Lucky Stars (Ghosts and Reincarnation #5)(37)
Author: Kristen Ashley

She looked in his eyes to see they were still slightly heavy with sleep but nonetheless alert. She couldn’t read them but she felt a curl of fear all the same.

So her eyes moved to his ear.

When they did, he murmured, “That’s a good sign.”

She didn’t know what he meant but she also was not going to ask.

“Um, I’m finding this a bit weird,” she confided to his ear.

“Too bad. I have three things to say to you and you’re going to listen. Only then can you get out of bed and start your day.”

“Oh… kay,” she replied hesitantly, hoping with all her heart this would be fast and relatively painless.

He was weirding her out!

“First, if you even see Miles, you get away from him and you call me immediately.”

That curl of fear did an ugly little twist.

“What does that mean?” Belle asked.

“This isn’t question time, Belle. This is me talking to you, you listening and giving a definitive indication that you understand exactly what I’m saying to you.”

Belle went silent and just stared.

Definitely weirding her out.

“Do you understand what I just said to you?” he enquired.

She understood.

Oh boy, did she.

All she could do was nod.

“Good. Second, you’re avoiding me and it’s pissing me off. I didn’t ask you to move here so you could enjoy the seaside. I asked you to move here so I could share in the experience of your pregnancy.”

“Actually, you didn’t ask at all. You told –” Belle started to correct him but then clamped her mouth shut when his brows drew together in a scary way.

When he was assured she wouldn’t be foolish enough to utter another word, he continued.

“You’ll spend time with me. You’ll eat breakfast with me. You’ll eat dinner with me. If you’re in the mood for a walk and I’m in the house, you’ll find me and, if I can, I’ll go with you. I’ll take you to your shop. When you’re finished, you’ll phone and I’ll come and pick you up.”

As he spoke, Belle realised she was having difficulty breathing.

“Now, is that understood?” he finished.

“James –” she whispered and his eyes started glittering with anger so she stopped speaking (she didn’t know what she was going to say anyway).

“You called me Jack yesterday,” he informed her tersely.

Did she?

She didn’t remember that.

“I did?” she was still whispering.

“Yes, you did,” he returned.

“Oh,” she breathed, his eyes cut to her mouth and for some strange reason, his face darkened (this, she found, his face did a lot at the weirdest times) before his eyes came back to hers.

“Apparently, if I kiss you, you’ll call me by my f**king name.”

She didn’t want to be reminded of that kiss. In fact, last night, when her mind wasn’t occupied with worrying about Joy (and, she had to admit, James, and, she further had to admit, Miles), it had been occupied with doing anything but thinking about that incredibly delicious, mind-blowing kiss.

Therefore, in an attempt not to discuss the kiss, she did something unwise.

“I thought your name was James,” she said and she was still whispering but, even so, she’d forgotten to keep quiet because his eyes narrowed unhappily.

Therefore, she again clamped her mouth shut.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” he muttered.

She knew he was ignoring her idiot comment and talking about his kissing her causing her to call him Jack and her eyes grew round at what that might mean.

She vowed (silently) never to call him James again and kept her peace.

“Now, give me some indication that you understand the second point,” he demanded.

Belle nodded again.

“Excellent,” he clipped, sounding like it was not “excellent” at all and then he kept talking. “My last point stems from our discussion yesterday. Regardless of what you witnessed between Miles and I in the stables, what happened between you and I four months ago was not an act. Miles may have been competing for you but I wasn’t. You clearly don’t realise how offensive your accusation was when you made it the morning after the night we shared. If you did realise, you wouldn’t speak of it as it’s no less offensive now. You won’t speak of it again.”

Belle was finding it hard not to pant at the low and rumbly tone of his voice.

It was a variation on the voice he’d used when he promised her she could trust him.

It was also very like the voice he’d used when he’d threatened his brother right before he beat the crap out of him.

This suggested to her there was not only feeling behind his words but deep emotion.

And she didn’t know how to take that.

She had no chance to figure it out, he spoke again.

“Do I make myself understood?” he asked.

Without hesitation, she nodded again.

“I’ll be unhappy if we have to discuss any of this again,” he told her and she wondered what he meant by “unhappy” considering he seemed very unhappy at that precise moment.

“We won’t have to discuss it again,” she promised.

He stared at her so hard even though she wanted to, she couldn’t move her eyes from his.

Then she felt him relax beside her.

“Good,” he murmured.

She was about to ask him if she could get out of bed but his chin dipped down, his eyes trailing her body and he shifted slightly back. His gaze stopped at the small bump at her belly and his hand went to rest there, heavy and hot.

Belle caught her breath at the intimacy of this gesture and fought against the return of pleasant, cosy, safe feeling she had when she’d woken.

“Does he move?” Jack asked gently.

Belle knew instantly she had a new Jack and this one sounded like the loving one.

She steeled herself against how much she liked the gentle, loving James Bennett and she steeled herself against the magnetic pull he emitted when he was in this mood.

“No, he hasn’t moved yet,” she answered and Jack’s eyes came back to hers but his hand didn’t leave her belly.

“You think he’s a he?” Jack asked and she nodded.

“But I don’t want to know. I want to be surprised,” she told him. “You can know if you want.”

His gaze moved back to her belly as he murmured, “I don’t want to know.”

Belle swallowed at the sweet sensation his murmur caused and was about to ask if she could get out of bed again mainly because she really needed to get out of bed.