His mind whispered that this was temporary. That this marriage wasn’t real and he was nobody’s idea of husband material anyway. But he shut that nagging voice down and surrendered to the mating call trumpeting through his body.
He ran his hands over her hot, slick center, watching her twist and writhe in her own desperate need.
Her response pushed his own desires beyond what he could bear. Body throbbing, heart galloping, he leaned over her and pushed himself inside her. That first, glorious slide filled him with the kind of ease he hadn’t known in months. This was what had been missing in his life. This sense of rightness that claimed him when their bodies were joined.
She hooked her legs at his hips and pulled him in tighter, deeper. Tipping her head back into the mattress, she bit her lip and moved with him. Their bodies meshed, linked in the most intimate way possible, he felt the pounding of her heart. Saw the flash in her eyes, heard her gasping breaths and experienced her body quaking, quivering as he pushed her higher, faster than they’d ever gone before.
Her nails scored his back as he rocked in and out of her body, setting a rhythm she raced to meet. “Jack! Jack!”
“Come on, Rita,” He urged, barely able to frame the words as his breath sawed in and out of his lungs. “Go over. Go over so I can follow.”
She clung to him and shouted his name when the first tremors took her. He felt her body tighten around his in spasms of delight and when she’d reached her peak, Jack let go and found the peace that had been denied him for months.
* * *
Rita took some deep breaths and tried to ease the frantic beat of her heart at the same time. It had been six long months since he’d touched her like that. Time in which she’d almost convinced herself that her memory was making what they shared much better than it actually had been. Well, she told herself, that theory was just shot out of the sky.
Her whole body was so alight with sensation she thought she should glow in the dark. And even while she tried to regain control, she was thinking about doing it all again. She turned her head to look at Jack, lying beside her. One arm flung across his eyes, his chest heaved with every breath and she smiled, knowing that he was just as shaken as she. Had she finally broken through the wall he’d built around himself? Was her Jack finally back?
“You owe me twenty bucks,” he said softly.
She blinked at him, then laughed. “Seriously? You want a tip?”
He lowered his arm and turned his gaze on her. “Nope. A bet we made. Not only did you marry me when you said you wouldn’t, you just—”
She held up one hand. “I know what I just—” then she slapped both hands to her hips as if checking for a wallet “—I don’t seem to have any pockets at the moment so I’ll have to owe you.”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “I suppose I can live with that.”
Rolling to one side, he propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. “Rita—”
She stopped him by laying her fingers on his mouth. Disappointment welled in her chest. Looking into his eyes, she could see that her Jack was still buried behind a shutter of ice. Maybe there were a few cracks in that cold stillness, but it was a seductive stranger staring at her through Jack’s eyes. Her heart hurt for it, but she wouldn’t give up. Now more than ever, it was important to find a way to completely reach him.
“Don’t you dare apologize for this,” she said firmly. “Or tell me that it’ll never happen again—”
He tried to speak, but she hurried on. “We both wanted this, Jack. And I want it again right now.”
“Want isn’t the point,” he ground out as he laid one arm across her middle.
“Then what is?” She reached up and smoothed his hair back from his forehead, just because she wanted her fingers in that thick, wavy mass. Rita needed to touch him, to ground herself and hopefully him. To remind them both that the threads binding them were still there. They hadn’t been broken, only strained. She had to believe they could strengthen them again.
“Talk to me,” she said, locking her gaze on his so that he could see how much she wanted this. That when he told his story, whatever it was, he would still be safe with her. “Tell me what you were dreaming. Why were you shouting? What made you grab hold of me and hang on like I was a lifeboat in a tsunami?”
He scowled, but she was so used to that expression now, it didn’t even affect her. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Just dream about it then?” she countered, refusing to give up on him. Them. “Don’t you see that if you do tell me, maybe it will make the dreams fade?”
“Nothing can.”
Then the baby kicked and his features went blank with surprise. He glanced down to where his arm rested across her belly and then he sucked in a gulp of air when the baby kicked again, as if reminding its parents that they weren’t alone. His astonished gaze snapped to hers. “That was—”
“A good kick,” she finished for him. She knew what he was feeling, because she’d felt exactly the same the first time the baby’d moved. It was magic, she knew. Staggering. That tiny life making itself known. Taking his hand, she held it tightly to the mound of their child.
On cue, another kick came and Jack’s eyes went wide even as an unexpected grin lit his face. “Strong baby.”
That wide smile of his tugged at her heart. “Like its father.”
Just like that, his smile faded into memory. Pulling away from her grasp, he asked, “What is it? The baby, I mean. Do you know?”
If he hadn’t pulled away from her, Rita would have thought that she was making more progress with him. He hadn’t once asked about the baby before, so normally, she would have celebrated internally that he was feeling...linked. But the look in his eyes was cool, not warm, and so she had to admit that nothing had changed.
“No,” she said sadly, sorry that he was withdrawing again. “I didn’t want to know ahead of time. I wanted to be surprised. There aren’t many real surprises left in the world.”
“You always surprised me,” he said. “Still do.” Just for a second, she saw another crack in the wall around him. Then it was gone and as if to prove it to her, he turned and pushed off the bed.
He walked naked to the open French doors and out onto the terrace. On the twenty-fifth floor, facing the ocean, there was no one to see them. No nosy neighbors.
He stood there in the cold wind, his hair lifted off his neck and Rita wanted to touch it, feel it against her skin again. Broad shoulders, narrow hips and long, muscular legs made her mouth water, but while her blood burned, her mind mourned because he was trying to pull away from her. Again.
But Rita wasn’t going to let him. Not this time. Scrambling off the bed, she went to him and pulled at his upper arm until he turned to face her. “I’m not going to quit trying to reach you, Jack.”
He shook his head. “Did you ever think that maybe there’s nothing to reach?”
“No.” She shook her head, too, just as fiercely determined to find him as he was to hide. “There’s you, Jack. And I’m not going to stop pestering, pushing you. I’m not going to stop asking you what happened, so you might as well give in now and tell me.”
“Damn, you’ve got a hard head,” he murmured, with the faintest of smiles.
“That’s been said before.” She looked at him ruefully. “By you, mostly. Jack, tell me. Tell me what’s haunting you.”
He grimaced. “Haunting is the right word for it.”
“Talk.”
A harsh laugh that held no humor scraped his throat and his gaze swung past her to lock on the dark, roiling ocean. But he looked more as though he was focusing on something only he could see. His ghosts. His past. And finally, Rita thought, he was going to bring her into the shadows with him. Maybe then, she’d be able to hold his hand and lead him back into the light.
>
“You want to know?” He blew out a breath. “Fine. Here it is. Two days after I left you, I was back with my unit.” He glanced at her briefly before turning his gaze to the sea. “I was actually writing you a letter when my squad was sent out to do some recon on a nearby village.”
Her heartbeat stuttered a little, knowing that he had been keeping his promise to write and a little fearful of what had kept him from completing that letter. Rita watched him, judging every tiny twist of his features, trying to guess at the turnings of his mind, at the nearness of his ghosts. Her gaze on his profile, she held her breath and waited.
His voice sounded far away as if he wasn’t really there with her at all, but instead, he was caught in his memories. He was somehow more a part of his past than he was a part of his life, here. She had to know why.
“We were told there was sniper activity so we were careful. Well, thought we were.” He shook his head, gritted his teeth and forced the words out. “I’m not going into details here, Rita. You don’t need to know them anyway. Short version. One of my guys was shot. We took cover, a couple of men breaking right while my best friend and I went left, dragging the wounded man with us.”
“Jack...” She put one hand on his forearm.
“There was an IED on the left.”
Tears drenched her eyes. She didn’t know what was coming next, but her heart ached just looking at his stony profile, the hard set of his jaw, his narrowed gaze.
“The wounded man was killed. My friend Kevin got hit hard. His legs.” He blew out a breath then dragged in another gulp of the cold, sea air. Shaking his head, he swallowed hard and continued, “Somehow, we got the sniper and then I could work on Kevin’s wounds. I got tourniquets on him but he fought me.” He paused, to steady himself, to distance himself from the pain? She couldn’t know. But he kept talking, so she stayed quiet.
“Kevin didn’t want to live without his legs—kept cursing at me to leave him be. I wouldn’t listen. Couldn’t let him die.”
“Of course not.” God, to have such scenes and more in your head. To see them in your sleep. His sister, Cass, was right. These guys weren’t sick. They were hurt. Right down to their souls. Rita wrapped her arms around him and held on whether he was aware of her or not.
“We called for medics and evac. One guy dead, two wounded and Kevin, half-conscious and still cursing me for saving him.” Jack scrubbed one hand across his mouth as if he could somehow wipe away the taste of his own words. Then he finally shifted his gaze to hers and when she looked into his eyes, Rita felt the sympathy he’d already said he didn’t want.
“I couldn’t write to you after that,” he said. “Couldn’t even think about you. I talked to my friend’s widow after they notified her and left her broken to pieces. She loved Mike so much that losing him shattered her completely. Then I went to see my best friend, Kevin, before they flew him out for surgery and he wouldn’t even talk to me.
“Hell, he wouldn’t look at me. All those curses he’d brought down on my head for saving him were still running through my head and probably his. It was like I was dead to him.”
“You never talked to him again?”
“No.” Jack took a breath and blew it out again. “He contacted me a couple of months ago, but I didn’t get back to him.”
“Why not?”
“What’s the point, Rita?” He shoved both hands through his hair. “You think I want to stand there, look at him in a chair and have him ream me all over again? No, thanks.”
She felt for him. He’d saved his friend, done his best for him and the man had fought him every step of the way. No wonder he was tortured by nightmares and didn’t want to talk about what he remembered. But things might have changed for his friend by now. Maybe he wanted to make amends with Jack and by not allowing it, Jack kept the pain close and fresh.
“You don’t know what he wanted,” she told him. “Maybe he wanted to say thank you.”
“I don’t need to be thanked, either,” he snapped. “I did what I had to do. That’s it.”
The emptiness in Jack’s eyes was so profound, Rita didn’t know how he could still be standing. He had to be the strongest man she’d ever known. And the most alone. Even with a family who loved him, a wife and a child on the way, he was so terribly alone.
Voice brisk, letting her know this little truth-telling session was now at an end, he said, “Anyway. After all that, I had nothing left for you, Rita.” Shaking his head, he said softly, “Still don’t. I’m not the guy you knew. Hell, I don’t even recognize that man anymore.”
“Well, I do,” she said, going up on her toes to kiss him. “I know him. I still see him when I look into your eyes. And I know you’re punishing yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.”
“My squad. My calls.”
“And you think I have a hard head.”
He glanced at her, surprise flickering in his eyes.
“Jack, you were ordered to check out that village. You all took cover. What happened, just...happened. You’re not in charge of who lives and dies. Jack, you did the best you could.”
“Wasn’t good enough,” he insisted.
“It was, because it was all you could do.” Now that she knew, she could almost understand him cutting himself off from her, from his family, from everything that was important to him.
He’d seen too much loss. And he didn’t want to risk more of it. So by shutting down his heart, he thought he was protecting himself. Instead, he’d welcomed a different kind of pain. Rita laid her head on his chest and listened to the wild thumping of his heart. He stiffened against her and for a second, she thought he was going to shove her aside, but instead, he grabbed her tight, pulled her closer. Buried his face in the curve of her neck.
“Damn it, Rita,” he murmured, “you should have left it alone.”
“I can’t do that, Jack. I can’t leave you alone.” She wondered if he heard the love in her voice. If he understood how much she was feeling for him or that it was so much bigger than what she’d felt for him when they first met.
She held him, rubbing her hands up and down his back, wishing she could reach past the shadows inside him, wishing she could convince him that he wasn’t at fault. But all she could do was show him. What she felt. What she saw when she looked at him.
Drawing his head up, she kissed him, pouring everything she had into the kiss and was rewarded when he groaned and took everything she offered. Her head was spinning when he fast-walked her back to the bed, when he stretched her out and claimed her in every way possible.
Rita’s mind blanked out and her body took over. Sensation flooded her. Tingles of awareness swarmed through her and curls of delicious tension settled in the pit of her stomach and spread like a wildfire. His hands, his mouth, moved over her, driving her wild, until the flames he lit enveloped them both.
She touched and stroked and kissed, wanting him to experience everything she was. Wanting him to know that he wasn’t alone. That she was here. With him. Wanted him to feel the love she couldn’t bring herself to say yet.
Oh, yes, she still loved him. Yes, she still wanted the happily-ever-after with him. But she knew instinctively that he wouldn’t want to hear that now. So she kept it tucked inside and told herself that they were a matched set. Each of them locking away a piece of themselves they wanted no one else to see.
Then he entered her, and all thought fled. She focused only on what he was doing to her, making her feel. His body moved within hers and the incredible friction left her breathless and she didn’t care. Breathing was overrated. She didn’t need air when she had Jack.
He took her higher than she’d gone before, pushing her to reach for the completion she knew was waiting. Rita kept her gaze locked on his. She couldn’t have looked away if it had meant her life. Those ice-blue eyes warmed and steamed and glowe
d with passion. Watching him and her own reflection in his eyes, she shattered, her body simply splintering into jagged pieces of pleasure that had her screaming his name and clutching his shoulders. And only a moment later, he surrendered to her, emptying himself into her and she held him while he fell.
Eight
“Don’t start thinking anything’s changed,” Jack warned her the next morning.
Rita bit her lip and hid a smile. She had been expecting this. She’d known that after what they’d shared the night before Jack would try to pull back again. Pretend that last night hadn’t happened. And she’d come up with a way to combat it. She wasn’t going to argue. She was simply going to ignore his arguments.
Rita had had a long night to think about this. Naturally there hadn’t been any snuggling or cuddling after their amazing bout of lovemaking—and that’s what it had been whether he admitted it or not. It wasn’t just sex. It was making love. And though Rita had spent the rest of the night alone in the guest room, she’d been more hopeful than she had been in six months.
He might not realize it yet, but there was a chink in the wall he was hiding behind. For one brief moment, he’d let his guard down. Let her in. Sure, he’d slammed it shut again quickly, but now that she’d made it through once, she was determined to do it again. Alone in the silence of her own room, Rita had vowed to smash those walls around Jack until nothing was left but the two of them standing in the rubble.
“Okay,” she said brightly. “Got it. Nothing’s changed. This ship is just gorgeous.”
“What?”
She looked at him, pleased to see the confusion on his features. If she kept him off balance, it would be harder for him to plant his feet behind that damn wall.
“I said this ship is gorgeous.” Rita did a fast circle on the main deck of The Sea Queen, taking in the gleaming wood floors, the shining windows and the sweep of sea stretching out behind it. “I’ve never been on a cruise ship before. For some reason I didn’t realize just how big they are.”
Little Secrets--His Unexpected Heir Page 10