She laughed. “Definitely not normal,” she agreed.
Once he had the robe belted around her waist—it was comically huge on her—he rubbed her hair dry. Well, really, half of her hair. He didn’t get near the sore spot.
“Dinner is served,” he said with a flourish when he was done.
Skye walked—slowly—out of the bathroom. She felt a million times better—clean and shiny and new.
“Here we go,” Jake said, helping her sit on the bed. He got the pizza, set the boxes in front of her and then sat on the other side.
Once they both had a slice, he asked, “Do you want to watch something?” He pointed to the big TV on the wall behind him.
“No, let’s talk. I missed so much. How was the job?”
He looked down. “The job. It was good. A little more complicated than I anticipated, though.”
“Is that why you got such a nice bonus?” Because this was a very nice house. Huge, yes—but that tub had been divine and the bedroom was gorgeous. They were certainly more comfortable than they’d been when they’d first gotten married. This place would have been out of their reach.
“Yeah,” he said, studying his pizza. “Is yours good?”
“The best,” she said, taking another bite. It wasn’t glamorous or all that seductive but the pizza was quite possibly the best thing she’d ever eaten. “So, what’s the plan?”
“The plan?”
“I mean, we’re here, Lark has Grace. I wish she could be here with us, but I know it’s not fair to ask you to take care of both of us.”
“Um...yeah. The plan. Well, I’m still hammering out the details. Whit Daltry—he’s the man I rented this house from—said we could go month-to-month. Your doctors want you to stay local, and I imagine that Grace’s do, too. It might be a little while before I can get you back into the apartment.”
Something about his answer wasn’t right. But, try as she might, she couldn’t identify what, exactly, was wrong about it. She didn’t have much of an appetite left. “I guess I’m not used to real food,” she told him, feeling sheepish and not knowing why. She’d only managed one piece, but he’d eaten almost half of his pizza.
“That’s fine. I’ll run it down to the fridge.” He closed the box lids. “Let me get you tucked in. Tomorrow, we have to do some exercises and you’re going to need your rest tonight.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She stared at him. That definitely wasn’t right. “What?”
“That way I won’t bother you with my tossing and turning,” he explained, as if this were a good enough reason for him to not sleep in the same bed with her. “And I have to do some work. I don’t want to wake you up when I come in later.”
“You’re going to work? But I’m home now. I thought...”
“Skye,” he said in a serious voice. “The doctor wants you to rest up. We’ll have your exercises tomorrow, but otherwise you shouldn’t be overexerting yourself. You need to rest.”
“But I’m tired of resting,” she snapped. “I’m tired of being in bed alone. I’m here and you’re here. I want you.” When he didn’t say anything, she added, “Don’t you want me, too?”
“Of course I do. You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he said, but it wasn’t a declaration of love. It wasn’t even a declaration of desire. It sounded like...an argument. One he’d had before. Had they fought? “But I’m not going to risk endangering your health for a little lust.”
His words cut into her and she wasn’t sure why. Lust? What about love? “Can’t I at least hold you? I’ve dreamed of sleeping in your arms, Jake. I’m so tired of being in a bed alone.” For some reason, she was on the verge of crying. She started blinking. “Please don’t leave me alone.”
He was glaring at her, as if she were stabbing him in the back instead of asking for her husband to join her in the bedroom. “Is that what you really want?”
“Yes,” she said as she wiped at her eyes. “I just want you. We don’t have to fool around. You’re right. I want to get better, faster. I just don’t want to be alone tonight.”
He got off the bed and picked up the pizza boxes. “Fine. But I need to log on and check a few things. After that, I’ll come to bed.” Then he left the room.
It should have felt like a victory, but it didn’t. Why didn’t he want to be with her? Why was this a fight?
Why had he rebuffed her advances at every single turn?
She dropped her head into her hands, which was not a smart thing to do. Her sore spot throbbed and, darn it all, she was exhausted.
Maybe Jake was right. After all, she wasn’t operating at one hundred percent. She was barely even able to walk on her own. She probably didn’t realize how bad off she still was. And he had said that the doctor had warned that she shouldn’t over—overex—overexer—oh, hell. She couldn’t even come up with the word. She shouldn’t overdo it.
She felt ridiculous. Jake was right. She needed her rest and here she was, pitching a fit about sex.
Skye managed to get the robe off and get underneath the covers. From now on, she’d listen better when he told her something. Of course he only had her best interests at heart.
She yawned, sinking down into the soft bed. The sheets were flannel, so much softer than the scratchy things she’d laid on in the hospital. As much as she wanted to be awake, she couldn’t push back against the exhaustion.
Tomorrow, she’d apologize for being petulant. That’d smooth everything over.
But for now, she’d just look forward to waking up in Jake’s arms.
* * *
Finally, he couldn’t stall any longer. Jake had contacted his office assistant and read her the riot act about not forwarding calls from Keaton about this whole mess. He’d replied to emails, one from an oil company in Saudi Arabia about a three-month job and one from a company that was trying to get approval to run a pipeline from Alaska to Louisiana. That was a yearlong gig, but it was in North America. It’d be easier to travel and still see Grace.
He’d even gone down to the little home gym and run at a punishing speed on the treadmill, hoping to burn off the excess energy that Skye seemed to have inspired in him.
Now he was sweaty and hopefully not appealing in any sense. He had on the ratty pair of sweatshorts he slept in and an old T-shirt he’d gotten for free in college. Nothing “hot” there.
It was close to eleven when he silently slipped into the bedroom. It was dark and Skye didn’t move on her side of the bed. Good.
He managed to avoid stubbing his toe on the dresser as he worked his way to the bed. But the bed shifted when he sat down and he saw how the covers had gotten tangled up around Skye.
Dang it, it was cold enough in the room that he was going to freeze to death without at least a corner of the blanket. He managed to wrestle a part of it away from her. He thought for a second that he’d managed to do so without disturbing Skye, but then she rolled over and curled up against him.
Oh, hell. She wasn’t wearing anything. Not even the robe.
He didn’t know where to put his hand. Wrapping his arm around her waist would put him too close to her bottom. But bending his arm at the elbow caused physical pain. He settled for stretching his arm out as far as possible along the bed.
“Hmm?” she hummed sleepily.
“It’s okay,” he told her, praying she wouldn’t wake up anymore. “I’m here now.”
“Mmm. Love you,” she mumbled in reply. And then he felt her body relax into a deeper sleep.
It was hard not to feel it, frankly. She had one knee bent so that it overlapped his thigh and her small breasts were pressed against his chest—not to mention the tight hold she had on his waist. He was trapped under her body. It was not the place he wanted to be.
Jake lay there, repeatedly runni
ng through the very good reasons why he was gripping the bedsheets with enough force to tear them into strips. She was mentally compromised. She didn’t remember that she wanted a divorce. She had forgotten that she didn’t love him anymore.
But as the minutes ticked by into hours and the sleep deprivation began to mess with him, he wondered if she would get those two terrible years back at all. Maybe the drifting apart, the fights—the big fight—would all be gone for good.
Maybe...maybe she would love him again. They could just go back to where they’d been before it all fell apart on them. He knew they couldn’t really do that—they had a daughter now. No matter what form the future took, Grace would have to be a top priority. But...
What if Skye fell in love with him all over again?
God, his head was a mess—and he wasn’t even the one who’d smacked it in a car wreck, for crying out loud. Would it even be possible to go back—hit the do-over button and begin again?
As she slept in his arms, he thought and thought and thought. Could she still love him?
Could he still love her?
Well, he knew the answer to that question. Of course he still loved her. Even as their marriage had unraveled, he’d loved her. He always had. He’d never stopped.
He just... Hell. He just hadn’t done a great job of living with her.
Not that he was doing a great job of living with her right now, either. Of course she didn’t remember him going to live in a hotel for a week before he flew over to Bahrain. He’d made sure the rent was covered for the year he was gone on the off chance they would decide to give it another try. He earned twenty times what Skye did with her graphic design business, after all. He wasn’t looking to punish her. He just hadn’t known if they could be together anymore.
Ten stinking months had passed and he was no closer to that answer. In fact, given the way she was sleeping on him, he’d say he was even further from a definitive answer than he’d been this morning.
If he could do it all over again, would he?
He lifted his arm and settled it around her bare waist.
He would. Heaven help him, he would.
Man, he was so screwed.
* * *
When Jake emerged into consciousness the next day, a couple of things hit him all at once. The combination was better than any coffee jolt. He went from zero to one hundred in three blinks of the eye.
Skye was rubbing his chest in long, even strokes.
Her hips were slowly tilting forward and back against his hip.
And he had a raging hard-on.
When he jolted into awareness, she murmured, “Good morning.” Then her hand began to slip lower.
“Um, hey,” he said, grabbing her hand before she could grab anything else. “Morning. You want some coffee? I’ll go make coffee.” He tried to peel her off of him, but for a petite woman, she was surprisingly good at anchoring him to the bed.
“I don’t want coffee,” she all but purred as she tested the grip he had on her hand. “I want you.”
“How did you sleep?” he blurted out, desperate to avoid telling her no and equally desperate to avoid telling her yes. Blood began to pound in his ears, although he wasn’t sure how much of it was panic and how much of it was lust.
“Wonderfully.” And this time, she did purr as her hips flexed again. “I love waking up with you.”
She had, once. Morning sex was the bonus of being married. So was afternoon sex. And evening sex.
His body surged up—and up—at the memories. No. No! He was not going to give in. He was stronger than this.
“We should—we should probably, uh, do the physical therapy exercises first thing,” he sputtered. Anything to avoid upsetting her—or taking advantage of her. “Doctor’s orders.”
In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much of a lie. The doctor had, in fact, told Jake to make sure she did her exercises and stretches. Just not at—he turned his head and found a clock—8:43 in the morning. Crap. Maybe the doctor had. He must still be trying to adjust to central time after all those months in Bahrain.
“Can’t it wait?” she asked as she kissed his shoulder. Then she skimmed her teeth over his skin.
“Nope.” He yelped in surprise as desire hammered at a few very specific areas of his anatomy.
“Doesn’t sex with my husband count as physical therapy?” At least she didn’t sound upset—not yet, anyway. She was still trying her level best to seduce him.
And she was doing a pretty damn good job at the moment. Every fiber of his being wanted to roll into her and feel her move underneath him. He knew what she liked—it’d be easy to pin her hands over her head and drive in hard until their bodies surrendered to each other.
And, his traitorous mind unhelpfully pointed out, it’d erase the lackluster memory of their last lackluster sex.
The time when he’d accidentally gotten her pregnant.
Damn.
“Skye, baby,” he pleaded as she nibbled her way up his shoulder and toward his neck. “Please. I don’t have any condoms and you haven’t been exactly on the pill recently. If I got you pregnant right now, that doctor of yours would probably have me arrested.”
That worked. She stopped nibbling and tilting and trying to get her hand free of his grip. “Oh.” The disappointment was obvious.
In his relief that he’d found an argument that she would buy, he made a fatal mistake. He loosened his grip on her hand.
She knew it, too. Before he could respond, she’d wiggled her hand out of his and slid it down his shorts. Then she wrapped her fingers around his erection. “Other ways to have fun,” she said, sliding her hand up and then down his length.
“Skye!”
“Don’t be so shocked,” she scolded him. “We used to fool around like this all the time, remember?”
Man, how could he forget? No man forgot the first time someone else’s hand brought him to climax. It just didn’t happen.
He wasn’t going to make it. He was going to lose it and ravish her and hate himself the moment they were done because—
Suddenly, from somewhere far away, a bell rang.
The doorbell.
Jake didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And he didn’t stop to think about it. He pried her hand off of him and all but threw himself out of the bed. “I’ll get it. And start that coffee. And then we’ll do the prescribed exercises.”
He didn’t know if she was upset or disappointed or what. He didn’t stick around long enough to gauge her reaction. Instead—and he was not proud of this—he bolted from the room and raced down the stairs. As he flung the door open, he realized he’d been saved by the bell. The thought made him laugh.
“Morning?” Whit Daltry gave Jake a confused look when he opened the door. “Everything okay?”
“What?” Jake realized he must be quite the sight—bed head and yesterday’s workout clothes and laughing his fool head off. “Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine. Skye just told a joke, that’s all.”
Then Whit turned and Jake realized the man wasn’t alone. “Jake, this is my fiancée, Megan.”
“Ma’am,” Jake said, shaking her hand as well.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Megan said. She opened her mouth to say something else, but then took in his appearance and seemed to think better of it. “We’re sorry to wake you,” she said tactfully. “But we wanted to see if there was anything we could do for you and Skye.”
Yeah, Jake could guess what she was thinking. Megan had probably heard a whole truckload of gossip by now. Four years’ worth. He cleared his throat and willed his anatomy to stand down, for God’s sake. “Come in. Skye’s not up yet—we were just about to do her PT.”
“We won’t keep you from your therapy...” Whit began.
“No—it
’s fine. Come in. I insist!” Because if he could get Whit and Megan to hang out for a while, then Skye wouldn’t be able to pick up where she’d left off. He wracked his brain for something that would convince the two of them to stay. “It’s—uh—it’s a beautiful home. And Skye really loves how you decorated the bedroom.”
“Thanks,” Whit said as he continued to stare at Jake as if he had boiled lobsters crawling out of his ears. “We usually rent this to oil executives who are in town for more than a few days.”
Jake backed up a step, hoping to get Whit and Megan to follow him in. They didn’t. “Well, it’s just wonderful. Megan!” he said a little too loudly as another bolt of inspiration struck him. Megan jolted in surprise and stepped to the side, so that she was half hidden behind Whit. Aw, crap—Jake wasn’t making the best of impressions here, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “Skye’s going to need some clothes and necessities. I’m going to try and hire someone to bring the rest of our stuff from Houston. But that’s going to take a few days. Where’s a good place to pick up a couple of outfits?”
“I can get her a few things. Do you know her size?”
“Uh...” He didn’t want to go check because that meant he’d have to go back into the bedroom where Skye was probably still naked. “Small, probably. Most of her things were lost in the storm.”
Megan and Whit shared a look. Hell. Jake could just imagine what the gossip was. No, actually—wait. He couldn’t. And he didn’t want to. He and Skye had probably been the hot topic of gossips on and off ever since they’d slipped away the night after the very public fight with their parents. People would believe whatever they wanted to.
Whit nodded. “Big city, Houston. Nothing like Royal. We’re just up the road, so if you need anything, you give us a call,” he added. “We’ve sure been worried about Skye for these past few months.”
“I’ll pick her up a couple of outfits,” Megan added, backing away slowly. “Lounge pants and the like. Good for doing therapy in.”
His Lost and Found Family Page 6