Allegiance by Wanda Wiltshire Page B

as they were out the door I was climbing into bed and pulling Jack with me. I needed a serious cuddle. He was quiet for a moment as we lay wrapped around each other—way too quiet for Jack. In fact he’d been quiet all afternoon and I knew why. After a little while he came out with it. ‘Did you mean what you said today?’
    ‘Which bit?’ I asked.
    He looked at me for a moment. I looked back, blinked. He said, ‘That’s okay, I have no problem spelling it out. Did you mean what you said about just accepting this life as your lot?’
    I reached up and pushed his fringe away from his eyes. ‘Not how it sounded.’
    ‘How’d it sound to you? ’Cos to me it sounded like you just came second in the race when you’re used to coming first.’
    ‘I never come first,’ I murmured as I ran my finger around the neckline of his T-shirt.
    ‘You know what I mean.’
    I sighed. ‘I was just disappointed about the whole Lysander thing.’ I slid my hand under his shirt, nudging it up with my forearm. He took the hint and pulled it over his head, dropping it over the edge of the bed. A moment later mine joined it.
    I snuggled myself close but should have known he wouldn’t be so easily distracted. Jack was a thinker and he was thinking hard right now. After another long moment, he said, ‘Say you had a choice—stay here with me, have a couple of kids and grow old together or go back to Faera for your eighteenth and live as the immortal Fae you were born to be.’
    ‘I don’t have a choice.’ I brushed my fingers back and forth across his chest. He stopped them with his own.
    ‘But if you did,’ he insisted.
    I kissed him, his skin warm under my lips. ‘I’d choose you.’
    ‘No you wouldn’t.’ I stopped what I was doing and looked at him. ‘You’d choose Leif.’
    ‘I don’t even remember Leif!’
    ‘That’s not the point,’ he said as he pulled away. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you… I just think you’ve forgotten that I’ve seen you with Leif. You were on fire for him—it burned in your eyes. I want my girlfriend to look at me like that.’
    ‘I don’t even remember any of that!’
    ‘But I do and I’d be a fool to believe you’d choose me over him. And I’m not a fool.’
    ‘I’m not so sure about that right now. You’ve got me half naked in your arms and all you can do is go on about my ex!’
    ‘There was magic between the two of you. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I don’t think I would have believed it.’ He paused. ‘I just don’t know if what we’re doing is… right.’
    ‘Where is this even coming from?’ I was angry now—with Jack, with Leif, but mostly with myself. I’d suspected Jack was feeling this way and I hadn’t done a thing about it. ‘Is this just because you perceive my relationship with Leif as being more powerful than my relationship with you?’
    ‘I don’t perceive it, I know it.’
    ‘That’s crap, Jack!’
    ‘You don’t feel the same for me as you did for him.’ I could hear the determination in his voice. It made me madder.
    ‘How do you know what I feel? I love you, Jack!’
    ‘Would you make love with me?’
    His words stopped me with the force of running into a wall. I swallowed hard, wondering what to say next.
    ‘It’s a question, not a proposition,’ he added quietly.
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘So… would you?’ He was watching me closely.
    ‘I don’t know if I’m ready, Jack.’
    ‘You were ready enough with Leif. He practically had to beat you off with a stick, and you’ve been with me a lot longer than you were with him.’ I opened my mouth but he didn’t let me speak. ‘Don’t even try to deny it.’
    I couldn’t deny it, because I couldn’t even remember it. All I knew was that I loved Jack. I blinked the prickle that was beginning in my eyes away as I placed my hand just beneath his ribs. Then I slid my fingers slowly down his body. I let them rest for a moment just below his belly button while I gathered my