't get a taste for stealing it until much later. I didn't even make use of any of my father's contacts when I started doing art thief gigs. I run in much higher circles than he ever did."
I couldn't quite place the emotions playing over Jacob's face. I ran my hand over his face, his eyes closing and accepting my touch. How did I have this titan of a man so gentle in my hands?
How had I not realized that I didn't want to let this all go? I wanted to scream at how much I wanted to stop everything I'd set in motion. What could I do now?
I sucked in a breath of my own, planting a kiss on each of his closed eyelids. I rested my head on his chest.
Jacob started to stroke my hair. It was a gentle, comforting move that seemed like the most natural thing in the world to him. The man who had done so many things to my body was undoing my heart with a simple weaving of his fingers into my hair. "Did you know your mother?" Jacob asked me.
"Not really. My father gave her money to keep me, and she had no interest in me. She just moved on after the payday,” I said, my voice small. I had always been something to be bought and sold, and I'd fought against this, now to my own peril. Suddenly, the warmth of Jacob's embrace wasn't enough to keep me from the chills I felt. I knew that once he discovered my betrayal, he was going to hate me forever, rightfully. I deserved that. I didn't deserve to be in his arms. I couldn't bear the hate that I felt inside. I had let down the one man that I'd actually wanted to own me. I did now. I don't know who I am without him, and I thought that I was going to find out. Now, I can't even bring myself to pull myself out of his embrace. Jacob holds me tighter and thinks I'm just cold, probably, but I can't stop them, and the tears are falling now. I want to hide them, but they're already streaking down my cheeks and wetting his shirt.
"Leah?" Jacob asks me, his voice thick with passion. I feel his cock hard beneath me, and I know he wants me. He always wants me. I let out a small laugh. I thought that could never change, yet here I am, ruining us. I want our goodbye kiss to be a good one, though. I tell myself that I should let myself have this moment with him, and then I'll be gone. He will never forgive me. Never want me again. So I have to savor this moment with him.
His thumb is capturing my tears but can't keep up with the sobs that wrack my body. I want him. I don't want him to ask me what's wrong. I don't want him to care. I want him to hate me and cast me aside. I want him to tell me that I'm not worth owning. I've betrayed him, like a bad dog that though he's fed and cared for still bites him. I rebelled against everything he gave me. I treated him like he was everyone else in my life, but he was different. He wasn't just claiming me, owning me, he was giving himself to me. And I'd thrown that all away without noticing that I was doing exactly the wrong thing.
"Are you okay?" Jacob kissed my forehead. My throat was scratchy from crying, and I couldn't speak. "Baby girl," he breathed into my hair.
I grabbed his face with both of my hands, pulling him to me and kissing him deeply. I poured my soul from my lips to his, emptying myself in him. I wanted to take everything in me that loved him and hide away in him. Keep me safe from myself.
"Leah-" Jacob broke the kiss and held my face up to his, forcing me to look into his eyes. "Talk to me," he said. He could have thought this was just about our conversation, but I felt my face heat. My cheeks were red enough to reveal my traitorous ways, I was certain of it. "Tell me what's wrong."
Well, not enough to reveal everything. I should have manned up and told him right then what I'd done. That I'd be gone tomorrow and that Interpol would be after him. I'd given them damning evidence about several of his crimes, and they were high profile. I'd told them that he'd bought me from my father. They said they were going to take Renaud down. And when I'd delivered that final piece of evidence, I'd felt how I didn't want to do it. The officer told me that it was normal that I'd feel conflicted, but that he was going to protect me. Peter Willoughby, the same name, and initials of my father. He should have made me feel safe. The way that he looked at me, how he wanted to save me, that should have felt right. But I knew. The conflicted feelings that I felt weren't about my need for making sense of my captivity. Jacob had told me, I was not trading one cage for another. He gave me every opportunity to have a life, and I fought against it. I saw now that Jacob's world, it may not have been that different from my father's world on the surface, but Jacob was a good man. He was my good man, and I'd thrown him to the wolves, condemning him as if he was a monster like my father.
I remembered Jacob telling me he was a bastard. That it was why he'd never be like another lover would be. I'd never had another lover. But I thought I was the bastard now. Not him. Jacob had given me everything in him. I closed my eyes and said nothing, the silence between us sealing my sentence as much as his.
He would probably be sent to some horrible prison, made to be an example to other powerful men. I would be forced to live with what I did forever.
Because if I called Inspector Willoughby right now, what would he say? Oh, you love him and none of what you told us matters?
As if. Jacob Renaud was a criminal, and a powerful one. Yet, I'd help them build exactly the kind of case that could get him in serious trouble.