That settled it. Shower first, real clothing second, seducing Jake third.
She was going to remember this.
* * *
Jake stood in the kitchen, forcing himself to breathe evenly.
Jesus, she was going to kill him. He was halfway amazed he wasn’t already dead yet.
What the hell was going on? That doctor hadn’t been lying when he’d said that Skye had lost the past two years. It was as if the whole seven hundred and thirty days hadn’t happened. The Skye that was sitting out there on that couch was the Skye he’d run away with—bold and forward and unable to keep her hands off of him. She was the Skye he’d been unable to stay away from, come hell or high water.
Gone was the quiet, distant woman who didn’t care how much he hated this town, didn’t want to share a pizza with him—didn’t want him. The Skye on the couch had no clue that other Skye had taken over the past two years of her life.
She didn’t remember falling out of love with him.
She still thought she loved him.
And she seemed hell-bound to prove it.
What was he supposed to do here? The jerk move would be to just start sleeping with her. But the doctor seemed to think she’d start to recover some of her memories and once she did—once she remembered the divorce papers he’d shoved into his glove box—she’d accuse him of taking advantage of her while she was confused.
But she was throwing herself at him and damn it, his stupid body had apparently decided that, yeah, maybe they could all forget about the past two years and go back to how it’d been. Jake had fought himself to keep from kissing her back in the car.
And that kiss on the couch? God, she’d been warm and soft and inviting. He wanted to keep going, to remember those good times—like their wedding night—with her.
He was stuck between a rock and a very hard place.
Finally, he managed to will his body to stand down. He dialed Tower and ordered the pizzas, but they’d be almost forty-five minutes.
Fine. He could get Skye into the bathroom and close the door and...go run on the treadmill that was supposedly in the basement of this house to cool down.
He could not sleep with her. He would not, even though they were still technically married. Because it was just that—a technicality. The divorce papers that had been waiting for him had made her position on the matter of their marriage plenty clear. She might not love him like she once had, but he couldn’t use her—even if she wanted to be used. When she remembered, she’d wind up hating him. And since they had a daughter to consider, he didn’t want that, either.
When he was sure he could keep himself under control, he went back into the great room. “The pizza will be here in about—” He checked his watch. He’d been standing in the kitchen for a while. “Forty minutes. Do you want to have a bath first?”
“That would be great,” she agreed with a glint in her eyes. He didn’t like that glint. It spelled only one thing—trouble.
“Let’s try walking this time,” he said. He was supposed to make sure she exercised, right? And that would probably take a lot of energy. If he could make sure she was tired out—as the doctor recommended—then maybe she would stop throwing herself at him.
She scowled at him, as if she’d been counting on him carrying her everywhere. Well, too bad. He didn’t need to feel her weight in his arms, her body pressed against his. Nope. Didn’t need it at all. Not even a little.
Yeah, right.
He took hold of her hands and got her up on her feet. “You go first,” he told her. “I’ll be right behind you.”
More scowling. “Can’t you put your arm around me?”
“No.” When she glared, he added, “The doctor said you had to use your muscles.”
The disgruntled look faded into something that was worry instead. “If I fall...”
“I’ll catch you,” he told her. And he meant it.
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward the stairs. The bathroom in the master suite was where he was headed—but it was at the far end of the house. What normally would have been a thirty-second trip took close to three minutes. He kept his hand on her back the whole time, so she’d know he was right there.
“Down the hall,” he told her. “Keep going.”
“This place...is a lot...bigger than our apartment,” she puffed.
“You’re almost there, Skye. You can do it.” He said it because it seemed like the thing to say to someone who was working really hard. He could see sweat bead up on the back of Skye’s neck as she took slow steps, her hands brushing against the wall for added support.
“Are we...there yet?” she panted.
“Into the bedroom,” he instructed, guiding her with his hand.
“Thought you’d...never ask. Oh! Pretty!”
The bedroom was done in royal blues and warm golds, giving the whole thing a celestial feeling. A king-size bed was tucked into a wide bay window. To the left, there was another fireplace with a flat-screen television mounted over the mantle. On the right was their destination—the bathroom.
Skye had almost come to a complete stop. “Bath or shower?”
“Bath,” came the weak reply.
Jake had her sit on the toilet while he got the water going. He took some towels from under the sink and laid them where she could reach them. “Okay,” he said as he checked to make sure that the shampoo and soap were within easy reach. “You bathe and I’ll be back to check on you in—what’s wrong?”
He asked because Skye had sighed heavily and her lip was quivering. He knew what that meant—she was trying not to cry. “I don’t know if I can get in by myself,” she said in a low whisper. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, babe.” Although he was pretty sorry, too. This was going to be torture, pure and simple. Because he saw immediately what he was going to have to do—strip those clothes off of her and get her into the tub.
And if she was hard to resist when she was dry and clothed, how was he going to keep his hands to himself when she was naked and wet?
He pulled the oversize T-shirt off of her and was nearly knocked off his feet. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She’d never really needed one—so he shouldn’t have been surprised. Still, to be suddenly confronted with her breasts was doing very little to help his resolve.
“I need you. To stand,” he forced himself to say. “So I can get you out of those pants. And into the tub.”
She looked up at him and managed a beautiful blush. But she held out her hands for him to pull her up. When he got her on her feet, she looped her arms around his neck and let him carry most of her weight.
“It’ll...it’ll get better, right?”
“Absolutely,” he agreed, trying to figure out how to get the pants off without touching her bottom. “You’re already so much better than you were yesterday. Think about how good you’re going to feel tomorrow.”
Finally, he gave up. The pants were loose, but not so loose that they’d just fall right off her hips. He had to skim his hands down over her skin. And down. And down.
He found himself eye to eye with the V where her legs met. There’d been a time—say, about two or three years ago—when he’d have taken every single advantage of this position and lavished attention on her body.
But he didn’t now. He couldn’t. He absolutely could not take advantage of a woman who wasn’t entirely in her right mind. So he forced himself to stand.
She gave him a weak smile. “Takes you back, doesn’t it?”
“It was a great honeymoon. Don’t think we left the hotel room for three days,” he told her as he half supported, half lifted her into the tub. “Easy,” he cautioned as her foot slipped. “I’ve got you.”
It’d been such a freeing thing—running away from home, getting married and
not caring a lick whether their parents approved or not. Jake had a new job and Skye had just graduated from college. They weren’t little kids who were in “like” anymore. They’d become grown-ups who could do what they wanted, when they wanted. And what they’d wanted to do was each other.
So they had. For three straight days. That was their honeymoon.
It’d taken Jake eight months to pay off the cost of the hotel on their credit cards. And it’d been worth it.
Finally, Skye was settled into the tub. The water barely lapped over her nipples as she sank lower. “Mmm, this feels good,” she murmured and that was enough to make breathing much more difficult for Jake.
He needed to get out of this bathroom and he needed to do it right now. But before he could say I’ll be back, she asked, “Did you say this had jets?”
“Yeah.” Which was fine. Figuring out the controls on the whirlpool was something to focus on besides her nude body. He got the jets going. “Okay, I’ll check on you in a few minutes to see if you need help getting out.”
“But I...” He heard a small splash. “Jake, I’m tired. I don’t think I can wash my hair.”
God was punishing him. That had to be it. This was some sort of cosmic joke—divorce papers from the woman who suddenly loved him again.
He dropped his head. “Okay, but when the doorbell rings, it’s the pizza and I’ll have to go.” Maybe he’d get lucky and the pizza would come much faster than advertised.
The tub had one of those fancy faucets that looked like an old-fashioned telephone, which was great and also really awful because he had no excuse not to help her. He could do this. He could take care of her while she was in the tub, and he wouldn’t touch anything but her hair. He was a man of principle, damn it. He was not the horny teenager he’d once been. So what if he hadn’t been with a woman since the last time with Skye? So what if that was ten months ago? He was master of his domain and his domain was currently closed for business.
So it was time to suck it up and keep his hands to himself. Or just confined to her hair. That was it. He wasn’t even going to look at her breasts again. Nope.
He had to lean across the tub—and across her—to turn the tap back on. The water was still warm, but he let it run until it was the right temperature. Then—repeating Not looking to himself over and over—he moved the faucet over her head in slow, even strokes.
“Lean your head back,” he told her and even he didn’t miss how deep his voice had suddenly gotten. But he kept his eyes locked on her fine white hair.
It was nearly translucent when it was wet. He squeezed the shampoo into his hand and started on the side that hadn’t been shaved. Slowly, he worked the shampoo into her hair.
The results were...not pretty. “Did you do this in the hospital?”
“I don’t... No? I don’t think so. Lark... Hmm. I think Lark did a dry shampoo? Is that a real thing?”
“Sure,” he said. He rinsed her off. “I’m going to do that again, okay?”
“Okay, babe,” she said. “It feels wonderful. Thank you so much.”
She was leaning back, her eyes closed as he lathered and repeated a third time, just to be sure he didn’t miss anything. Then he put in some conditioner. It helped to have a concrete task that required his attention. He absolutely did not want to hit the side where she’d cracked her head. The hospital had shaved the hair down, probably months ago. Right now, on one side she had the long, platinum white hair she’d worn since forever and on the other, a patch of hair that was only an inch and a half long. “This is a good look for you,” he told her as he rinsed her again. “Almost punk. Very edgy.”
“You like?” She sounded sleepy.
Good. Between the difficult trip up here and the warm, soothing bath, maybe she’d just crash out in bed and he could go sleep on the couch. He was not sleeping in the bed with her and that was final.
“It’s different,” he told her. “Okay, your hair is done. I’ll just go wait for the pizza and...”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him and he knew he was so, so screwed. “But, babe...”
Maybe this was karma. He’d done something in a former life and now this life was balancing the scales or however that worked. He must have been a terrible person in that former life because this? This was going to drive him mad.
She hadn’t had a real bath in months. She was tired and exhausted.
He had to wash her.
Deep breaths. Think of...oil drills. Computer interfaces. Cloud computing. Yes. Nothing sexy about that.
“Lean forward,” he told her. She managed to pull herself up and hug her knees to her chest, resting her head so she could watch him.
“This isn’t quite how the honeymoon went, is it?”
“Nope,” he replied, all of his attention focused on the soap and the washcloth and...and the oppressive heat he’d lived through in Bahrain. Hot and dry and miserable. And he’d been alone. It’d been hell on earth.
His thoughts firmly centered on the furnace that was Bahrain, he began to wash her back.
Small circles. Back and forth. Getting months in a hospital off of her. Eyes only where they needed to be. Gently. Not too hard.
Other things were hard, though. To the point of pain.
He used the faucet to rinse off her back and shoulders. Then, because he didn’t want to seem like a jerk, he said, “Need me to do your arms?”
She held one out and he repeated the process. Eyes on the elbow, he told himself as he worked on her body. He finished that arm, then did the other.
“Legs?”
Legs were harder. She leaned back and let her arms float in the water, which meant her breasts were right at the water line again. Plus, when she lifted one leg and set it on the side of the tub, it left him with a view he had trouble not admiring.
He resorted to mentally running through that old kid’s song—Hip bone connected to the thigh bone, thigh bone connected to the knee bone—just because it gave his brain something to do.
Skye hummed. It was a sound of pleasure—relaxation and happiness and maybe a touch of eroticism as he massaged her skin. “God, I’m so glad you’re here.” She managed to wiggle her toes at him and damned if it didn’t get his blood pumping fast.
Okay, he thought, adjusting his pants. Faster.
“Jake...” she said, soft and pretty.
The doorbell rang.
Thank God. “Pizza,” he said. “I’ve got to pay the guy.”
“I don’t want to go back downstairs,” she called out behind him. “It’s too far away.”
“I’ll bring it up here. We’ll watch TV and call it a date.” The words were out before he realized they were leaving his mouth.
What the hell? He was not going to pretend it was a date. They didn’t date, not anymore. They were in the process of splitting up and calling it a day. Hell, he shouldn’t even be looking at her naked anymore, much less touching her. She was vulnerable. Her memory was compromised. He could not let an injured woman make bedroom eyes at him and he especially could not let the bedroom-eyes thing work.
As he hurried down the long hall toward the steps, he made a deal with himself. If she remembered the way things had fallen apart—and still wanted to try again—well, he’d try again. They had a daughter, after all.
But she had to remember. And as the doctor himself had ordered, she had to remember on her own.
Which meant he was acting as her caregiver here. Not a husband.
Although they were still married.
God, what a problem.
He paid for the pizzas and found a roll of paper towels in the kitchen. Fine. Perfect. Their first year married, when he’d been building his business from scratch and Skye had been taking whatever graphic design job she could get, this actually had been their idea of
a hot date. A rented DVD—a cheap one—and a pizza. It hadn’t mattered that it was a cheap date. All that had mattered back then was that they were together.
As he headed back upstairs, he hoped like hell she was out of the tub and wearing...something. He didn’t know what. Even those clothes she’d come home in would be better than nude. He was going to be strong, he really was. But he’d appreciate it if he didn’t have to have his resolve tested on a second-by-second basis.
He hurried back to the bedroom and was crushed to see that the bed did not contain a fully clothed, dry Skye. “Skye?”
“I need help, please,” she called out from the bathroom. “I’m...I’m afraid I’ll slip and hit my head.”
Dammit. He set the pizzas down on top of a dresser that was at the foot of the bed and, girding his loins as much as humanly possible, went back into the bathroom.
She was still naked.
Of course she was.
Four
Jake stood in the doorway, staring down at her.
Skye shivered. The water was cooling off, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t the reason why she was trembling.
No, it was the way he looked at her—with such desperate hunger that shivers raced over her body.
She just needed to hold him, to feel close to him again. She’d been alone in a bed for months. Months. She needed his warmth. She needed him.
She saw him swallow. “Let’s get you out of there,” he finally said.
She held out her hands and he pulled her to her feet. Water sluiced down her body, heightening her awareness. After the bathing massage he’d given her, every square inch of her skin felt alive and awake. It was a wonderful feeling, to know she was still alive.
“One foot at a time,” he calmly instructed her as he took hold of her arms. “Easy does it.”
She got out of the tub and stood still as he wrapped a big, fluffy towel around her. Then, he looked around and found a bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. “We’ll use this. I’ll try and get some clothes for you tomorrow. I can have someone go to the apartment and get your things, too.” He sort of smiled at her. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever dressed you. Feels weird.”
His Lost and Found Family Page 5