“My father wasn’t always a bad man.”
Jake’s head jerks up and a look passes between us. I can see he’s trying to remember all the good about his own father, too.
“Can I have a drink?” I mutter.
“Christ, yes.”
He crosses the room to the drinks cabinet in the corner, his long stride covering the distance in no time. I hear the sound of liquid sloshing into a glass, and then something brown and pungent is thrust into my hand. His skin brushes against mine, and I watch our fingers reaching out for one another. It’s instinctive, as if they were separate entities entirely.
Transferring my drink to the coffee table, Jake collapses onto the couch next to me, my right hand now firmly embedded in his left. Neither of us seems willing to let go.
“You won’t leave?” I sound so scared and vulnerable.
His grip on me tightens. “Never.”
Will he take on my past? Is he strong enough for the both of us?
“In case you hadn’t noticed, my mother was, and still is, a social climbing bitch,” I begin quietly. “My father was never good enough, and she constantly punished him for it. They married when she was young, and I came along soon after. He loved her, but she put him through hell.” I grind to a halt, struck by the parallels in our lives again. Both our fathers had been tormented and ultimately failed by our mothers.
“What happened?” murmurs Jake.
“He snapped.” I glance down at our hands again. “He found my mother in bed with my future stepfather, David. It was the final humiliation. He ran up to my room and set about breaking the one thing my mother cared about almost as much as money.”
“You,” says Jake harshly.
“Me.” I reach out for my glass and take a large sip of whiskey, choking as the liquid scorches a hole in the back of my throat. “He was rough, grabbing my wrists and throwing me into the back of the car. He didn’t care. To him, I was nothing more than an extension of her. He probably didn’t even think I was his. My mother had never been faithful.”
“Where did he take you?” Jake’s voice is like stone.
“Some deserted farm. He kept me there for five days.”
“Where the hell were the police? Why the hell didn’t they find you sooner?” He’s on his feet and pacing now. He’s all fire and vengeance on behalf of a six-year-old girl who was all alone and scared to death. He hasn’t even heard the worst part yet.
“My father drank all day. Every day. But he never took his eyes off me. He wouldn’t let me sleep or eat. Some days the hint of a conscience flashed across his face. On those occasions he just drank more.”
Jake stops pacing. “Did he touch you?”
“Not like that. He got his kicks from mental torture instead.”
“What about the gun? Tell me about the gun.”
“How did you—”
He knows. Of course he does. Any man who hires a team of professionals to follow me around would have delved into my past. But when? At what part in our relationship did he uncover my dirty little secret?
“After Morocco,” he says roughly, answering my unspoken question. “Those nightmares you were having.” He shakes his head at the memory. “There had to be a reason why you kept on pressing that self-destruct button. I had to know.” He drops to his knees in front of me, clasping my hands to his chest. His heart is like rolling thunder beneath his shirt.
“Is that the reason you were so cold to me in London?” I whisper. “Knowing what you do about me?”
“Fuck, no.” He looks furious at my insinuation. “I convinced myself you had enough to deal with. You didn’t need all my shit, as well. I came to London because I couldn’t keep away from you. This last week has been hell. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t sleep. I missed you so fucking much. Besides, nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to demote Brad by phone.” He turns my hands over and gently presses his thumbs into my palms. “Come to bed with me, Charlie. I want to consume you, take your pain away. Make you feel secure and wanted. Let me love you. It’s the only way I know how to do that.” He presses his lips to mine, and I can feel his strength bleeding into my mouth. It tastes like paradise.
“What about your business?” I say, breaking away to trace his jaw with my fingertips.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“I’ve broken another rule,” I confess softly.
“You mean the don’t-ever-drag-your-producer-to-hell-and-back-just-because-he’s-a-stubborn-bastard one?” He leans into my touch and gifts me a faint smile.
I shake my head. “It’s more of a never-fall-in-love-with-your-producer kind of one.”
A strange emotion crosses his face as my words hit home. Please don’t let it be regret.
I’d be a fool to think I’m the first woman to love him, but I need to count myself among them now. It’s suddenly vital that he knows how much he means to me.
He reaches out and brushes my long bangs out of my eyes. “I guess that means you’re not mad at me anymore?”
I shake my head again. “Not this time.”
“Do you want to stand still with me?”
I bite my bottom lip and nod.
“Even though we have earthquakes in California?”
“I’m pretty good at keeping my balance.”
Jake’s lips start to twitch. “I’m pleased to hear it.” He guides me to my feet and lifts me into his arms. “I don’t want you waiting around to be someone’s else’s moment, Charlie. Not when you’re mine.”
I rest my head against the crease of his neck as he walks with me to his bedroom. It’s a masculine space with white walls and dark furniture. I’ve been here before, but so much has happened over the last few months. I’ve changed. We’ve changed. Tonight, I’m here as his lover, not as his one-night stand.
He lowers my feet back to the floor and slowly removes my clothes, one item at a time. “You may think you’re broken, but I only see the bravest fucking woman I’ve ever met.”
“Kiss me.” I’m desperate to feel his lips on mine again.
“All good things come to those who wait, and I’ve been waiting a long time for someone like you.” He steps back to remove his own clothes. As he does, I catch teasing glimpses of bronzed skin in the moonlight. His upper body is flawless, exactly how I remember it—broad shoulders, carved chest, tapered waist. When he unzips his pants, he’s hard and ready. My desire for him reaches fever pitch.
“I need you, Jake.”
“Then get on the bed and show me how much.”
I scrabble backward to comply, never disconnecting from the lust in his eyes. I part my thighs wide, grinding my heels into the mattress. I’ve bared my soul to him, and now it’s time to bare my body.
“Fuck.” He whistles. “You’re too beautiful.”
I close my eyes as he trails a finger from one hipbone to the other before skating downward. A low hiss escapes from his lips. “I’m going to worship every part of you tonight. By morning, there won’t be an inch of your body that hasn’t been fucked or kissed.” As if to prove his point, he drops his mouth to my lower stomach, making my insides clench.
Warm and wet, his lips are moving downward, licking and tasting and igniting my core. But it’s not enough. I need to feel him inside me. I need the strength of our connection. He seems to sense it, too, because he dips between my legs and slowly eases into me.
“I’ve missed this,” he says with a groan, sliding in even deeper as I lift my hips to meet him. “We’ll make this work. We have to. We don’t have a choice anymore.”
I spread my legs wider, and he buries himself to the hilt. The fierce, possessive look on his face only intensifies the spell he’s weaving over me. I’m raw and undone by the outpouring of my emotions tonight.
“Love me.” He molds his mouth to mine, a demand so h
arsh and needy that another wave of wetness soaks my core.
He moves at a breakneck pace. Urgent and uninhibited, like me. We’re using our bodies to communicate just how much we want to heal each other.
Without warning, he pulls out of me and flips me onto my front. He pushes my knees up to my chest and slams into me from behind.
“Jake!” I cry, clutching wildly at the sheets. That familiar sensation is building, building, and spreading like wildfire throughout my pelvis.
“You feel so good, Charlie. So. Fucking. Good.”
I’m blown apart by his words. My cry turns into a sob as I shatter around him. In the moments that follow, it feels like he’s consuming every part of me, just as he promised. The hurts of my past splinter all around us like broken glass.
My present, Jake, has overridden it all.
Chapter Fifty
I’m lying on my front and Jake is lying next to me, his left leg thrown carelessly over my thighs. Propped up on one elbow, he’s lightly running his fingers up and down my back.
“I could lie here forever touching you.” His fingers delve deeper under the top sheet. He’s circling the base of my spine, and I can feel that insistent, telltale buzz between my legs again. “Tell me more about the gun,” he asks suddenly.
I tense, all thoughts of pleasure forgotten. “Not now,” I beg him. “I can’t—”
“No more secrets, Charlie.”
I turn away and hug the pillow to my face. The pain that he’d managed to banish is slowly creeping back into my consciousness. I shut my eyes to block out the images, but they’re too powerful to ignore.
“He kept it in his hands the whole time. An old-fashioned wheel gun. He’d make me play these sick games…” My voice turns into a sob and Jake pulls me back into his arms.
“Easy,” he croons, gently stroking my hair. “I’ve got you. Take all the time you need.”
“He’d load a single bullet and then spin the chamber ten times. Always ten. He’d make me count.” My voice is devoid of emotion now. “We’d take turns. He’d point the gun at me and fire, and then hold the barrel to his own head.”
Jake’s grip on me tightens but he doesn’t interrupt.
“He’d do this three times every evening. It was like a sick ritual. On the fifth night, his luck ran out before mine.”
I stop there. There are few ways to describe the horror of watching your father blow his brains out, or to describe an aftermath, equally as bloody, of shattered innocence and a lasting legacy of guilt and mistrust.
“My mother was crushed, of course,” I say bitterly. “She blamed herself, and so did I. I was unmanageable, disrespectful. I couldn’t stick to anything. Books were my only comfort, the more angst-ridden the better. If I could lose myself in someone else’s pain, I didn’t have to feel my own.”
“God, Charlie.”
“I was smart, so my grades were good, but I wielded my grief and trauma like a talisman. It was my fallback excuse for all my shitty behavior. I didn’t care. In my mind, I’d lost both parents that day.”
Jake turns me back around and snags my falling tears with the pad of his thumb. “So strong,” he murmurs.
“I don’t disgust you?”
“How could you even think that?”
“Because…” I say, fresh tears welling up. “If my own father could treat me like that, I can’t be worth loving.”
“Bullshit.” Jake silences my painful admission with an all-consuming kiss. “You deserve all of my love and respect, now and forever.”
“I’m sorry I kept pushing you away in Morocco. I didn’t want the press finding out about my history.”
“You should have trusted me.”
“You should have trusted me,” I counter gently. “I know all about Brad sleeping with Cassie.”
“I couldn’t give a shit about Cassie. As far as I’m concerned, he did me a favor. Before you came along, I didn’t care about any of the women. There were many—too many,” he admits reluctantly.
“And Sienna?” I hold my breath as I say her name.
“An infatuation that fell afoul of my stepfather’s malevolence. We were nineteen. I loved her. He seduced her. She was just another game to him, an opportunity to slap me back into my place. A chance to ruin me as he’d ruined my father. I did some stupid stuff afterward.” Jake flashes the small silver scar on his wrist at me. “Then I boarded a plane to England, and that was that.”
“Did you ever tell your father about any of this?”
He chuckles without mirth. “And confess to history repeating itself? I couldn’t even admit it to myself. Me turning my back on Global was like a festering wound, right up until he died. But now it’s time to settle old scores.” Jake pulls me tighter to him, grinding his hips into my ass, his body reenergized by whatever he’s about to share with me. “My eight-hour meeting today was to officially vote Wilson off the board.”
“Won’t that make him even more dangerous?”
“Not when he’s just been arrested for embezzling Global funds.”
“Wow. Are you serious?” I’m stunned.
“I don’t expect to be hearing from him for at least thirty years, in fact. That’s if he ever makes parole. Global is mine now.” Jake grins suddenly and it’s like sunlight blasting through the clouds. “And you’re all mine. On top of everything else, Max has decided to stop nailing everything that moves. This might be the best day of my life.”
I blink. “Wait. What happened with Max?”
“We’re not the only ones predisposed to bending a few rules apparently.” Jake rolls me onto my back and settles between my legs again. “Max professed his undying love to Rachel last night, and evidently, though God knows why, she feels the same way.” Jake glances at the clock on his nightstand. “They should be halfway to Paris by now. That’s all well and good, but if they’re not back on my movie set by seven a.m. on Monday, there’ll be hell to pay.”
“I can’t believe he finally admitted it!”
“He told me he couldn’t live without her.”
Speaking of which…
“And how do I fit into your life, Jake Dalton?” I say, locking my legs around his waist.
He smooths away my bangs with his fingers and smiles down at me. “The same way you have from day one—front and center of my heart. We’re opening that cage together, Charlie, and setting both our pasts free.”
His honesty knocks the sass clean out of me.
“That first night in L.A., you made me feel things. Things I thought were dead and buried long ago.”
My smile blossoms. “I’m your voodoo charm.”
“You’re pure witchcraft,” he agrees huskily. “Just don’t shrink my dick when I piss you off.”
“Just your huge ego, then.”
“No such thing.”
We gaze and gaze at each other. I want to curl up inside his thoughts and stay there forever. Since he walked into my life I’ve laughed louder. I’ve cried harder. I’ve made love in ways I’ve only ever dreamed about.
Then a thought hits me out of nowhere and my face crumples in dismay.
“What’s wrong?” he demands.
“I’ve fallen in love with a billionaire. My mother’s going to die of pride.”
“Let’s make it a lingering death then, shall we?” he murmurs, grinding his erection into me. “Time to shift priorities, Books. Time to start thinking about what you want. It’s time to put down the paperbacks and write your own happy ending for a change.”
He looms large over me like the sexy, brooding temptation that he is.
“I want you,” I tell him, bracing myself for pleasure as he surges forward and the smooth head of his cock slips between my folds.
“You have me,” he says with a groan. “Heart and soul. I love you, Books. I have from the moment you barged
into my office like a petulant teenager. What else do you want?”
He eases in another inch, but he makes no move to claim me with that first savage thrust. He’s going to torment the truth out of me if it kills him.
“Movies,” I pant. “I want to make movies.”
“Good girl.” He slides in a couple more inches and I let out a gasp. “Because you’re all about the words, and I need a script producer for my new art house division. Even better, there’s a room right across the hall from mine that has your name all over it.” He bottoms out inside me, and pauses to wait for my reaction.
“Does that mean I get to screw you during my lunch hour?”
“I’m in command of this,” he says with a growl, jerking his hips sharply in sweet, delicious punishment. “I say when. I say how. And then there’s this other thing.”
“What thing?” My mind is starting to drift. There will never be anything better than this.
“A question I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Transferring his weight to one elbow, he tugs my left arm free from his shoulder and brings my ring finger up to his lips. “And just so we’re clear, I’m not taking no for an answer on this one.”
Like FREE Books?! Download one of Entangled’s bestselling books here!
Acknowledgments
In May 2017 I was diagnosed with cancer. How did I react? I wrote a book. Not a book about cancer, admittedly. Instead, I chose to write something that removed me as far away from oncology rooms and hospital wards as possible.
From a dream came the whisper of a possibility. I never expected the words that I wrote in that chemotherapy chair to reach an audience of one, let alone the eyes of my amazing editor, Nina Bruhns. Thank you, Nina, for your endless encouragement, advice and patience. My sincerest gratitude extends to all those at Entangled Publishing as well.
To my husband, Matt—the man who literally holds me all together. I use the word “literally” on purpose because I know how much he hates it. Thank you for looking after our girls when I’m stuck in hospital or locked away in my writing cave for hours and hours.
Hot Nights in Morocco Page 22