For All Time by J.M. Powers

Author:J.M. Powers [Powers, J.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: contemporary romance
Publisher: Breathless Press
Published: 2013-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Sage’s honesty touched him. This woman was from a different time. Perchance ‘twas acceptable to live with a man without marriage in New York.

A pang of jealousy—nay ‘twas fury pulsing through him at the thought of another man touching her. Now she bowed her head in shame.

He cupped her chin and raised her face. “Ye are not pure?”

She swallowed hard and blinked back tears. “I should go home.” She wrenched her chin from his hand and looked away.

“Can ye explain? Do ye work at a tavern in New York?”

Her eyes widened and she took several steps back. “Are you effing kidding me? You think I’m some kind of whore?”

“N-nay.” Damnation, the man in him wished to know. “”It matters naught if ye are, for I love ye.”

Her hands fisted at her sides and tears pooled in her blue eyes. He no longer saw her breath in the air. Was she holding it to keep from crying?

He took her hand and she stared at it, neither grasping it nor pulling away.

Her whisper was so soft, he could not hear her.

“Pray tell?”

She looked up at him and swiped the tears with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe you think of me like that.”

She grabbed her cur’s scruff and squared her shoulders. “Send me home.”

He searched for something to say. Angels above, had he ruined everything? “Curiosity is an evil thing sometimes. And I never should have allowed it to enter something so true.” Hope dwindled when she let her hand slip from his. He must make amends for his mistake. “In my ignorance, I faltered, and beg forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness?” She seemed to mull it over.

“Sage, ye could be a scullery maid, a stable hand, a mistress to a king, yet I would still love thee.”

She sniffled. “You want a virgin. You said as much.”

He watched her tears fall to the ground. Hell’s teeth, how they wounded him. And the oaf who took advantage of her deserved death. But wasn’t his thought to take her right here in the alley? Was he any better than that man? Sage touched more than his heart, she captured his soul. The stone brought him to her. It could not be wrong. His heart could not be wrong.

“I found ye—’tis meant to be. I want naught more.” Many times he had bedded women, but never had his heart been involved. Mayhap ‘twas the same for her. Though she said she had bedded one man, she did not wed him. She did not love the damn cad. She said as much... Had she not?

“You turned Margery away because she isn’t pure.” Her breath came in tatters

“I turned her away because I doth not love her.” Gods! She cared for him, or she would not care what he thought of her.

She shrugged. “I never should’ve mentioned her. It really doesn’t matter.”

Oh, but it did. The furrows etched on her brow told him as much. He ran his hand through his hair. How could he convince Sage she was an angel compared to that wench? He never should have put a condition of purity on their love.

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