“I thought it was you,” he murmured into her hair. “I wanted to believe it was you. I was jealous of your Inspector Mahon,” he continued softly. “Sex with Eva was purely a physical reaction to that.”
There were tears in her eyes when she spun to face him, but she still refused to meet his gaze. “Are you blaming me?”
“No. I’m trying to explain—”
“And not doing a very good job of it. He’s not my Inspector Mahon.”
Jason raised an eyebrow doubtfully. “He’s here with you, isn’t he?”
She kept her eyes leveled on his chest. “It wasn’t my idea. Drew followed me here. He’s convinced I need protecting…from you. And I think he’s right. I do need protection from your ridiculous assumption.”
“It’s not as ridiculous as you think, Jessica,” Jason murmured reflectively. “I saw the way he looked at you the night Tom died. He wants to do more than just protect you and with my background it’s not difficult to discredit me. You distrust me enough already, which makes his speculations that more plausible.”
She lowered her gaze. “Now you’re being paranoid. Drew is a policeman. He’s concerned about me because he found out Tom worked for your father. Under such circumstances my marriage to you must seem strange. He thought it his duty to open my eyes to certain facts about you.”
Jess hesitated.
“For the sheer fact I’m a McCormack, right?”
She flinched. “Whether I chose to believe him was another matter.”
“If you didn’t believe him, Jessica, why did you run away from me?” Jason asked quietly.
“How can you ask me that? One moment I was fearing for my life and the next—”
He grabbed her wrist preventing her from moving away. “And the next?”
This time her eyes rose to his. “And the next I’d given you my heart to destroy.”
His fingers tightened about her wrist.
“I deserve to know the truth,” she said. “That’s all I ask. No more mind games because quite frankly I…I really can’t take any more of this.”
“I want you. That’s the truth. I need you to trust your feelings about me, Jessica. Despite everything that’s happened and everything you’ve been led to believe. Have faith in me to make this right.”
“I don’t—”
“If you didn’t believe in me you would’ve walked out of here with Inspector Forbes last night.”
He cupped his hand to her cheek and gazed into the tear-filled hues of her eyes. “I’ll not hurt you again,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to hers.
Relief and male satisfaction filled him when her lips willingly parted beneath his.
* * * *
Jess closed her eyes and relished the strength of Jason’s body against hers. His weight pinned her down and he hadn’t withdrawn from her snug fit. She could feel him throbbing powerfully against her womb, an inseparable part of her. Jason completed her. She knew that now. This time there was no tragedy or grief for Tom that had driven her conveniently into his arms.
She’d always thought it was her destiny to never experience love or feel real passion. She’d had sex with Tom, but they’d never made love. She finally knew the difference and she was in danger of losing her heart to her husband.
That’s why she’d divorced Tom. He’d never had her heart. A life alone was preferable to being with someone with whom she’d had no connection. With whom she’d shared a life full of pretence because when the pretence was over there’d been nothing left.
Then, she’d met Jason. The intensity of her attraction was new and frightening, and yet compelling. It’d awoken her to possibilities she’d no longer dared contemplate.
Jason rolled her with him, spooning her tightly against him. “The inspector was right,” he murmured against the back of her neck. “This really should be our honeymoon.”
The distinctive feel of his erection stirred her blood and roused the receding waves of her orgasm, re-awakening the vibrant aching pressure of her desire. Jason moved again and she gasped amazed at his effortless ability to arouse her. But instead of making love to her as she’d anticipated, he pulled from her body and lay beside her, waiting. She couldn’t face him, not just yet.
She’d long convinced herself of never needing anyone or wanting anything other than her independence. Suddenly that had all changed. No matter the turmoil of her heart or her doubts and uncertainties, she wanted this. She wanted Jason. And by being with him, a part of her felt as if she’d disgraced the memory of her father, her brother and Tom. She clasped the sheet tighter between her fingers.
Jason’s fingers grazed her shoulder. “Tell me,” he said.
Her eyes fluttered open and she paused afraid she might stutter her reply. “I’m scared to death.”
He turned her to look at him, the movement pulling the sheet taut across her breasts. He looked down at her, his brown drawn heavily together. “I have no intention of hurting you, Jess—”
She shook her head and took a moment before answering him. “Not of that. Of what you make me feel.”
His frown disappeared. “And what do I make you feel?”
“Everything I’ve never allowed myself to feel with anyone. Especially Tom,” she sniffed.
She wiped away the tears clouding her vision. “Passion. Desire. Vulnerable. Safe. Love. You have my heart. You have me and it’s frightening because I don’t know what to do. My father, Sean—”
Jason scooped her beneath him, his knee parting her thighs, his hands shaking as they framed her face. Forehead rested against forehead, and mouth hovered tantalizingly close to mouth.
“And you have me, Jessica. Stop fighting this. Stop fighting yourself,” he whispered fervently. ”Love me as I love you.”
“You… love me,” she breathed.
“From the moment I saw you on the train. I. Love. You.”
She’d heard those words from Tom, but they’d never made such an impact in her heart or connected to her soul. This time she didn’t want to dismiss them. She’d needed to hear them from the right man and he was with her now, lying naked against her, holding her gaze and refusing to let her hide from him. He forced her to see the man he was inside.
His eyes searched hers, finding her soul as she found his. “What we have is real, Jessica,” he insisted, “despite the circumstances. Eva was a mistake. Be sure of that. Be sure of me.”
“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone in my life,” she admitted slowly.
“Do you?” Jason challenged huskily. “Show me.”
Her need was as raw as his, but only was she finally ready to embrace it. Jess turned her head slightly and kissed the palm cupping her face. She moved her mouth lower to the inside of his wrist, flicked her tongue over the sensitive skin and turned her face back to his. Her arms latched about his neck and she pulled his mouth down to hers.
At first it was just lips on lips. She nibbled and relearned the shape and texture of his mouth. She caught his bottom lip between her teeth and traced its contour with her tongue. She sucked and teased at his mouth until he opened and she slipped her tongue inside. His eyes closed and hers followed suit.
He leaned in closer while she tasted and stroked the roof of his mouth with her tongue. He groaned with pleasure and swept his tongue along the length of hers. She grew heady with her need to draw breath.
She pushed her body against his until he rolled them onto his back. She broke their kiss and gasped for breath. He let her restrain his hands above his head when he would reach for her. She eased back and straddled his thighs.
Her fingers trailed the strong column of his neck and stroked the breadth of his shoulders. She explored the rigid muscles of his chest and scrutinized the curious tattoo—a bundle of sticks bound to an axe—above his heart. She’d seen it before, of course, but only now did she feel she’d any right to ask him about it.
“What’s this?”
Jason’s fingers clasped about her wrist and moved
her hand lower to the flat expanse of his stomach.
“My past,” he dismissed.
She smiled at his impatience, touched the taut line of his waist and traced the muscular planes. She wanted to memorize every line, every curve and every detail of him. She brushed a finger lightly down the silky line of dark hairs running the length of his lower belly to his very ardent arousal.
She kissed him where her fingers tentatively explored—the hollow at the base of his throat, his hardened nipples. And continued lower to the crease of his thighs and the moist tip of his penis. She took him slowly and deeply into her mouth. He groaned loudly, expanding and throbbing against her tongue.
She couldn’t help but smile to herself at her control over him—his body shuddered beneath hers and a labored breath expelled from his lungs.
“Jessica. I want you. Don’t make me wait.”
She crawled forward to cover his body again, holding his gaze bright in anticipation of their pleasure.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered into his eyes.
Their mouths met in a passionate kiss before she slid onto him. A deep moan escaped his lips and he squeezed his eyes shut. She gripped his shoulders and started to move, milking him in long, slow strokes.
“Jessica.”
His hands found her hips, helping her, steadying her, increasing her tempo. He thrust up into her and she pushed down to meet him. Turbulent and intense heat spiraled through her, intoxicating and relentless in its onslaught. She cried his name begging release from the delicious agony saturating every fiber of her being.
Jason pushed himself upright and rolled her beneath him. She curved her legs about his waist and crossed her ankles at his back. He sank deeper and she arched against him, her reaction without thought and her emotions independent of her control. He pounded into her intensifying their pleasure until her body succumbed on a scream to the burgeoning heat bursting through her.
She clung to his quaking body no longer burying her face, no longer ashamed. She dared let go and for the first time in her life she’d surpassed the physical. She’d opened herself to her emotions, to hurt and vulnerability, knowing her orgasm and his had been the sweeter for it.
* * * *
Thunder shook the sky.
“Scared?”
She lay against him, her head resting on his shoulder, her knee nestled between his thighs. Her body satiated after their lovemaking. She tightened her arm about her husband and smiled against his chest.
“Not anymore,” she whispered.
She closed her eyes and listened to the heavy deluge, feeling foolish for having ever been afraid of the rain in the first place.
“Jason?”
“Hmmm?”
“Why would Sean look—I mean—why—?”
Jess paused and took a breath. “What prompted him to search for those documents in the first place?”
“Is that what you’re thinking about?” Jason teased. He trailed a hand from her hip to her knee and back again.
She propped herself up on his chest to look at him, feeling guilty at having broken the spell surrounding them.
“There’s nothing more I’d like right now than to shut the world out and stay here with you, but—I can’t. Not when there are so many questions about Sean and my father.”
Jason stroked her hair lightly and pressed a kiss to her lips. “I know,” he said. “Sean’s action has puzzled me for some time too. What if—?”
He fell back against the pillow. “What if he found that letter by accident? Sean was killed three days after he came to see me on February twenty-first, but it was a week after he’d already been arrested. It’s possible he may have been looking for something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve a hunch Mahon can tell us that.”
Jess pushed herself onto her elbow and looked down into his eyes. “I told you the Inspector said your father was under investigation…” She licked her lips. “What I didn’t tell you was why. It’s because of Sean. They know. The police already know your father’s involved in Sean’s death.”
“They suspect,” Jason corrected. He sat upright. The movement pulled the sheet lower from her breasts.
The spell is definitely broken.
“If the police were a hundred percent sure of his involvement, my father would’ve been arrested by now. Which means they only suspect him and I’m still set up to take the blame for this mess. But…”
“But, what?” Jess pressed. She tugged the sheet higher and wedged it beneath her arms.
“My father is too clever and too meticulous to get caught. I was wondering what tipped the police off in the first place.”
“Perhaps Drew can answer that too.”
She read the sudden look in Jason’s eyes. “There’s nothing between him and me,” she said. She took a deep breath. “We k-kissed…once, that’s all, after the fire. It meant nothing.”
Jason brushed his thumb across her cheek. “I wasn’t thinking about you and Detective Inspector Mahon.”
“You weren’t? What then?”
“Sean. He’d become the son my father always wanted. And even though I’d wanted no part of my father’s businesses or him, I was still jealous, envying Sean a position I wish I could’ve had. Do you understand?”
Jess nodded and reached a hand to hold his.
“I was jealous for the longest time and unable to see Sean for the vulnerable young man he was,” Jason continued. “When I finally did, it was too late. Sean was already caught up in my father’s life.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Jess reasoned. “I loved my brother and knowing he’s dead cuts deep, but Sean never did anything he didn’t want to do. After our father died he left home. Just left. No note, no goodbyes—nothing.”
“I could’ve prevented it. All of it.”
“Could you?” Jess countered softly. “Sean chose his path a long time ago. His friends—his gang—his life.”
“I didn’t even try, Jessica. My father’s a very clever man. He plays to our weaknesses, and then takes control of our lives. With Sean it was money and a sense of power.”
“And with you?”
Jason slid his hand from her cheek to the nape of her neck and brought her mouth close to his. “I never had a weakness, Jessica, until I met you.”
She parted her lips ready to—
A loud, slow thunderous handclap exploded through the room.
Jess spun sharply toward the sound to see Eva leaning heavily against the bedroom door.
“Isn’t this a touching scene?” Eva scathed.
She entered the room and Jess sucked in a startled breath, her eyes leveled on the gun aimed at her chest. A slow smile spread across Eva’s pale, glossed lips.
“Your father wanted this done quietly, inconspicuously, leaving no trace. But I don’t care anymore. I think a bullet through the heart, don’t you, Jason?” she purred. “Finish her off quickly and then we can get down to the business of us.”
Jason’s voice rumbled from his chest. Jess heard his fear.
“Eva, don’t do this.”
“Why not? This bitch deserves to die. Did she really think she could take my place? You love me. You belong to me,” Eva shouted. “I watched you making love to her. You used to look at me that exact same way. I can make you love me again, Jason, but not with her in your life. I’ll not let the likes of her take you from me.”
Even before her brain isolated the clicking sound of the trigger and the ricochet of the bullet Jess knew death had come for her. And found her. The fleeting glint of pure pleasure in Eva’s eyes silently attested to that.
Time stood still and Jess waited, aware of nothing and yet aware of everything. How could Jason remain so calm?
The pain was instant and sharp when it came.
She closed her eyes against the deafening sound of the pounding rain.
Jake…
Chapter Fourteen
Inspector Forbes
examined the long thin blade between his fingers.
“Ingenious,” he murmured. “Where do you buy gadgets like these? Or perhaps you don’t. You have them custom made.”
“I’d like to go to the hospital and see my wife.”
Jason hadn’t wanted to kill Eva, but he hadn’t been willing to let Jessica die. The moment had been instinctive. A schooled precision that he’d learned from his father.
Inspector Forbes slipped the stiletto back into its scabbard with flawless ease. There it looked like a harmless enough object—somewhat larger than a fountain pen, but as stylish as a Waterford.
The scabbard fixed perpendicular to a marble base and had been made to perfection. On one side of the base was a small, obscure button. Inspector Forbes pushed this button once again and the stiletto catapulted to about ten inches in the air.
“I guess it’s a wrist thing,” he remarked dryly as it landed point first on the desk. “You’ve obviously had some practice with this,” he continued. He turned his full gaze onto Jason. “I mean, to catch a stiletto mid-air and throw it with incredible accuracy into someone’s heart takes some proficiency, doesn’t it?”
“Inspector Forbes—”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning, Mr. McCormack,” the inspector interjected smoothly. “It’s clearly self-defense, but I’m not entirely satisfied with your version of events.”
Jason released a long, deep breath. “Then, I want to speak to a lawyer.”
“Of course you do, Mr. McCormack. It is, after all, your inalienable right.”
“Just to let you know, Inspector, I’m hiding nothing, but I’ll be damned if I sit here answering questions when my wife may be dying.”
“Answering questions?” Inspector Forbes shot back. “You’ve told me nothing, not even the name of the woman you killed. I’m not a fool, so please don’t treat me as such. I could arrest you with the evidence I have now”.
“Is that a threat? I’d be out on bail before the ink was dry.”
“That’s true, Mr. McCormack, but money will not always be the solution to your problems.”
“I know that, Inspector. The fact my wife may die tonight testifies to that rather nicely, don’t you think?”
Blood of His Fathers (Sinners and Saints) Page 17