by J. S. Scott
“Jackson!” I said in a hysterical voice.
I was terrified I’d find him out cold, but his eyes were wide open, his intense gaze locked on my face.
“L-Let me help you,” I stammered as I got up awkwardly, my legs still a little unsteady.
“Don’t. Fucking. Move.” His low baritone sounded growly and pissed off.
He stood up, and turned to face me.
“I-I’m really sorry, Jackson. Are you okay?” I asked hesitantly, my eyes scanning over his face and body.
He’d taken a pretty hard fall, and Lord knew I was no lightweight. I’d landed pretty hard right on top of him.
His eyes drilled into me as he answered, “Hell, no. I’m not okay. I just watched you nearly fall to your death. What in the hell were you thinking? This deck isn’t that big, and you put yourself over the railing by standing on that huge table. You should have known that one wrong move, and you could have toppled right over that railing.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. He was right. I was a sensible woman…most of the time. But I’d gotten so caught up in the season that I wasn’t really calculating the chances of falling off the deck. I’d just wanted to put some lights up.
Really, what were the chances that I was going to slip and fall? But I had been a little reckless because the metal surface of the table had still been a little damp from the rain.
“You probably saved my life,” I mumbled. “I can’t believe you just happened to be here at the exact moment I needed you.”
Reality was setting in, and I had to admit I’d been pretty damn lucky.
If not for Jackson, I’d be bleeding all over the pavement right now.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “The last thing I wanted was for you to get hurt because I did something stupid.”
He took my shoulders and shook me. “Do you think I give a damn if I get a couple of bruises, Hayden? You took years off my life when I saw that you were going to tumble to the ground. It’s a twenty-five-foot fall to the concrete. If you weren’t killed, you would have been in pretty bad shape. You scared the hell out of me. Don’t ever fucking do something like that again.”
He wrapped his powerful arms around me tightly, and buried his face in my hair.
He isn’t mad. He’s scared. He was afraid something bad would happen to me.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, and put my head on his chest, almost certain I could feel his heartbeat racing underneath the T-shirt he was wearing.
I felt his big body shudder as he tightened his arms around me, and my heart melted.
Other than my sister, nobody has ever cared this much about me.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was an I-almost-died reaction, or the realization that I really mattered to Jackson. A lot!
I suspected it was a little of both.
Had he not risked his own neck to save me, I’d almost certainly be dead or critically injured right now.
What were the chances of him showing up the split second I’d needed him?
I decided I’d probably never buy another lottery ticket. I’d used up all my long shots today.
“Thank you for saving me,” I mumbled against his chest. “Are you sure you aren’t hurt? I landed right on top of you.”
“I’m fine,” he said gruffly. “And I like having you on top of me. But I’d prefer that both of us were naked, and safe.”
My face flushed beet red. I could almost see myself riding Jackson’s muscular body until I was sated. That wasn’t something I’d even contemplated doing before since I was a big girl, and any guy I’d ever dated had reminded me of my size as often as possible.
But Jackson doesn’t seem to mind.
In fact, I was starting to believe my tall, big-boned, curvy body really did turn him on.
He pulled back so he could look at me. “Why in the hell didn’t you find a ladder so you weren’t so damn close to the edge of the deck?”
I shrugged. “I don’t keep one here, and the lights were kind of a last minute thing.”
“I have one.”
“I went to your place. You weren’t there.”
“And you couldn’t have waited until I got back? I just went for a run on the beach.”
I felt duly chastised, and I didn’t like it. “I’m sorry. But I just wanted to toss up some lights.”
His hard expression softened. “Hey, I’m trying to make you feel bad, beautiful. Nobody is happier than me that you’re okay. But if something would have happened to you, Hayden, it would have killed me. And what if I’d gotten here five seconds later? That shit will haunt me for a while.”
I reached out a hand and stroked his whiskered jawline, my heart aching over the fact that he would have been the one to find me squashed on the pavement if he hadn’t rescued me. “I’m fine. Don’t think about it anymore, Jackson. It was a miracle that you knew I was in trouble.”
He raked a hand through his hair in a frustrated gesture. “It was no miracle, Hayden. And it wasn’t fate.”
He took my hand and pulled me into the house.
I sat on the couch and watched him as he went to the kitchen, and brought me back a large glass of wine.
“I have to tell you something, and you’re going to need that glass of wine,” he said as he sat in the recliner across from me. “It’s something I should have mentioned a while ago, when I first knew I was crazy about you.”
My heart skittered as I took in the tension in his expression. “You can tell me anything, Jackson.”
Did he really think anything he told me was going to change the way I felt about him?
I love him!
I was pretty sure I’d started to fall for him from the first time we’d literally run into each other.
I’d fought those emotions, and tried to pretend that I could just be his friend.
But I had a nagging feeling that I could never think of Jackson as anything other than my soulmate.
And not loving the man would be impossible for me.
Sure, I still had my insecurities. Jackson was filthy rich, a celebrity, and wickedly gorgeous.
I’d told myself that he couldn’t ever possibly return my feelings because I wasn’t exactly the type of woman a guy like him would fall in love with.
He could take his pick of supermodels to date.
But he’d chosen me, and he’d been treating me like I was the most beautiful woman on Earth.
It was obvious that he cared, and I hated the fact that I’d judged him because he was rich, famous, and gorgeous.
Obviously, those things didn’t mean all that much to him.
“You might change your mind,” he warned me. “I was going to wait a little longer to tell you, until maybe you had the chance to really know me. But I think you need to know now.”
“Just tell me,” I said, and then took a sip of my wine.
“Me knowing that you were in trouble was no coincidence, Hayden,” he said gutturally, his face stoic. “I was taking a run on the beach, and I saw it happening. I ran like hell to get back here, but I didn’t know if I’d make it here in time.”
I cocked my head. “I don’t understand. How could you see it if you were that far away? How could you get here in time?”
“Things like that have been happening to me since I was a kid,” he said solemnly. “I have precognition sometimes. I’m a freak of nature that can sometimes see events before they happen. I’m…psychic.”
Chapter Eleven
Hayden
I shook my head slowly as I gaped at Jackson. There was a long pause before I finally said, “I don’t believe in those things. I never have.”
I wanted to be honest with him, and I didn’t know what to say.
The truth seemed appropriate right at the moment.
“I’d think it was crazy, too, if it wasn’t me that experiences it,” he answered morosely. “Predicting events doesn’t happen to me very often. But being able to see things before they happen has alwa
ys made me…different. When I was seven years old, I had a precognition of my best friend drowning. I tried to tell him, and his parents, that it was going to happen.”
He paused for a moment before he continued, “That was the beginning of everybody thinking I was odd. When my buddy went on vacation with his parents to Florida, and he got caught in a riptide with his parents right next to him, the rumors really started. Mark died, drowned before his parents could help him. Before long, everyone in school thought I was crazy, and I got bullied until I got big enough to fight back. I was the peculiar kid nobody wanted to be around. The only person who really understood was my brother, Levi, because it happens to him, too.”
My heart hurt for Jackson. I knew what it was like to be considered…different. Or undesirable. “I’m so sorry,” I told him, feeling genuinely sad even though I didn’t understand his ability.
He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
“Why do you think it’s just you and Levi? Do your parents have the same ability?”
“No,” he said in a husky voice. “But my grandmother did. She’s gone now.”
Was it possible that he really could see things before they happened? It was incredible to me, but he seemed so sincere.
And so terribly…sad.
“You’re afraid of me now, aren’t you?” he asked in what sounded like a resigned voice.
“No,” I assured him. “I’m just having a hard time coming to terms with something I always thought was nonsense. But I have to admit that it was pretty damn miraculous that you just showed up, without a moment to spare, to save my life.”
My heart said that everything Jackson was telling me was the truth, but my brain hadn’t quite caught up with my heart yet.
He released a masculine sigh. “I was taking a run along the beach when I saw a flash of you falling off your deck. I was nearly a half-mile down the beach. That’s probably the fasting half-mile run I’ve ever done to get to you, Hayden. Problem is, I don’t know when the event I see is going to happen, but it’s always in the future. I just never know how much time I have to prevent it—if the person actually listens to me.”
“How often does it happen?”
“Only a handful of times,” he explained. “And it’s always somebody incredibly close to me. Mark is the only one who died, but the premonitions I have always happen in real life. How in the hell do you think I got back to your house right as you were ready to plunge to the concrete? How do you think I knew it was going to happen? Even if I had gotten there right in the split second you needed me by coincidence, I wouldn’t have been able to process the situation that fast. You would have fallen before I could figure out what was happening.”
I finished off my glass of wine because I needed it. Hell, I was tempted to get the rest of the bottle and drain the whole thing.
His story was so fantastical, so unreal. It wasn’t that I thought he was crazy, or that he wasn’t telling me the truth.
It was just going to take me time to process everything.
“I’ve never believed in psychic readings, or television psychics,” I muttered.
He let out a sarcastic laugh. “They’re mostly bunk,” he replied in a cynical tone. “I’m not saying that some real ones don’t exist, but the majority of them are charlatans. I sure as hell can’t read anybody’s future except for random events. And I have a hard time believing anyone else can, either. And it’s really hard to swallow when they do it for money.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “So you think it’s a rare gift?”
“A gift? Most of the time I see it as a curse,” he grunted. “You’re the first person I’ve actually been able to help because you didn’t have to believe me. I was just able to intervene.”
“I take it you don’t share this ability with other people readily?” I guessed.
He shot me a do-you-really-think-anybody-would-believe-me look. “Hell, no. Only my parents and Levi know the truth except for a couple of friends that I’ve tried to warn. And a handful of people who remember my childhood.”
“Do your parents believe you?” I hoped his parents had given him unconditional love.
“Of course,” he said. “My mother saw it in her mother, my grandmother. And my dad just didn’t give a damn. He just treated Levi and I like his sons—who just happen to have a psychic gift.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “At least somebody accepted you.”
“Do you?” he asked hoarsely.
“I accept that you believe it’s true,” I answered carefully.
“You are afraid of me,” he answered sharply. “Dammit! That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Everybody I’ve told about a premonition outside of my family has always seen me as a freak.”
“I don’t,” I reassured him. “It’s just going to take me some time to figure this all out, Jackson. But I don’t, and haven’t ever seen you as different or frightening. You’re the most incredible man I’ve ever met.”
His gift was totally foreign to me, and flew against every logical thought I’d always had about psychic ability, but it didn’t change the way I felt about him.
If anything, it had my heart in very tight vise, squeezing inside my chest.
He’d been made fun of.
Ridiculed.
Bullied.
Shunned.
And he’d never been able to trust anybody with who he really was.
“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me,” I murmured, wanting to throw myself into his arms and comfort him.
He stood up. “I have to go,” he said abruptly. “I have a phone meeting to discuss a work project. And I think you need some time to decide whether or not you can deal with a boyfriend who’s not quite what you wanted.”
I popped out of my seat. “Jackson, it’s not that—”
He walked to the door. “There’s more, Hayden. But I’ll let you decide if you want to hear it. It’s even more unbelievable than what I just told you.”
I sprinted for the door, but Jackson closed it behind him, and I could hear him jogging down the steps before I could get the door open.
Wait, Hayden. Just wait. Give it some time before you go see him.
Maybe we both needed time.
Tears started to flow down my face as I pressed my cheek to the closed door.
Even though my rational brain was still fighting to deal with what he’d told me, I did believe him.
And I loved him even more because he’d fought his way through a lot of rejection and ridicule.
And I know so well what that feels like.
We’d both always been different, even though our circumstances weren’t the same.
I couldn’t shake the image of his disappointed face as he’d looked at me. And it was tearing me apart.
Maybe I should go after him. Let him know that I love him.
But he’d said he was going to be busy. Now, I wondered if it was just an excuse to get away from me.
“I believe you,” I whispered, my face still pressed against the door as I cried.
It didn’t matter what my brain was saying, my heart trusted Jackson implicitly.
“I love you, Jackson,” I choked out right before I started to sob from the pain I’d just caused him by not immediately accepting what he had to say as the truth.
Chapter Twelve
Hayden
“You’re! Mine!” he snarled as his lips devoured the sensitive skin of my neck.
Yes, I was his. It was as though I always had been.
The dream was different this time because I actually realized that I was dreaming.
Everything was clearer, incredibly vivid, actually.
“Tell me you’re mine, Hayden,” he demanded.
Hayden?
He knew my name?
That was different.
Even as my body was screaming for me to get him inside me, I pulled back.
The scene was the same. We were both unclothed from the waist up.
My
body was on fire, my need for this man so acute that I could hardly breathe.
But his voice was familiar this time, and as I looked up, my vision was completely focused.
“Jackson,” I breathed.
His features were so beloved, and so damn welcome.
I reached out my hand to stroke his rough jawline. “Is it really you?”
He nodded. “It’s always been me.”
His revelation made so much sense. Maybe it was because I was dreaming, but my mystery man had always been someone intangible, someone I was missing.
So yeah, now that I’d found Jackson, I didn’t want the unknown.
I needed…him.
“I can’t believe you’re really here in my dream,” I muttered in awe, my eyes locked to his.
God, I loved him so damn much that it hurt.
It was no wonder that I didn’t have to conjure up a dream man anymore.
What I’d found in Jackson was so much better.
“I want you to kiss me, but I know if you do, you’ll leave me,” I said sadly.
“Never by choice,” he said gruffly. “But I know I won’t make it very long without wanting to devour that beautiful mouth of yours.”
I shivered as his hands stroked down my naked back, and I touched him, too, reaching every bare inch of skin I could find.
“You feel so good, Jackson. So real.”
Before, he’d always been little more than a shadow.
“I fucking love it that you know my name now,” he said as his mouth explored my shoulders.
I moaned. “Kiss me. Please. Maybe you won’t go away this time.”
“I need this to last, Hayden. It might be all I ever have. Here, you’re not afraid of me. You want me.”
I tangled my hands into his hair. “I’ll always want you. Desperately,” I reassured him.
“Not the real me,” he said as he lifted his head. “I made you afraid.”
I shook my head. “No, you didn’t. You made me think.”
I let out another strangled moan as he cupped my ass and pulled our bodies together so I could feel his hard cock straining against the material of his jeans.