by J. E. Taylor
Jessica’s mind drifted to the phone call and her smile faltered.
Chris set the boys down on the ground and straightened his back, the amusement disappearing from his eyes. Trepidation seeped into his gaze. “He called again?”
“Yes,” she said, taking out the box that contained the ring, handing it to him. “But you have nothing to worry about. Read the inscription.”
He took the ring out and read what she had etched in the metal. Reading the words slowly, he took a deep breath and glanced over the shining metal, into her calico eyes. The hesitation evaporated, replaced by that raw energy that made her tingle all over. He slid the ring back in the box and stepped closer, grazing her cheek with his lips and placing the box in her hand. “Did I tell you ‘I love you’ today?”
The sheer proximity of his mouth to hers caused her to salivate, her heart pinging a mating call despite their surroundings.
“That’s not all Mommy got!” Tommy grinned and CJ hit him in the arm.
“Be quiet!” CJ said, staring at Tommy.
Chris smiled down at his two boys and then back at Jessica. “Really?”
“Don’t you dare snoop,” Jessica warned but she could tell it was too late from the smirk on his face.
“I promise I’ll act surprised,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve got to find a dress for Emily,” he said and stepped back. “Want to help?”
Jessica looked down at the boys and then back up at Chris. “I think these guys need to get home and take a nap before we have to go to the studio tonight.” They’ve been so good, but I can’t see that lasting in women’s apparel shops.
“Point well taken. I shouldn’t be much longer. Her dress is the last thing I need to get. Everyone else is taken care of.” He smiled and ruffled the boys hair. “Be good for your mom.”
“We will!” in sync as always.
He glanced back at Jessica. “We can talk about that call when I get home.” He leaned over, planting a gentle kiss on her lips before heading off in the direction of the formal dresses.
* * * *
Chris pulled into the house and brought the bags inside and hung them in the front closet. He settled into the couch waiting for her to come downstairs. He smiled at her when she stepped into view.
“Get everything you needed to?”
“Yep. And I arranged for a car to pick us up next Thursday at three. We’ll swing by and get Emily and then head down to Connecticut for Eric.”
“About that. Danny wants you to come into the house when we pick Eric up,” Jessica said. “I’m sure he’ll mention it at the game Saturday.”
Chris laughed. He had never set foot in Jessica’s old house for many reasons. The biggest being he really didn’t want to see what her life was like before he snatched her out of it.
“There is no reason to continue avoiding seeing where I used to live before you met me.”
“Before I kidnapped you,” he clarified. His eyes bore into her.
“Chris,” she sighed. “I forgave you a long time ago for what you did to me. I’m marrying you for God’s sake.”
“Still doesn’t wipe out the fact I disrupted your life.”
Jessica walked over to him. “Yes, I will admit, you turned my life upside down. But Jesus, Chris, the gifts you have given me, nothing could replace them.” She pointed to the ceiling, referring to the boys.
“I’ve brought you more pain than a person has a right to bear.”
Jessica put her hands on his chest. “That’s the thing, you haven’t. Your stepbrother was the one who hurt me.”
“I left you with him.”
“But you didn’t know, babe.”
The smile that spread on his lips chilled her. “I should have known better.”
She raised her eyebrows. “How?”
“I knew he was a sadist. I watched him kill dozens of people—hell I filmed it. And you were the only one there at the time. Even if he hadn’t heard me tell you about Jacob, he still would have hurt you.”
“When are you going to forgive yourself?”
He shrugged, tracing her cheek with his fingers. That was a question he didn’t have an answer to, not when his nightmares reminded him of all the death and destruction he had a hand in. “What about Tom? I screwed up your life with him too.”
She nodded slowly and looked down at her hands. “He’s the only one who was even in the same vicinity as you as far as feelings are concerned.” She took a deep breath and met his gaze. “But I chose you.”
“He left you.”
“He was angry with me but he hadn’t slammed the door on our marriage. I was the one who did that.”
Chris raised his eyebrows. “I thought...”
“You thought wrong. I chose you.” She poked him in the chest. “And it had nothing to do with the fact that my marriage was on the rocks. It had everything to do with the fact I can’t live without you.” She spread her hand out on his chest feeling the strong steady beat of his heart under her palm. “I chose you,” she repeated. “So all this insecurity needs to stop right now. I will always choose you.”
He looked down at her in disbelief and then the smile spread slowly across his lips as what she said sunk in. “Always?”
“Yes, Ty, always.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and pulled her close. “The kids are asleep?”
“Yes.” The spark between them igniting her, the silent rain check from the mall being redeemed.
“In here or upstairs?”
“Here, now,” she replied and pushed his shirt over his head. She kissed his chest and unbuckled his pants trailing kisses down his abdomen as she pulled his clothing off. Pushing him back on the couch, she stripped and straddled him, the urgency to have him fill her slick pussy took over. Rocking her hips, grinding into him with each slow circle, she grinned and he peeled her shirt off, tossing it aside.
He took her breast in his mouth and she purred his name.
“Ty.” The word came out in a sigh of content and his striking blue eyes rose to hers.
“Jessie, Jessie, Jessie. You have got to stop calling me that.” He kissed her hard, his hands sliding to her waist and his thrusts deep and strong.
The tongue dance stripped them of breath until he pulled away from her lips. “You’re bringing out the animal in me.”
She arched into him with the same bravado. “Maybe I like the animal in you.”
He laughed and took her breast in his mouth again, his tongue flicking her hard nipples creating lightning bolts of heat landing directly between her legs and she moaned, closing her eyes and grinding her hips in time with his languid motion. The sudden chill on her damp breasts flapped her eyelids open and she stared down at his smoldering gaze. “That’s the look that drives me insane,” Jessica gasped.
“What look is that?” He smiled and pulled her closer, running his tongue up her neck to her ear.
“When you’re horny. Your eyes smolder.” Her eyes rolled back in her head, her body seizing and wetness rushed creating sweet friction with each stroke of his cock. Tremors gripped her and she laughed, meeting his intense gaze again. “You look at me like you want to eat me alive.” She kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“That’s because I do,” he mumbled from under her lips and felt her smile as they quickened their pace with both the kiss and their hips.
He arched into her, lifting her off the couch for a moment, the power of his explosion triggering another staggering orgasm in her and a high pitched squeal of delight slipped from her lips, drowning the groan that flowed from his mouth, their tongues still tangled, exploring the caverns of their mouths. Trembling, he settled back on the couch and began to laugh under her kiss.
She pulled away from his sweet mouth and stared at his satiated eyes.
“Smolder, huh?”
“Yes.” She blushed and uncoupled, standing and stretching before she gathered their clothing. She tossed his pants to him and slipped hers back on. “Tha
t look got me even when I didn’t want it to.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Does that mean I can have you any time I want, just with a look?”
“Pretty much.” She paused with her shirt in her hands just staring at his chiseled form.
“What?” he asked self-consciously.
“You are just so damn hot to look at. I can’t believe you turn forty this year.”
“I feel like I’m seventeen when I’m with you.” He smiled and pulled the shirt back on, waltzing across to where she stood topless and moved her into his arms. “I just can’t seem to get enough.” He kissed her and fondled her bare breast.
“You’re going to have to because the boys have just woken up,” she said pushing him away and quickly slipping her bra and shirt on.
Dimples appeared in his cheeks and his eyes grazed her.
“Stop smoldering,” she said and the heat in the room cranked up a few notches.
He inhaled and looked at the ceiling, and the shuffling of little feet. “We never talked about that phone call.”
Jessica turned toward him. “We need to. I was worried enough about the way he sounded on the phone to project myself out there.”
His eyes snapped to hers, the confession rocking him to the core. She hadn’t done that since she showed up in his shower in New York City five years ago. “Why?”
“Because he said Sharon would kill Tommy.”
The bizarre statement made him step backward. No one, but no one could threaten his kids. Both irritation and disbelief cradled his head. “What?”
“I told Tom he had a son and he freaked. He apparently had a vasectomy when Sharon demanded they get pregnant.”
Chris blinked; he still didn’t grasp how that equated to a death threat against his kid. Things were firing off in his brain, her thoughts, memories of what was said and not said forming a cloud of anger. “What?”
“Sharon has been blackmailing him for the last five years.”
“How?” He wanted the words; he wanted her to confirm what he saw in her mind.
“Me. She has an open-ended contract on my life. All she has to do is activate it.”
The world swam in front of his eyes, that fear about his bubble bursting crashed down on him and he sat on the couch.
“And Tom said if she found out about Tommy, she would kill him out of spite.”
“Over my dead body,” Chris said, the anger now a flurry buzzing around his head. “He’s my son, not Tom’s and God help her if she comes after this family.” He looked at her and snapped his teeth together. “I can stop her dead in her tracks right now if you say the word.”
“If she dies, the contract is automatically put into effect.”
“Doesn’t matter, I can stop anyone dead in their tracks.”
“I know, but not unless we have to, okay?”
Chris took a deep breath, calming the frenzied beast running amok inside. “Next Friday night ought to be interesting.”
“I’m tempted to give her another right hook.”
“You are much kinder than I am, Jess. I was thinking more along the lines of seeing her explode into a million pieces.”
“Daddy?” CJ said from the stairwell.
Chris turned and wiped the grin off his face. “What’s up?” he asked as if he hadn’t just been thinking about killing someone. The fear in his son’s eyes prompted him to stand and cross the room. He smiled up at Tommy, “Why don’t you go see your mom, I need to have a chat with CJ.”
Tommy’s eyes widened at his brother and they exchanged a glance as he skirted around his dad and ran across the family room to his mother. Chris focused on CJ again. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said and led him into the living room, reminding himself that this was a four-year-old, even though he had the intellect of someone much older. He knelt in front of his son.
“Daddy, you want to kill someone, I felt it,” CJ said with wide, scared eyes.
Chris closed his eyes and hung his head a moment. “Sometimes adults get mad and want to hurt people,” he said and opened his eyes. “Especially if that person puts people you love in harm’s way.”
“Hurting someone and killing them are different and they’re both wrong.”
Chris nodded. “Yes they are, but protecting someone you love isn’t wrong.”
CJ chewed his lip. I would protect my brother.
Chris smiled at the simple thought. “Yes, you would protect Tommy, just like I would protect each and every one of you. Sometimes your daddy takes that a little too far though.”
“Is that when Ty comes out?”
“I told you, Ty was my brother and he died,” Chris lied easily this time.
“Daddy, lying is wrong too.”
Chris sat back on his ankles and measured what he was going to say next. “Christopher James, you are four years old. You aren’t ready to know about Ty yet,” he said, mimicking the words that Jessica said earlier.
“But your name is Ty,” CJ replied. “Ty Aris.”
Darkness passed over Chris’s face like a sheet of ice blanketing his soul and his jaw tightened, especially when CJ recoiled into the cushions of the couch away from him. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Inside of you,” CJ answered, his eyes welling up with tears.
Chris stood and walked out of the room, shaken to the core. If CJ could pull that name out of his subconscious, what else could he see about his dark past? The years he spent collecting people for his stepbrother’s black market porn business and each and every death he witnessed haunted his nightmares. He felt unworthy of happiness because of all the horror he had been an accessory to and he was terrified that his children would find out what a monster their father really was. He walked out the back door to the rock wall overlooking the bay. The cold bit at him, but he didn’t feel it.
The snow crunched with her approaching footsteps and the warmth of her hand on his back did nothing to quell his turmoil. “He knows.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Jessica replied.
“He pulled my name out of my head. What else can he see?” Chris turned his gaze to hers.
“He can’t see anything, Chris.”
“He pulled my name out of my head, Jess.” He turned, grabbing her arms. “I had that locked up so deep...” He shook his head and released the tight grasp he had on her. “How can I teach them right from wrong if they know where I’ve been?”
“It’s not where you’ve been, honey. It’s how you live your life now that matters. Showing that you know the difference goes a long way. Living up to the morals and values that you are teaching them matters.”
A bark of a laugh escaped. “I should be in jail, or dead for that matter.”
“Don’t you dare say that!”
He rolled his eyes at her. “You know it’s true.”
Jessica clamped her mouth shut and looked out at the ocean, shivering.
The cold settled into his bones as well and he knew he had to talk to his son before the boy pirated more critical information locked away in his memory. “Let’s go in where it’s warm,” he said and led her back to the house.
He walked to CJ and picked up his son and carried him into the kitchen. “My name once was Ty Aris. But I had it legally changed to Chris Ryan, so that’s my name now.”
“Why did you change your name?” CJ asked.
“That’s a really complicated story that I’ll tell you about one day but in the meantime, you shouldn’t repeat to anyone that your father’s real name is Ty Aris.”
“Why?”
He inhaled through his nose, trading a glance with Jessica before going on. “Because Ty Aris did some really bad things, things that if they catch up to me, could take me away from you and your brother for a very long time.”
CJ’s jaw tightened and his eyes darkened. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”
Chris allowed a strained smile to surface. “If the police ever come looking for me, you are not to interfere. Understand?”
CJ pressed his lips together for a moment then he nodded.
“Do you know where the name Chris, Christopher James comes from?”
CJ shook his head.
“Chris was my brother.” Chris smiled at CJ. “You’re named after my brother.”
CJ’s eyebrows rose. “You really have a brother?”
“Yes, I did and I loved him very much, but I couldn’t protect him and he died.” Chris blinked back the sudden mist covering his eyes.
CJ glanced toward his mother and back. “Why’d you and mommy say Ty died?”
“Because the really bad part of me died when I met your mother,” he said and cleared his throat. “I think that’s about enough of my past right now, okay buddy?”
“Okay, Daddy.” He smiled and gave his father a peck on the cheek.
Chris put him down and watched him tear into the family room and hop on the couch next to Tommy. Sweet, oblivious Tommy—God how he wished his son could have been normal like Tommy. But no such luck. CJ carried that magical gene from Jessica and with it the power to control the world.
Chapter 13
Tom woke to the bright sunshine filtering in the window and he turned to the clock. The numbers blinked and so did he. It was almost noon and he rolled out of the guest room bed and into the master bathroom shower. His head felt like someone hit him with a two by four and he undressed and stepped under the warm spray. Water cascaded over his body and he leaned his head back under the stream, running his hands over his hair and then down his face as the late night events replayed in his alcohol-soaked brain.
His eyes shot open and his heart palpitated in his chest, constricting his lungs.
She had been there.
On the beach with him.
“Christ,” he said aloud. He had a son. I need a drink.
“Shit,” he swore under his breath. He promised her he’d be sober for the premiere. He didn’t know if he could go three hours without a drink, never mind three days. A week and a half seemed like an impossible feat.
He turned, facing the water and tilted his head low, letting the water pulse on the top of his head and run down his back, drumming all thoughts from his pounding head. Closing his eyes, he drifted into a standing stupor until the shower door swung open.