“Then why is the bed shaking?”
“It’s not.”
She moved her arm, sighed and propped herself up on her elbow so she was looking down at him, eyes wide open. “Liar.” Then she smiled, and the look melted him.
Something inside him loosened, and he could breathe. “Am I so easy to read?”
Rachel dropped bonelessly onto her pillow before rolling onto her back. “I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone more difficult to read than you.”
Compulsion drove him to touch her, so he laid his hand on the bare skin just below her exposed breast. “You never did show me that satin number you picked up.”
She groaned. “My body rejects your suggestion that it rise and retrieve the aforementioned unmentionable just to satisfy your curiosity.”
“Spoken like a lawyer.”
“Layman’s terms? You can see it later.”
“Isn’t it a bit early to cry off with a headache.”
She snorted. “I didn’t say I had a headache. I said I wasn’t getting up.”
“How quickly the romance fades.”
She laughed. “Your early-morning attempts at humor require me to be caffeinated.”
“Do you know that I’ve smiled more since I met you than I have in...well, in a long, long time?”
“I wondered.”
Reaching out, he finger-combed the flyaway bits of her hair that sleep had mussed. “Why?”
“It didn’t seem like a normal response for you at first.”
“And now?”
“You tell me.”
“It feels good.”
She leaned into his hand, and he instinctively cupped her cheek. “You should smile more. It suits you.”
But did it? Really?
She was the catalyst for his smiles and laughter. When she was out of reach? Nothing else seemed to move him the same way she did. And she did it with such grace. So effortlessly.
He sat up and scrubbed his hands through his hair.
“Isaac?”
“I...” He swallowed hard enough he was sure she heard him. What could he say that wouldn’t be an utter lie? That life had stolen his joy, his humor, when it robbed him of his brother? That he didn’t feel he had a right to laugh because he’d stolen that gift from his parents, as well? That he’d become entombed in a gilded cage of his own design where love and laughter weren’t part of the decor? All of those things sounded like pathetic excuses, yet each and every one was anchored in truth.
“Isaac?” she asked, softer this time. She pushed back the covers, sat up and kneeled before him, naked save for the riotous tumble of hair cloaking her shoulders. “Talk to me. Please.”
The pang in his heart wroughtby her plea hurt more than it should have given how little time they had known each other. And yet, for all that, he found words welling up in his chest, tumbling over each other in a rush to be the first spoken, the first heard.
“I don’t typically smile or laugh, Rachel. I haven’t in years.”
Leaning forward, she rested her hand on his bicep. “But why, Isaac? Why punish yourselfby omitting joy from your life?”