The Stranger I Loved

How I Want You

Stuart left Rose at the boarding house entrance in a soggy downpour of rain. Each step to her boarding room was like a giant rock which she was hurtling her body over in order to move closer to the next.

Then, atop the stairs, she stopped dead.

Breathless. Utterly wounded and then she felt it there.

Frozen. Still. Beneath a wondrous gaze. With a furnace wind hitting her face, taking with it any remainder of her breath. Drowning in the blue of his eyes.

There is no flight from fate. There never was.

The way her heart went, was as though it had jump started. Back to life. After a decade long sleep. A long decade of drowning within the desires of her own mind. A decade of suffering within a coma which she believed would never end. She was never awakened from.

Now she was awake. Fully.

The tension within his shoulders was evident. The tension within her own body was riveting her to the spot, but somehow sparks were forming in her veins, causing her to tremor.

It was his voice. The velvety, silky way in which he spoke the name, as though he was the only one meant to speak it. Ever.

''Rose...''

With a frightened breath, she spun and went to the green door just ahead of her whilst retrieving the keys to unlock it. The jangling and fumbling told him that she was just as terrified. All the while, Jack wandered about, examining this and that, behaving as though he were an invited guest rather than an interloper who had frightened her out of her wits. Then, he came to stand beside her, bringing with him the scents of rainwater and sandalwood. "Can I help you with that?"

"I am all right." Rose glanced up at him, noting how one lock of hair fell over his forehead, darkened and dripping. With a second twist of the key, the door fell open and almost took her with it due to the fragility of her body. Of her brain. Stumbling within the room which had become her home for a long time, suddenly she was aware of how intimate this was. How they hadn't been alone this way for ten years.

Offering up the linen cloth she used to dry her plates, Rose fought the urge to run her fingers over him. "You should have worn a hat in this downpour.''

His grin grew as he accepted the cloth. The stroke of his fingers against hers felt deliberate and tingly. "I was so far into my own thoughts that I never notice rain." He wiped at his face with quick swipes and ran the cloth over his hair before tossing it onto the nearby table.

Why he should weaken her to the point of breathlessness, she did not know. Perhaps his lips, full and shining, were to blame. Perhaps it was the muscled arms revealed by a coat tailored precisely to his contours. Or the assurance with which he moved, every motion swift and contained, agile and efficient. Rose must tear herself away before something happened. Something irreversible. She dropped her eyes and took up the towel, busying herself with transferring two cups to a sideboard a few feet away. Then, she moved back to the table and began sweeping the surface with more vigour than necessary.

"Are you going to marry him?"

Half-bent over the table, she froze. Then straightened, clutching the towel in her fist. And breathed. In. Out. In. Out.

"I realise how inappropriate it is of me to ask." As usual, his rich baritone sent shivers over her scalp and down her spine.

"No," she managed through a tight throat. "It is an insult to ask. An insult, Jack." She wrung the towel into a knot and threw it at his chest. He caught it without looking. "How could you think such a thing knowing how I feel about you?"