She bit her lower lip. Her eyes filled with tears. Her voice breaking, she said, “Knowing you made me a better person. I’ll always be grateful I met you. And I’ll always be yours.”
She turned and ran off the stage.
The room leapt to its feet, the reporters shouting questions, shooting pictures, surging toward the stage to get one last, final picture of her before she disappeared through a side door. A team of newscasters behind a desk came on to comment on the broadcast, and Jenna pushed a button on the remote, plunging the television screen into darkness. She rose, turned to look at Hawk, and smiled. “So, what did you think? Interesting speech, wasn’t it?”
He stood unsteadily. His chest felt constricted, as if an invisible winch was tightening around it, and he couldn’t catch his breath. He thought for one wild, deranged moment he was having a heart attack.
Jacqueline remembered. She remembered everything.
And she loved him.
He stammered, “I . . . I . . .”
“I know,” said the Queen, moving to the other side of the room. She stopped beside Leander, glancing up at him with a smile. When she looked back at Hawk, her whole face was alight. “Go,” she urged softly, resting her head on Leander’s chest. “If you catch a good tailwind, you’ll be in New York by nightfall.”
Hawk made a noise that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh, then put his hand to his face, rubbing his jaw. He nodded, looking between Jenna, Leander, and Morgan, who was grinning mischievously.
Without another word, he Shifted to Vapor and surged out of the room and into the sky, leaving his clothes behind in a pile on the Queen’s living room floor.
The carton of noodles with spicy garlic sauce was empty, as was the carton of curry dumplings, the box of veggie rolls, and the container of pad thai, which Jack normally didn’t order because it tasted vaguely of pork. She suspected those small, meaty chunks Mr. Hsu at her favorite Chinese place always claimed were fried tofu were, in fact, of animal origin.
Tonight, consuming things of animal origin seemed like a perfectly rational idea. Right up there with ruining your career, conducting a weepy confessional on national television, becoming the laughingstock of everyone you ever knew, and realizing you’d lost the love of your life because you were, one: suffering from amnesia, and two: a complete jerk.
“Maybe no one will recognize me in Iceland,” Jack muttered, looking up at the moon hanging in the night sky. Cold and remote, it stared balefully back through her apartment windows. “Or . . . Costa Rica.”
Yes. Costa Rica. Better than Iceland. Less ice.
She’d finally convinced Nola she’d spent enough time away from her own life and should return to it, and that no, she was in no danger of slitting her wrists. Nola had gone grudgingly, threatening to call first thing in the morning, though she’d already texted her three times in the past three hours.
Instead of walking to China Palace as Jack normally would have, she’d asked the restaurant to deliver the food because there were still two news vans parked outside her apartment building, filled with reporters waiting to pounce. And now she was sitting on the floor in the living room, with her back against the wall, surrounded by empty food containers, wondering why she’d never had the sense to buy more furniture.
“Because you didn’t need it, that’s why,” she said aloud to the empty room. “You were never home.”
Home. Now there was a concept. For the first time in her life she knew where home really was.
The same place her heart was. With Hawk.
Just thinking his name hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a few deep breaths, then pushed herself up to her feet, leaving the cartons behind. She wandered through the dim, silent apartment, went to stand at the tall windows to look out into the night. Lights in windows and streams of traffic and a skyline forested with skyscrapers . . . New York City was about as different from the rainforest as it was from the moon.
She’d finally called her father. The conversation was awkward. At the end, Jack told him she loved him, and that if he ever again uttered racist, sexist, hateful things about people in her presence that would be the last time he’d see her. He’d gone quiet when she said that; then he’d said, “Okay, Jackie,” and Jack had felt such a surge of relief she wished she’d demanded it years ago.
Then he told her Garrett had finally succeeded in killing himself.
She’d sunk to her knees as he spoke, clutching the phone so hard she thought it might break, every muscle in her body shaking.
“Made himself a rope of thread he’d been pulling from his clothes. Took him over a year to make it, they think. Guess he was determined.”
There was an exposed metal pipe along the ceiling in the communal shower at the mental institution. They’d found him swinging from it, with the rope he’d fashioned with his own hands tight around his neck.
She’d thought she would cry then. Emotion rolled through her, there was an awful constriction in her throat, but the tears wouldn’t come. Finally she’d just said goodbye to her father and ended the call, exhausted.
She’d napped. She’d ordered food. And now she was staring out the window, trying to decide what to do with the rest of her life.
“Hawaii could be good,” she said to the glaring moon. Then, “No, not far enough. But definitely somewhere tropical. Maybe . . . the Caribbean.”
From behind her a low voice said, “What about Brazil?”
She whirled around and there he was, a shadowed presence against the open rectangle of her bedroom door, cat’s eyes shining silver through the dark.
Light coursed through her, pure and blinding bright, and for a moment it was all she could do to stand still and breathe, feeling blood pound in her temples and a happiness so profound she thought it might leak through her pores in drops of sunbeam gold.
“I . . . you . . .” Astonishment was wreaking havoc with her ability to string a sentence together, and she stood there staring at him stupidly, gaping, her body taut with hope and disbelief. “You’re here. You’re here.”
“I was in the neighborhood. If a continent south could be considered the neighborhood.”
The sound she made was a weak approximation of a laugh, gutted by shock, and it made his cat eyes flash mercury bright.
“Interesting speech you gave.”
“Oh, you know,” she said, failing to match his offhand tone, “those silly speech writers. Anything for the ratings.”
He stepped away from the door, his gaze scorching the air between them like a lit fuse.
He was nude, and glorious. Had she ever seen a thing so beautiful as him, drenched in moonlight, moving toward her with that predatory gleam in his eye?
She closed her eyes just as he reached her, terrified he might be a dream. But then his hand brushed her cheek, his thumb traced the curve of her lower lip, and everywhere he touched it felt like he left a trail of fire.
He was no dream. He was here. Her rigid disbelief gave way and she was wracked with trembling.
“Yes. I’m sure the ratings were amazing,” he murmured, moving closer. “That was quite a show, Red. About-face of the century.” He radiated heat, standing so close now she felt his warmth straight through her clothes, burning her chest and stomach. He put his lips to her ear and in a thick voice said, “I especially liked the end part.”
“I thought that would be a good touch,” she whispered. His hands came around her waist. She wound her arms up around his shoulders, broad and bare and strong. “More dramatic, you know.”
He angled his head, gazing down at her with a scant smile, fire burning in his eyes. “For the ratings.”
His hands tightened around her waist and she said his name, a catch in her throat. Her pulse was a jagged throb in her neck. He dipped his head and pressed his lips against the throbbing vein. “Say it again, Jacqueline,
” he whispered, his lips moving against her skin. “I want to hear you say it again.”
Her head fell back. Her eyes slid shut. He pressed his mouth against her neck, teeth and tongue and wonderful sucking, and she felt a jolt of electricity straight down to the soles of her feet. Gasping, she said, “I’m yours.”
He chuckled, a sound with an edge to it like a purr. An arm snaked around her waist, pulling her hard against him, a hand tightened in her hair.
“No, that wasn’t quite it.” Lips, velvet soft and teasing, brushed against hers. “Try again.”
He slid his tongue across her lower lip, that hand still tight in her hair, holding her head, and for a moment she thought her knees might give way altogether, so intense was the pleasure and emotion. She tried to speak, but all that came out was the smallest of sounds, a low, choked sob.
He took her face in his hands and demanded, “Jacqueline. Say it again.”
With the first of the tears burning her eyes, she whispered, “I’ll always be yours.”
Then he kissed her, hard, until her breath was short and she was clinging to him, shaking so badly she was shaking him, too. He broke away, panting.
“That’s right,” he growled, lifting her up in his arms in one swift, smooth motion, one arm supporting her back, the other hooked under her knees. “I lay claim to you, woman. You’re mine, and you always will be, and there’s nothing in this world that’s ever going to separate us again.”
Jack buried her face into his neck and sobbed. He swung around and carried her into the bedroom, laid her on the bed, tore off her clothes, and kissed her everywhere until her sobs turned to moans. Still the tears didn’t stop, even when he came between her legs and pushed inside her, even as he told her everything he felt for her, how much he loved her, how he’d thought he would die when she’d left, his eyes rapt on her face, his body moving inside hers.
When finally the culmination burst over her in a blazing white flare, she cried out his name, her body bowed with a pleasure so acute it was almost agony.
He pumped deep, hard and rough, letting his hips take over as she met his every thrust with her hips, coaxing him to where she wanted him to go. Then he stilled, his entire body flexed, and he moaned, his head thrown back, eyes closed.
She felt it deep inside her—throbbing, a spreading heat—then he shuddered.
“Say it again,” he begged, his voice broken. “Please—Jacqueline—”
“Always, only yours,” she wept, pulling him down with her hands on his face so they were staring into each other’s eyes as he twitched and groaned, his beautiful face flushed, dark hair falling over his forehead, down his cheeks. “Forever.”
He collapsed against her, wrapped his arms so hard around her she wondered briefly if there would be bruises. He kissed her wet face, her mouth, her eyes, turned his face against her so her tears dampened his cheeks, too. He said hoarsely into her ear, “You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, or ever will.”
And her heart, her poor hummingbird heart that had been broken so long ago and kept in a dark little box behind a thousand locked doors, was finally free.
Hawk had set her heart free, and it was soaring.
Jacqueline woke as the horizon was turning faintly pale in the east, and shifted her head on his arm. When she opened her eyes there was a moment of confusion, then recognition, and then they blazed with a heat that made his soul sing.
“I was having the most wonderful dream.” She burrowed closer to him beneath the blankets, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead, stroking his hand over the smooth satin curve of her hip.
“Hmm.” He nuzzled his nose into her neck, inhaling the sweet, soft scent that rose from her skin. Though he was tired from his flight, and hours of lovemaking, he couldn’t fall asleep; instead had just watched her all night, marveling.
Love. It burned hot as a swallowed sun within him.
“We were on a sailboat, out in the open sea. It was sunny and warm and the water was this amazing, crystal blue, and we were sailing right into the most beautiful sunset, all crimson and orange and purple and gold. You were feeding me figs, sips of wine, little bites of cheese—”
“A picnic on a sailboat at sunset. I had no idea you were so romantic,” he teased.
She blinked up at him, coy. “I’m super romantic, buddy. You’re going to have to invest in some poetry writing classes and guitar lessons, because I have high expectations. I mean, you can’t just throw me over your shoulder and toss me into bed every time the mood hits.”
He said, “Watch me.”
She pretended to pout. “I need some wooing, cave man! I deserve to be wooed!”
He rose up on one elbow and stared down into her face. He said quietly, “I want to spend every second of every day for the rest of my life with you, finding out what makes you happy, and doing it. I want you to have my children, and grow old with me, and love me until the day you die. I want to protect you from harm, and I will kill anyone or anything that ever hurts you. I want to shower you in love and worship you and I promise there won’t be a day that goes by that I won’t tell you how much you mean to me. I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?”
She breathed, “Oh,” and her eyes went wide.
He raised his brows, waiting for her answer. She nodded. He said, “Good. Consider yourself wooed.”
He kissed her, feeling the curve of her smile against his mouth. Then he rolled over and pulled her atop him, cradling her to his chest.
After a while, she whispered, “Okay, I admit that was some pretty great wooing.”
He stroked her hair off her face and shoulders, smoothed it down her back. They lay in silence for a while, watching the streetlights wink out with the first rays of dawn, until his gaze settled on an embroidered square of fabric hung in a frame on the wall. It was the only thing on any of the walls in her apartment, which suggested it held sentimental value. Which made him curious.
“You a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe?”
Her laugh was sweet and low. “I am now.” She lifted her head and looked at him. “But I wasn’t before. Morgan gave that to me. Remember, the present with the white bow? I think she made it herself, but I can’t be sure. She didn’t say.”
He looked again at the patch of fabric, stitched with a quote.
The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.
“He was a smart man, ahead of his time,” Hawk murmured, trailing his fingers up the gentle bumps of her spine. “ ‘Hope of the world made new,’ indeed.”
“Wait—you’re not telling me he was one of you . . . are you?”
He smiled at her. “One of these days I’ll make you a complete list. But in the meantime, we’re going to have to decide where to live.”
“Oh. Well . . . why not the colony?”
His hand on her skin stilled. “You would live there with me? Leave your life here behind?”
She gazed up at him, smiling, her eyes soft. “Did we not just establish that I was properly wooed? Home is wherever you are, Hawk.” She spread her hand over his chest, above his heart. “Home is this, right here.”
He closed his eyes briefly, gratitude rising up in a wave that overwhelmed him, along with a flare of love so violent he felt burned. “Things aren’t safe at the colony for you. In fact, they’re not safe for any of us. If I hadn’t been voted the new Alpha, I’d probably—”
“Alpha! Voted! What happened to fighting to the death?” She’d jerked upright, was staring at him with unblinking eyes.
“Oh? You’d rather that than a nice, civilized vote?”
“Of course not!” she huffed, shoving his chest. “But—how—”
“I’ll give you one guess. It involves a dragon.”
Jack stared at him, the li
ght of comprehension dawning in her eyes. “The Queen.”
He nodded. “Looks like democracy finally made it to the jungle. Our new Queen is proving herself quite the reformist. So far she’s overturned pretty much every Law we ever had.”
Jack smiled. “I knew I liked her.”
He drew her down against his chest again, combing his fingers through her hair. “And she likes you. God help us if the two of you ever put your heads together: we’ll end up living on the moon.”
Jacqueline grew solemn as she trailed her fingers over his arm. “Is that the only place that will be safe for us, you think? The moon? Do you think your species and mine will ever be able to live together in harmony?”
He thought about it for a long time, looking out into the sky.
He finally said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Hearing her dark sigh, he teased, “Look at the lengths I had to go to just to change your mind about us. Seducing you was a hell of a lot of work, sweetheart. I don’t know any other male who would be up to the challenge.”
“Oh, really?” She bit his nipple, and he yelped in outrage, throwing her onto her back. “And by the way,” she said as he returned the favor but with fewer teeth and a lot more tongue, making her arch her back and her voice go breathy, “if I recall correctly, it was I who seduced you.”
He lifted his head and gazed down at his love, her face flushed, her smile so beautiful. He said, “We seduced each other. That’s what happens when you fall in love.”
“Hmm. So it’s a fairy-tale ending, then?”
Hawk slowly shook his head. “It’s not a fairy tale, but it’s real, and it’s good. And it’s everything I could possibly hope for. It’s more than I deserve.”
Her smile grew dazzling. “Look at you, an expert in wooing already. You just earned yourself a gold star, buddy.”
Darkness Bound (A Night Prowler Novel) Page 36