Page 49 of Save Me (Maxton Hall #1)

James

Her eyes widen at my words. I roll off her, pulling her with me so that we end up both lying on our sides, able to look at each other.

I leave my hand on her waist, stroking her there.

I want to touch her everywhere, right now, forever.

I’ve missed her so much it’s almost killed me, and now it feels as though there’s air in my lungs for the first time in weeks.

But I have to do this right. I’m not taking the risk of losing Ruby just because I can’t bring myself to tell her what’s wrong with me.

Why I am the way I am, and why I make decisions that hurt us both so much.

It’s hard to find the right words, especially as the fear that she’ll never forgive me is constricting my throat. I don’t know what I’d do then.

Ruby looks at me calmly, waits. Her hair is messed up, and her cheeks and lips are red. She’s so beautiful that, when I eventually clear my throat, I have to look away and stare at my hand on her waist.

“I told you that I’m joining the company after my A levels. And…it’s important to my parents to have a wife at my side—the right kind of partner. To them, it’s part of the deal. They’d ideally like to get me engaged to someone right away, so that nothing can go wrong.”

Ruby makes an indefinable sound, and as I look up, she screws up her nose. It’s good to know that she doesn’t like that idea—after all, I can’t imagine what I’d do if Ruby’s parents wanted to get her linked up with someone who wasn’t me.

“Right from the start, you’ve been so special to me.

I’ve changed. I didn’t even notice it myself, but my friends and family certainly did.

I’ve had weeks of them asking me what’s wrong, why I’m miles away the whole time and all that.

When my dad saw us together in the workshop, he had an inkling.

And then he caught us on Halloween…” I gulp, hard. “Then he was sure of it.”

“Is that why you had a split lip? Did he hit you?” she asks, cautiously lifting her fingers to my mouth. The place where she bit me is still throbbing—but not in a bad way.

“Yes,” I say quietly. I’ve never spoken to anyone about my father before.

Not even Lydia; she sees a lot, but even she doesn’t know everything.

I’m sure my friends guess what our home life is like, but they never mentioned it if I turn up at theirs with a black eye or a fat lip.

It’s as though there came a point when we decided that the subject doesn’t exist for us, and everyone sticks to that. Which I often find very convenient.

“Does he often hit you, James?” Ruby whispers.

I can’t answer her, especially not when she’s looking at me with that much sympathy in her eyes. This isn’t what this is all about. All I want is to explain to her why I treated her like shit—which is one hundred percent my own fault, however hard my situation might be.

“That’s not the point,” I answer belatedly. My voice has taken on a raw edge, and I have to cough again. “Anyway, my parents saw you as a threat. They noticed how much you matter to me. Way more than the fucking company.”

Something in Ruby’s eyes changes. She looks so intense and penetrating that I get the feeling she can see right into my soul.

There’s no possibility of hiding from her—and at this moment, I realize that I don’t even want to.

My parents were right to be worried. Ruby is dangerous to them, and to everything they’ve planned for me and my future.

I can’t believe I’m only just realizing this.

I’m in love with Ruby Jemima Bell.

My feelings for her are all-encompassing and overwhelming and not going away, no matter how I try to ignore them—that’s been only too clear to me in the last few weeks. Ruby crept into my life, wreaked total havoc, and now she deserves a place amid the chaos she’s created.

I don’t care who I have to fight, and I don’t care if my father kicks me out onto the street.

Lydia once asked me if Ruby was worth all the stress.

I let everyone and everything around me influence me into believing that she wasn’t.

That was the stupidest decision I ever made, and I hate myself for having pushed Ruby away like that.

I know that I can’t take it back, but I have to at least try.

“You’re right—I really don’t know what I want from life. Everything has always been preordained for me—what I have to do, what I’m not allowed. Sometimes it feels like I’m an extra in a script that’s been written for me, one where I can’t change a thing.”

Ruby grumbles quietly.

“After my dad caught us, he lost it. In his eyes, there’s no question of me spending time with anyone who doesn’t match up to his ideas about my life.”

My words make her flinch almost imperceptibly, and I immediately take her hands in mine and hold them tight.

“That made me think about what life would be like for us in the future, and all I could see were problems. My parents act like dictators when it comes to their kids’ lives.

And you…you told me back then that you were planning for a successful career.

I couldn’t bear the idea of my dad getting in your way just because it didn’t suit him for you to be with his son.

I was shit-scared because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

I’d never be able to protect you from him. ”

My heart is pounding in my throat. I know perfectly well that I sound pathetic and idiotic, but I want to be honest with her. At any cost.

“You’re going to conquer the world, Ruby. And you need to be with someone who’ll support you along the way and whose family welcomes you with open arms. But I can’t offer you that. I can’t offer you anything but a heap of problems that I have no idea how to solve.”

Ruby looks at me in silence, and I don’t even dare breathe. I’m expecting her to get up and walk out of the room without a word. I’d deserve that, I know. But she makes no moves to leave. Instead, she leans forward and presses her lips onto mine.

I’m so stunned that I don’t kiss her back.

“Ah, James,” she murmurs. She frees her hand from mine and runs it over my chest until it’s lying on my heart. “You stupid, bloody idiot…”

OK, I wasn’t expecting that.

“Why are you wasting time worrying about the future when we have the present?” she asks quietly.

“Because you deserve better. My future is going to be shit. Yours doesn’t have to be.”

She squeezes my cheeks. “That’s not true,” she whispers fiercely. “You have just as many options as everyone else. You only have to take them, James.”

I love it when she says my name. Her voice wraps gently around the letters, and I wish I could shut my eyes and ask her to say it again.

“Why didn’t you just tell me all this?” she asks, shaking her head. “Instead of pushing me away with no explanation.”

I can see pain in her eyes, the pain my behavior must have caused her. I lay my hand on top of hers and link our fingers on my chest. “I’m so sorry, Ruby. I really thought we were better off without each other.”

“It didn’t feel better ,” she whispers hoarsely. “You ghosted me, and then gave me the biggest brush-off in the history of the world.”

“I know. God, Ruby. I’m so sorry.”

I shut my eyes. I don’t know what I’ll do if she won’t forgive me. If she decides that the stress I’ve brought into her life is too much. If I can never be as close to her again as I am now.

I hold her hand tight, press it to my heart, which is pounding like crazy, and I don’t have the guts to look at her.

“James,” Ruby says. She starts to pull her hand away, and I want to cling on to it, but I know that I don’t have the right. If Ruby wants to leave, I have to let her. But then I feel her fingers in my hair. She runs her hand gently over my head, again and again.

I don’t know how long we lie there like this, but I’m scared to move, afraid of destroying the moment. Seeing Ruby this close is the best feeling in the world. I’d give up everything for it. I don’t know why it took me this long to realize that.

“James,” Ruby murmurs again, after a long time. She kisses my temple. “It’s OK. I forgive you.”

I take a deep breath to mumble another apology but freeze as the meaning of her words gets through to me. I open my eyes. Ruby has leaned back slightly and is looking at me with steady eyes.

“What?” I ask, my voice rough.

“It’s OK. I forgive you,” she repeats slowly, stroking my ribs.

“That doesn’t mean I’ll forget the way you behaved.

If you ever do a thing like that again…” She shrugs vaguely.

When I take in what she just said and see her cautious smile, the relief that I feel is almost overwhelming.

I wrap my arms around her, pull her close to my body, and murmur breathlessly into her lips, “I won’t. I won’t, I promise.”

Then I kiss her.

I try to use the kiss to show her how grateful I am and to share all the whirling emotions inside me.

Ruby rolls on top of me, and I hold her tight.

She teases me with her tongue and strokes it over my still-throbbing lower lip.

A growl sounds from deep in my chest and I suck on her tongue, so that now it’s she who gasps.

I have no idea how we got here, but in this second, I feel like I’m flying, not falling. Ruby forgives me. She forgives me, and she’ll stay in my life.

The next moment, she pulls her lips away from me and starts to unbutton my shirt.

“What are you doing?” I ask hoarsely.

“Undressing you.”

She carries on until the last button is undone and she has a full view of my naked torso.

She bites her lip and touches my stomach, hesitantly at first and then a bit more boldly.

The look with which she’s devouring my body makes me glad of the many hours of extra training I’ve put in over the last month.

Ruby leans down and kisses a trail over my stomach, and I inhale sharply. Then I can suddenly feel her tongue against my waistband, and I lean up on my elbows. “What are you doing?”