Part One, Chapter Five

Looking at him, watching his expression as he relaxed into the touch of her hand against his face, she remembered back to what he had told her that night in Central Park… how he hadn't regretted being captured by his uncle and subjected to his callousness, because it had brought him to her. Suddenly those words meant much more to her now then they had when she had first heard them.

John moved his head ever so slightly. Causing the skin of his cheek to rub abrasively against her palm. His eyes remained closed as he turned his face far enough into her hand that she could feel the warmth of his breath as it skittered over the tender underside of her wrist. His lips brushing over the speeding pulse point resting there just under the skin.

Her breath caught, and it was all she could do to not pull away from the burning caress of that mouth. It wasn't sexual, she snapped mentally at herself. He was seeking comfort, not sex. He needed the touch of hands that wouldn't try to hurt him. He needed to be close to her, because he needed that sense of safety that he seemed to develop when around her.

But when he opened his eyes and met her gaze, she knew her game of pretending that his contact hadn't affected her was up. With his enhanced senses, he could smell the sudden change in her body. The awareness that had begun to move through her. His mouth was still brushing over her pulse, and she could feel it now beating frantically against the soft finish of his bottom lip. Looking into his eyes and the way they suddenly darkened, she knew he could feel the speed in which her blood had begun to heat.

He became very still. Unmoving. The question lay unasked and unanswered between them. He was waiting for her to pull away. Waiting for her to run for the cover of her rules. But Jane couldn't force herself to break her gaze away from his.

Moving his hand up slowly, he placed it over the back of hers carefully. Cradling it more firmly against the side of his face, watching her all the while for her response, eyes unblinking.

He was being so careful, she suddenly realized. He didn't know what she would expect from him, or what she would allow. And for the first time ever, she felt a pang of guilt over the confusing restrictions she had forced upon him. What harm would it have done to have let him touch her more? Be around her more? Was she not a strong enough individual that she couldn't have kept it from becoming more? Besides, if all he had wanted was to have sex, if that was the only instinct driving him to want to be close to her, then she would have had to fight off more severe advances a long time ago.

He had been lost to the jungle at a very young age, one where memories of human touch had so very easily faded away in the whirlwind of passing time as he fought to stay alive in the most basic ways possible. Then, his first introduction back to human touch had been a painful one at the hands of his uncle. For six months he had been contained and treated like some animal.

Could words ever express what he must have endured emotionally during such a time? She remembered the sight of him sitting on the floor in his 'room' back at Greystoke, rocking himself back and forth, and her throat tightened painfully just thinking about it.

And then they had been brought together, and he had trusted her from the beginning? Why? If she lived to be a hundred, she knew she would never know that answer to that. But maybe… maybe the reason was similar to why she had, in turn, known she had to find him again. Knew she had to help him.

Although damned if she knew what that reason was.

But still, knowing all of that even back then and what he had been through, she hadn't wanted him to touch her. Hadn't wanted to be forced to examine any closer the reactions he was capable of setting off inside her.

So like a child she had run from it, never once truly acknowledging what that perceived rejection was costing him.

He was starved for human contact, one where there wasn't a fear of being hurt again. He'd been trapped in another world for almost his entire life, before being cruelly tossed back into this one.  They both had connected to one another, but her personal fears had cost them greatly. She had wrapped him up so tightly with her rules and beliefs that he had been left struggling to survive and desperately trying to figure out what to do to fill that aching void in his heart.

She had crippled him without realizing it, and now… now he was testing her. Waiting patiently for whatever outcome.

She didn't deserve him. If the situation had been reversed, she doubted she would have been as patient as John had been the past few months.

But she wasn't going to run again. She wasn't going to pull away. Not this time. He needed to touch her… and whether she liked it or not, she needed to be touched. But moreover, she needed to erase that look of pain from his gaze. A pain that she now knew she had a hand in creating.

She had already asked him to trust her... but maybe it was time that she trusted herself.

~*~