“I still think it was ridiculous to offer your help in searching a four-year-old murder scene,” Jesse said, kicking off his own boots.
“What’s it to you, Jesse?” June snapped. “Why are you so damn uptight about me helping Darcy out? I felt bad for her, okay? That’s all.”
Jesse dropped his voice to a harsh whisper as he realized the house was quiet, its occupants likely sleeping already. “You volunteered my help, June.”
“Don’t help me, then.” June locked the front door and started down the hall for her bedroom. “I don’t need your help,” she called over her shoulder.
“You’re a bleeding heart, June,” he said, following her. “You can’t help every single person out there, you know. You’re going to het—”
“Oh, don’t start with me again.” She spun around in front of her bedroom door. “Why are you so angry with me all of a sudden?”
“I’m not angry at you.” He kept his voice low, but couldn’t keep the edge out of it.
“Well, you’re doing a damn fine job pretending—” And it hit her suddenly. “Oh, wait, I get it. You’re mad because I said I’m bringing in Agent Hawk Bledsoe tomorrow.”
“You could have mentioned it to me.”
“Why? So you can run away quickly?”
“Maybe I’m not ready to meet him.”
She glared at him. “Yeah, maybe you’ll never be ready, Jesse.”
She turned her back on him and entered her room. But he blocked her from closing the door.
“June—”
Anger fired inside her. “Jesse, please, leave me alone. Leave the safe house. I don’t care where you go. Just—”
He grabbed her shoulders suddenly and yanked her hard up against his body, crushing his mouth down onto hers. Desperation, pent-up frustration, everything that had been simmering in June unleashed in his arms with explosive and blinding passion.
She opened her lips under his, moving her mouth against his, feeling his rough stubble against her cheek, and suddenly nothing but the present mattered—no past, no future, just this moment. She fumbled urgently to pull his shirt out from his jeans.
Edging her into the room, kissing her deeply, his tongue tangling with hers, slick, hot, wet, urgent, Jesse kicked the door shut behind them and backed her toward the bed. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart against her chest, and she felt the bulge in his jeans pressing against her pelvis. Her world tilted, began to spin. Liquid heat speared between her thighs, and she wanted him, all of him, deep inside, as she’d never wanted a man before. She began to breathe so fast she thought she might faint. Buttons pinged and bounced on the stone floor as she ripped his shirt open. She angled her mouth, kissing him deeper, moaning softly as her hands explored the hard, muscled lines of his torso.
His skin was hot, smooth, supple. She felt the ridges of his scars under her fingertips, and June was unable to articulate a single thought as a wild and furious urgency mounted inside her. She needed to grasp onto what she could before the past intruded on the present, before it shattered the future. Before Jesse knew who he was.
He slid her shirt back over her shoulders, exposing her bra, her belly, and she quickly began to unbuckle his belt. She felt the backs of her knees bump against the side of the bed as he lowered her down onto it.
Chapter 9
June peeled Jesse’s jeans off his hips, her world narrowed to nothing but this moment. The light from the fire in the cast-iron stove danced copper over Jesse’s naked, bronzed body. He stilled as he stood above her, his chest rising and falling, his eyes dark with passion and just a little wild, his hair mussed from her hands. And in that moment June knew with her whole being she could love this man. A raw ache swelled in her to have him, hold him, know him. Keep him.
His gaze holding hers, he reached out and removed the hair tie from the end of her braid. He loosened her curls around her bare shoulders.
“I thought you were an angel when I came around in your bed, you know that?” he whispered. She undid her bra as he spoke, and her breasts swelled free, nipples tight.
He placed his large, calloused hands on her shoulders and guided her onto her back as he lowered himself over her. He cupped her breast, rasped a rough thumb over her nipple. Something tightened low in her belly.
She reached up and placed a finger on his lips. “Don’t talk,” she said. She didn’t want to think, and talk made caution whisper darkly around the edges of her consciousness. She wanted to stay only in the present.
He undid her jeans, slid them down her hips. Then he kissed her mouth and June felt his hand exploring the curves of her breasts, sliding down her stomach, cupping her hard between her legs as his kiss deepened.
June’s vision spiraled as he slid a finger up inside her. Then another. He massaged parts of her that made every nerve in her body scream. It made her shake. Her vision turned red, then black as a low moan built in her throat. He moved his fingers deeper into her. She couldn’t go slow like this. She wanted him fast, wild, furious. Hard. She hooked her hand around the back of his neck, yanked him down, and she kissed him almost angrily, moving her tongue inside his mouth, arching her back, opening her legs wider, rotating her hips, needing to deepen the sensation. She could feel the roughness of fingers inside her, the pad of his thumb rubbing on her swollen, sensitive nub, and she grew searing-hot, wet, delirious with physical pleasure.
Jesse groaned with pleasure at her urgency, thrusting his hand deeper, as his hips moved against her body and his erection pressed hot and hard against her thigh. It drove her wild, past a point of no return, and June could not hold back a moment longer.
She dug her nails into his back, trying to grasp onto the pleasure, to make it last, but every muscle in her body went tight and still for a moment, and then she shattered with a soft cry as wave after wave of contractions rocked through her body.
Jesse’s control cracked. As she was shattering under him, he forced her legs open wider with his thighs and entered her with a hard, long thrust to the hilt. She was hot as molten metal inside, and he could feel the aftershocks of her contractions rippling over the length of his erection as he moved inside her.
She arched up her hips, gasping as he sank deeper and her fingernails dug into his neck. He moved wildly, bucking, grinding into her, deep as he could. She groaned in pleasure, rotating her hips, meeting him for every hard thrust he made.
Heat began to build. His vision turned scarlet. He could barely breathe. Every nerve in his body felt exposed, tingling, singing, right down to the hot tip of his erection. Every frustration that had been building in him quivered to the surface of his skin until Jesse felt he was going to explode. His muscles tensed as his vision darkened and his eyes rolled back in his head, and with one final thrust he released into her.
* * *
Breathing hard, body slick with perspiration, Jesse slumped down beside June, holding her close as she kept her legs wrapped around him. And as he gradually softened inside her, a memory began to return, like fire, crackling softly at the edges of his mind. The flames grew louder, bigger, hotter, coming closer. He began to panic as the sound became a roar of cracking and popping and spitting wood as his house burned.
Jesse froze inside.
His heart began to thud all over again.
Not now, he thought. Not right now. But more images came fast, furious, slicing like a hot knife through his brain. He saw the woman again. This time he saw her face. She reminded him of Darcy. That’s why being with Rafe and Darcy had made him so edgy, angry, earlier.
But why the burning rage?
The dark-haired woman smiled at him. Her eyes were large and sparkling blue. In the next sharp image she was wearing white. A bride. He was sliding a smooth gold wedding band onto her finger.
Oh, dear God. Sweat beaded along Jesse’s brow.
He closed his eyes tight, holding on to June, not wanting to let her go, terrified of what these images might mean to him. To her.
He saw a gold
band on his own finger and another image flashed through his head—the dark-haired woman, very pregnant. Jesse’s hand was on her stomach.
She was smiling. Anna…no, Annie. His throat turned dry. Her name was Annie.
But then she was crying. He was looking at the dark-haired baby in his own arms…or was it Tyler’s baby? No, not Tyler’s—Annie’s. His. Jesse tried to calm his breathing. It was all coming back—finally coming back. And he didn’t like it. Not one bit. The memory pieces felt like bad snapshots, harsh colors, from a family album that didn’t really belong to him, yet it did. And like a series of random snapshots they were confusing, still not a smooth, continuous picture.
Jesse saw himself on a horse, going away. Far away. There were mountains, snowcapped peaks all around. His horse was negotiating rocky trails and he was going into higher, wilder places in search of…peace, of…something he couldn’t put his finger on. The woman—Annie—his wife’s screams suddenly shattered the peace. Jesse could see fire again. The baby was crying, stuck somewhere in the dark, and the flames were coming. He felt terror grip his heart.
Then nothing. Just silence. Mountains. And guilt. Sickening black guilt. Fear rippled through Jesse. He’d done something to Annie, to the baby. He felt it in the core of his bones. Something bad had happened.
He fingered his naked ring finger and slowly he opened his eyes.
June was propped up on her elbow, watching his face. A fall of red hair curtained her cheek and firelight was soft on her alabaster features. Her eyes glimmered, and she smiled, a little tentatively at first, then it deepened. With surprise Jesse registered she had a dimple.
She could light up a room with that smile. His gaze drifted down to her breasts. The way she was propped up on her side deepened her cleavage and her nipples were dark rose.
He allowed his gaze to go lower. Her stomach was flat, muscles firm. The hair between her legs was the same color as the waves hanging soft over her slender shoulders. He began to stir somewhere deep and carnal all over again.
Her words sifted softly into his mind.
Jesse, please, don’t touch me. I can’t do this. It’s not going to work. I have no idea who you are. You might have a family or something waiting for you.
He swallowed. He’d made a mistake, he’d overstepped the line. And now he had to end it, because Jesse knew with sharp and sudden clarity he could not continue this with June—he was married. And he could not do this to June until he fully understood his relationship with Annie and the baby boy in his memory. Or until he knew where they were now.
A sick wave of nausea crawled up his chest and into his throat. And he didn’t like the bitter taste that came with it.
“What are you thinking, Jesse?” Her voice was soft, sexy. She trailed her fingertips along his waist, feathering the line of a scar.
“About you.”
“They’re like a map, your scars,” she whispered. “A map to your past, carved with blood into flesh. If only I had the key.”
As she fingered the scar on his waist, another image slammed through him: his face hitting dirt, the taste of sand in his mouth. He heard hooves thundering, saw the horns of a steer flash past his eye. Then it was gone. But the taste of dirt and blood in his mouth seemed to linger.
“I think I could love you, Jesse Marlboro.” Her eyes gleamed with sudden emotion. “I wish you could be just him. Just Jesse.”
Her words cut. He felt pain in his chest, so raw. And with sudden clarity he knew it was his name—Jesse. The engraved belt buckle had been a Christmas present from Annie. He could see himself opening it by the tree, her smiling as he did.
He felt sick.
Self-hatred twisted into him.
He got up, went into the bathroom and closed the door carefully behind him.
He stood in the darkness for a moment, feeling his heart pound, listening to the rush of blood in his ears. Another image of Annie came to him. She was on a horse, riding behind him with other people. They were single file on a rocky trail in the mountains. Her short hair gleamed almost blue-black in the sunshine. She wore a Western vest and boots. Her laugh was like a wild brook. Sunlight, happiness, sparkled in her eyes. Another image bisected the first. He and Annie making love in a tent. In the mountains, his mountains. As abruptly as the vision had come, it was gone, like another night critter scurrying into the dark alleys of his brain.
Jesse flicked on the bathroom light and went to stand over the basin. He stared at his naked body in the mirror. There was no doubt about it, he’d been beaten up in the past, and the history of violence was written in a map of scars all over him, as June had said. His skin gleamed with perspiration and sweat beaded his lip. His eyes looked crazed. He turned on the tap and splashed ice-cold water over his face.
As he did, another memory washed over him. Adrenaline was pounding through his blood, it was hot, a cowboy hat was on his head, a rope swinging in his hand. Muscles burned and hooves thundered on hard-packed dirt.
Steer wrestling.
It hit him with the weight of a hammer—he used to wrestle steers. He’d been gored, stomped on by his horse. But…it felt distant, further away than the memories of the dark-haired woman, the baby. This memory came from a more distant and youthful past. A wilder past.
Jesse peered intensely into the eyes that stared back at him from the mirror.
My Jesse with the blue eyes. He recognized the voice as his mother’s, from way, way back. He glared harder at his own image, trying to dig further, unearth the secrets still buried in his head.
Jesse swore viciously to himself.
Think, dammit, think!
What did he know about himself? He liked physical action, adrenaline. He abhorred confined spaces, needed the great outdoors. He’d hunted poachers.
He rode horses and had wrestled steers. He slept often under stars.
He’d married a woman named Annie, with laughing blue eyes, and there’d been a child.
Suddenly another image hit him. He was fighting with Annie—they were yelling at each other, really going for it. Jesse felt the rage of the memory in the muscles at his neck, in the clench of his fists on the basin. Annie was crying. Then suddenly they were having sex again—wild, hot, angry. Guilt hammered down on the image, black and ugly.
Jesse! Jesse! Help!
She was screaming suddenly, locked somewhere in his head, the fire raging around her. His fault. But instead of helping her and the screaming baby, he was riding away, on a horse. Far away from her, from the baby.
His mind went blank. He was breathing so hard he felt he might hyperventilate
He slammed his hands down on the edge of the basin, hung his head down, trying to slot the disparate pieces together.
But all he could think of was June, lying naked in the bed on the other side of this door, and how much he wanted her.
His eyes burned.
He was falling in love with her. Absolutely no doubt about it. But he had another life and in it was a woman named Annie.
So why was he here in Cold Plains, with no ID, just a pack on his back and the name Samuel Grayson in his mind?
Was Annie in Cold Plains somewhere? With their child? Was she trapped by Samuel and his cult?
He had to find out.
And he had to do it without June.
Jesse needed to know how Annie fitted into his life before he could even begin to think again of June. He had to walk away, now, and it cut him to the core. Because he knew it was going to hurt her. And it was going to hurt him.
He’d hike out of Hidden Valley into Little Gulch before dawn broke. From Little Gulch he’d find an FBI field office. He’d ask the feds to help trace his identity.
If he’d done something terrible to Annie, he had to have done it for a reason, because Jesse couldn’t believe he was an evil guy, a bad guy. Sometimes, he thought, a good person could be forced into an act the law might not deem justifiable. And sometimes the legal system itself was morally indefensible.
&n
bsp; With a heavy and painful heart, Jesse took a quick shower.
He stepped out of the bathroom with a white towel around his waist.
June was lying on her back on the bed, a sheet covering her body. Her hair was splayed out in a soft halo of waves on the white pillow. She’d fed more logs onto the fire and the room glowed orange. Her eyes were wide, skin pale, and a nervous tension tightened her features as she watched him exit the bathroom.
“Are you okay?” she said quietly.
He raked his hand over his damp hair. “June…I…”
Christ, I don’t know how to say this.
She sat up, gathering the sheet tightly around her chest, and he hated what he was about to do to her. He told himself he was not running away. He was doing this with the faint hope he could find his way back to being with her—if she’d still have him by then.
Taking a deep breath, he jumped.
“June, I need you to understand—” He swallowed. “I need to go away, leave the safe house. Now.”
“Why?” Her eyes crackled suddenly, hands tense on the sheet, her face tight.
His heart hammered. Jesse came up to the bed and sat on the edge.
“I’ve decided to leave before sunup and hike over the mountains to Little Gulch. From there I’ll find an FBI field office and ask them for help in tracing my ID.”
She was silent for what seemed an eternity. Her eyes began to water.
“I…don’t understand, Jesse. I thought you said you didn’t want to involve the feds until—” It hit June suddenly and she sat up, stiff.
“You’ve remembered.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Not all of it. Just slices. But I need to fill in the rest. I have to find out why I am here. I…think someone I know, from my past, might be in danger in Cold Plains.”
“Who?”
He reached out to touch her and she pulled away, got out of bed, wrapping the sheet tightly around her.
“June—”
“Who, Jesse!”
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s a woman, isn’t it? Someone you’re involved with.”
The Perfect Outsider Page 14