by Katy Connor
He pressed the heel of his palm against my clit, stroked my sweet spot, and pushed me all the way to the edge of that precipice.
I slammed my hand over his.
There wasn’t a chance in hell he was pulling away now.
For once, Jack showed mercy, pressing ever harder on my clit, fucking me deeper with those, strong, long fingers of his, sending me spiraling right over the edge, and headfirst into a massive orgasm.
He kissed me harder as I came, drowning my pleasured moans with his mouth. If he’d let go of my lips for a second, I’d have shouted his name loud enough for every person in that bar to hear.
I came all over his fingers and my panties, the rush of excitement exacerbated by the crowd around us. I came until the table shuddered right along with me. And when my convulsions shook through me for the last time, Jack removed his hand, brought it to his mouth, and licked every drop of my come from his fingers.
I think a lifetime passed before I was able to breathe again. And at least a year until I found my voice.
“Your turn,” I rasped, desperate to hold his fat cock in my hand.
And Jack, withholding bastard that he was, shook his head.
“No?” I couldn’t quite believe it.
“No.”
“W-why not?”
“Anticipation, Bella. You’re not the only one who’ll be coming to memories of this in their apartment tonight.”
I smiled, somewhat mollified. “Come back to my place, so I can watch.”
A full-bodied jerk shook him.
“Spend the night with me, Jack.”
It took him a long time to answer. Long enough that a whole spectrum of emotion crossed his face before he did. Interest. Need. Desire, lust. Trepidation. Uncertainty. Sadness, regret. Grief. “I…can’t.”
And just like that, I lost him. The intense physical connection between us snapped. He’d just given me another glorious orgasm—in the Resus Bar, in a room full of people. An orgasm glorious enough that my heart may have opened up to him, letting him in further than he’d already crept in last weekend.
Yet with two words, he’d annihilated every last bit of that glory.
My ribs tightened, as though someone had wrapped my chest in steel, squeezing hard. It became difficult to breathe. It…hurt. “I… Uh, you…can’t?”
Again, he fought some internal war.
Sadness descended over him like a dark cloud. “I should explain. Tell you the whole story.”
I nodded. Yeah, he should. He was pulling away, and I couldn’t bear it.
I gestured for him to go ahead, but the telling must not have been easy, because Jack said nothing for a long time.
I sipped my wine, waiting, as he studied the whorls and scratches in the wooden table.
“She…died.”
I choked. Not what I’d expected. Not the explanation or the grief-roughened voice.
“Who did?” I half coughed, half spluttered.
“My fiancée.”
My jaw dropped so quickly it must have clanged open. I clunked my glass down, spilling half the wine. “W-when?”
“Three days before our wedding.”
I could do nothing but gape at him.
“She was driving. And texting. Didn’t see the truck bear down on her as she veered across the road.”
“Jack…”
“I was on call when they brought her into emergency. I wheeled in the UID from the MVA.”
He must have seen my confusion.
“The unidentified woman from the motor vehicle accident.”
Horror filled me. “Y-you treated your fiancée? She was your patient?”
He shook his head. “There was nothing to treat. She flatlined as they took her out of the ambulance.”
“Oh my God.” My stomach turned. My chest ached. He’d wheeled his dead fiancée into his own ER. How did anyone survive that kind of trauma?
“I called it. Her time of death.” His eyes glazed over, his voice deadened.
My hands shook so violently I had to clasp them together. “No one helped you? No one took over from you?” They’d let him preside over his fiancée’s death? Wasn’t there a law about doctors not being able to treat family?
“No one knew who she was—except me. And by the time they realized, it was too late.” He swirled the scotch around his glass. “We had plans, you know? Honeymoon in Fiji. House by the ocean. Three kids and a dog.” He looked up, but I suspected he didn’t see me. His thoughts were elsewhere. Miles away in an emergency room in Australia. Or maybe a tropical beach in Fiji. “All I have to show for those plans is a plaque with her name on it. And a rosebush we planted on her grave.”
No honeymoon, no house, no family.
I grasped his hands, held them tight. My heart cracked clean in two, his pain as tangible as the fingers I’d threaded through mine.
He looked at our joined hands. “It’s been two years. I had to leave. Had to escape the city where I saw her on every corner, heard her in every song on the radio. Had to get away. Two years, and it still… It still rips me apart.”
I guessed that kind of trauma never stopped hurting. How could it?
He disentangled our fingers. His shoulders sagged, his mouth drooped. “I like you, Bella. Never knew I could like someone so much after Eva. I can’t seem to keep away from you.” He shifted out of the booth, contradicting his very words. “But I can’t be with you. Can’t go there again. If I put my heart on the line again, it wouldn’t survive another tragedy.”
I understood. I blinked back the tears pressing against my eyelids.
But I also didn’t really understand. He was shutting us down before we’d had a chance to explore the spark between us. Denying us today because two years ago, he’d tragically lost someone he loved.
“Jack, I’m here. Alive and breathing. I’m not planning on dying anytime soon.”
The poignant tilt of his lips was the most heart wrenching thing I’d ever seen. “Evie hadn’t planned on dying, either.”
He dipped his head in farewell, turned, and walked away, the weight of the world seemingly resting on his shoulders.
And I sat there, watching him go, powerless to stop him. Jack might have trouble staying away from me. He might like me more than he thought possible. And he might have destroyed every one of the barriers around my heart that night in my kitchen. But his defenses were still as solid as the mountains outside. And from the look of his departing figure, they weren’t about to crumble any time soon.
Chapter Eight
Getting over the hot doctor might not have been a huge problem—if he’d stayed away from me. I could have let the part of me that understood his reluctance overshadow the part that craved something bigger with him. Could have classified him as a favorite but unattainable fantasy. Could even have convinced myself that maybe we wouldn’t be great together. I would have been a little pissed off that I’d lost an amazing opportunity before I’d had a chance to explore it, and a lot disgruntled that I’d never again have such fantastic sex. But I’d probably have gotten over him.
If he’d just stayed away.
But he couldn’t seem to, and it’s pretty hard to forget someone when he keeps coming around.
Thursday evenings at De Lucas are generally crazy. Early evening is the family rush, late evening the more sophisticated adult dining. I certainly wasn’t expecting Jack to show up with a kid and another couple in tow at seven that night. But in he walked, with that same conflicted look on his face.
Just my luck, I was working the front of the restaurant. The desserts were made, the kitchen under control, and there was more need for me to manage tables and customers than food.
I greeted them at the door, like I would any customers. Although my heart never slammed against my ribs with other customers.
“Good evening, all. Dr. Scott.” I smiled at his companions and shot him a questioning look.
He gave me a tight smile. More of a grimace, really. A look that said
, I like you, but I shouldn’t.
“Table for four?”
“Please.” Jack nodded.
“I, uh, never expected to see you at De Lucas.” Translation: You made it clear you didn’t want to see me again.
“Word is you can’t get better Italian food in Hardrock,” the woman said in a strong Australian accent.
“True story.” I smiled at her, wishing my heart were in my response.
“And Jack’s been promising Matty a taste of your cannoli for almost two weeks.”
I looked at the boy. “You’re in luck. I have a fresh supply in the kitchen, and there’s a chocolate cannoli looking for a hungry mouth.”
“Not before dinner, Matty.” She ruffled the kid’s hair. I didn’t know her. But her accent, her son, and her long, brown curls and brown eyes were a dead giveaway. She had to be Jack’s sister.
“Hope you like pizza.” What child didn’t? “We’ve got the best pies in Colorado.”
His eyes grew enormous. “I love pizza.”
I beckoned a waitress over. “This is Christy. She’ll be your waitress tonight. Follow her to your table, and she’ll take your order.”
Jack didn’t follow Christy immediately. He waited until his group was out of earshot before saying, “Dr. Scott?”
I shrugged. “Seemed appropriate, considering we’re not really friends.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw—which for once was cleanly shaven and looked better than any clean-shaven jaw had a right to look. Square and strong and supremely lickable.
He grimaced. “Friendship was never what I wanted from you.”
“Yep. I got that the other night at the Resus Bar. Right about the time you walked away from me.”
I didn’t mean for the bitterness to come through. Jack had survived a trauma no person should ever have to live through. My heart ached for him. But the trauma had left him emotionally detached and unable to open himself up to love again.
“I’m sorry, Bella.” He looked sorry. Regret painted his gorgeous features. As did that awful grief he carried with him. “I wish it could be different.”
“Yep.” I couldn’t hide the sadness from my voice.
His lips tightened.
“What are you really doing here? There are twenty other Italian restaurants you could have chosen instead of De Lucas.”
He pushed a hand through his hair. Emotion warred in his eyes. “I suggested we go somewhere else. But I’d kinda jinxed that suggestion by raving about your cannoli. Matty and my sister insisted on De Lucas.”
I was caught between wanting to pull him close and kiss the living daylights out of him and wanting to punch him hard in the stomach simply for standing there.
“Well, at least your family won’t be disappointed in the restaurant choice.”
He stared at me with a dark, brooding gaze. “Bella—”
I cut him off, not wanting to hear whatever he said next. “Excuse me, please. I have other customers.” It wasn’t a lie. A line had formed at the door.
He sighed, nodded, and made his way to his table as I forced a happy smile on my face and greeted more diners.
Working that night was all kinds of hell. I steered clear of Jack’s table but felt his gaze on me every time I turned around. I caught him staring more than once. For someone who was too gun-shy to take a shot at a good thing, he didn’t seem to have any trouble watching my every move. Although his gaze was filled with consternation as he stared at me, a muscle ticked often in his cheek, and he frowned way more than he smiled.
For dessert, I sent them a plateful of cannoli and a slice of my orange and pistachio cake, compliments of De Lucas. The cannoli were for his family, the cake for Jack alone. And though he savored every bite—I know, because I watched him devour the whole damn thing—he had no idea he was the reason that cake existed in the first place.
Less than twenty-four hours after he’d dined at De Lucas, Jack was back, an hour before the dinner rush began, asking for me.
Me. The woman he wanted, but not enough to overcome his past loss.
And fool that I am, I trotted out of the kitchen to greet him with a smile—because at De Lucas we’re never rude to our customers.
Well, I tried to smile, but found it difficult. What was he doing here? Again? “You’re back.”
The scruff on his chin and cheeks was also back, and his hair was wet and smelled a little of chlorine. And oranges. And lemons. And bells of St. Clement’s.
God, I was pathetic. I had to physically restrain myself from burying my nose in his hair and sniffing in all the clean, citrusy yumminess.
“Matty loved the cannoli. I promised I’d pick some more up for him and drop them off at the house tonight.”
“Drop them off?” Didn’t he mean take them home with him?
“I moved out a couple days ago. Got my own place, a little house with a great view of the mountains.” He grinned ruefully. “Not sure why I paid extra for the view. I’m never there to enjoy it.”
I didn’t feel like making small talk. I felt like insisting he tell me why he’d really come to De Lucas. I also felt like telling him to leave the restaurant, leave me alone, and stop messing with my head and my heart.
And yet there went my mouth, chatting away without my permission. “Busy at work?”
“Busier than I anticipated.”
“A house with a view?” I mused. “That can’t be too close to the hospital.”
“Couple of miles away. No worries, though. Got myself a car as well, so the drive is no problem.”
The way he spoke, and the way he pronounced car… It was sexy.
Too damn sexy. I couldn’t resist it. Or him. “Damn it, Jack. Tell me you’re not really here for the cannoli.” Ah well. I never was very good at small talk. “Tell me you came because you wanted to see me. Wanted…me.” Like I wanted him.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Matty asked for cannoli.”
I leaned in close, challenging him. “You’re lying.” I could feel it in my bones.
Or maybe I could feel it in his bones since he’d stepped closer, too. His body strained toward mine, like mine strained toward his.
“I’m not.” His voice was husky, his breath warm. “But it gave me the excuse I needed to see you again.”
“You don’t need an excuse.” I looked up at him, baring my soul. “I want to see you. You have to know that by now.”
Conflict raged in his eyes again.
I grabbed his hand, held it in mine. “I know it’s hard. I know it must feel like you’re betraying her. I get that.” Tears filled my eyes, because I did get it. Jack’s pain was tangible. “But she died, Jack. You didn’t. You got to live.”
Grief contorted his face.
I pulled his hand to my mouth, kissed his fingers. “Let me help you get past the pain. Let me help you live again.”
“God, Bella, you’re tearing me apart inside.”
“Come upstairs with me, Jack. To my apartment. I’ll make it better.” I couldn’t offer him comfort with my words. He wouldn’t accept them. He’d run, like he had the other night. But there were other ways to comfort Jack. Or if not comfort, to at least make him forget for a while.
Temptation flared in his gaze, momentarily hiding the sadness. His cock swelled. I knew, because I stood close enough to feel his interest perk up.
Then he gave me a rueful smile. “You can’t. The restaurant’s opening soon.”
I checked my watch, did a quick calculation in my head, and quickly untied my apron. “You ever heard of a quickie, Dr. Scott?”
He groaned audibly.
“Gianni?” I yelled to my brother in the kitchen while staring into Jack’s gorgeous eyes. “Got an emergency. I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”
“Twenty,” he yelled back.
“Twenty-five,” I retaliated, but never heard his response. I’d grabbed Jack’s hand and led him quickly out the door.
It was a mad rush to my apartment. We climbed the stairs,
breathless with anticipation.
My need to touch him was powerful enough my hands shook. I almost couldn’t get my front door open. But once I did, the shaking became irrelevant. Jack lifted me up, tossed me over his shoulder, and scrambled for my bedroom.
He tossed me on the bed fast enough that I bounced. I hadn’t hit the mattress a second time when he was on top of me, his body covering mine, pressing me into my duvet, his lips and tongue finding my mouth with unerring accuracy.
And, oh my God, that kiss. It rocked me all the way through to my toes. He made love to my mouth, seducing me with his tongue and his teeth and his lips. He bamboozled my brain and fried my senses, and when he pulled back to breathe, I was stunned to find myself naked.
How he’d managed to get my clothes off without my even noticing was beyond me. Such was the power of his kiss.
I wasn’t complaining. Not when my own fingers were working double-time to relieve Jack of his khakis and shirt. I struggled a little with one of his buttons, ripping it off in my desperation to get to his beautiful chest. It flew across the room and pinged against the wall.
I might have apologized, only Jack’s mouth was on mine again, and the full length of his now-naked body was pressed to the full length of my naked body, and I had no words. How could I speak when joy filled every part of me and my skin practically sang with awareness? Goose bumps popped up everywhere.
I wrapped my arms around Jack’s shoulders, and my legs around his waist, and luxuriated in the knowledge I was in his arms once more.
He was all hard muscle and warm flesh. The low growls of need vibrating through his throat made me shiver.
He gasped my name as I dragged my wet pussy along the length of his erection.
My eyes were rolled back in my head at the sheer headiness his unsheathed cock inspired. I wanted that cock insoide me.
“Bella, fuck.” Jack’s voice had a tortured ring to it. “Need you. Bad. Don’t think…can…go slow.”
I didn’t need him to go slow. I was so ready for him, so hungry for his length, he’d have no problem driving into me. “Don’t…want slow,” I insisted, dragging my now-swollen lower lips along the length of his cock again. “Just want you.”