This was just not something shy little Grace Solarez would do. But she wasn’t that frightened little orphan she had been through most of her childhood, any more than she was still the glib, tough cop she had worked so hard to become.
She was a woman. A woman who had spent the last year in hell—who, as Jack put it, had been through more than anyone should ever have to endure.
Because of him, she was beginning to think she just might make it through to the other side.
She wasn’t going to take the time to analyze it right now. This was right. She knew it with complete conviction.
This was right, this was real, this was Jack—Jack, who made her smile and laugh and feel. Who showed such compassion to her and offered her such hope.
Her gaze met his and she knew all her emotions were right there in her eyes, stripped bare for him to see.
She spoke softly, fervently. “I’ve been dead for so long. Too long. Help me live again, Jack. Please.”
He closed his eyes and swayed for a moment, feeling as if he’d been sucker punched. How the hell could he argue with that?
With a growled curse, he grabbed her and yanked her against him. She yielded to him so eagerly, so sweetly, it was all he could do not to shuck that damn flowing, sexy dress up around her hips and thrust inside her.
He forced himself to move slowly, deliberately, when what he wanted to do was pound into her like the ocean against the rocks. He lowered her to the blanket again, this time so they were on their sides facing each other.
With fingers that trembled slightly with the effort it took to hold the beast at bay, he traced her face—the curve of a cheekbone, the fragile line of her jaw, the lush, full bow of her lips.
She was so beautiful, she took his breath away.
“Ah, Grace,” he murmured. “Sweet, sweet Grace.”
Dark lashes fanned her dusky skin as she closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. She pressed her lips to his palm, stirring the fine hairs on his arm and he drew in a ragged breath and found her mouth with his own.
He would have gone slow. Dammit, he wanted to go slow. But her mouth opened for him so willingly and her body melted against him with such eager anticipation.
At her breathy sigh, at the feel of her softness cradling his hardness, he lost the battle to contain the wild, urgent need roaring through him.
His searching fingers found the small, sweet weight of a breast. He rubbed a thumb across her nipple and was rewarded with a sharp gasp.
Her head lolled back and he took that as an invitation to trail kisses down the long, slim length of her neck until he reached the neckline of her sundress.
Unlike this morning, this time he didn’t stop there. Through the cotton of her dress, his lips followed the path of his fingers to the hard, aroused nub of her nipple and he drew her into his mouth while his fingers strayed to her other breast.
She dug her fingers into his hair and held him against her, offering her body to him willingly. He played with her, teased her, while raw need pulsed through her to pool and throb between her thighs.
She wanted more. So much more.
Withdrawing a few inches, she gathered her courage around her and pulled her dress over her head. He leaned back and gazed at her, washed by moonlight, then lifted hot, hungry eyes to hers.
Without looking away from her, with their gazes locked, he removed his own clothing. Finally, when there were no barriers left between them, she scanned his body as he had hers.
She was completely fascinated by the sight of him, by the tanned skin pulled tightly over firm muscles, by the hard angles and planes so different from hers.
It must have been a trick of the moonlight, but when she returned her gaze to his face, she was startled to find what looked like faint color climbing his cheeks.
He cleared his throat. “See anything you’d like?”
She gave a low laugh, amazed that she could be enjoying this so very much. “Everything. Wrap it up, I’ll take it all. No, wait. Don’t wrap it up. I think I prefer to take it home just the way it is.”
“It’s yours,” he murmured, then reached for her again.
He kissed her until she couldn’t think straight, until her thoughts were a senseless muddle, until all she wanted was to feel him inside her.
Then, when she didn’t think she could handle anything more, his fingers found her. He touched her, the most sensitive part of her, and she felt as if she would incinerate, as if she would burn away into nothing but glowing embers that would dance up to join the stars.
He stroked her once, twice, and that was all it took. She was lost. Wave after wave of sensation crashed over her, more powerful than anything the Pacific could dish out.
And then he was there, kneeling between her thighs, asking permission to take her. She gave it with a murmur of his name and her hands clutching his shoulders.
He entered her slowly, inch by agonizing inch. Her body softened to accept him, to welcome him.
Long unused muscles stretched to accommodate him and then he was completely, deeply inside her, filling every part of her.
The sound of their ragged breathing drifted up to join the rustling, murmuring leaves of the banyan tree. His hands found hers and with their fingers as entwined as their mouths, he lifted their joined hands above her head and then thrust even more deeply.
She gasped his name as the heat began to blaze again, as flame after flame began to burn through her.
“I won’t go anywhere without you,” he promised, then drove into her in a rhythm as ancient as the sea.
The broad muscles of his chest rubbed against her breasts with each thrust. It was an overwhelming sensory assault, and that unbearably wonderful pressure began to build inside her again.
She arched her body to meet him thrust for thrust, her hands tightening on his. Finally, when she felt as if she would splinter apart if she had to endure another moment of this sweet torture, he reached a hand between their joined bodies, dancing his thumb across her aroused, aching flesh.
The night exploded instantly and her body convulsed around him. With a harsh groan, he withdrew slightly then buried himself inside her again and found his own release.
She slipped almost instantly into an exhausted sleep, her cheek tucked against his shoulder and her arms around him.
Moving carefully so he didn’t awaken her, he pulled the blanket up and around them until they were wrapped in a warm, cozy cocoon. He knew they couldn’t very well spend the night here on the beach, but he didn’t have the heart to wake her yet.
Or maybe it was strength he didn’t have enough of, courage to face what he had done.
Even with the blanket and with the warmth of her sleeping body against him, he still felt chilled. No, not chilled. He recognized it for what it was. Guilt. No matter what she said, no matter how powerful her arguments had been or how eagerly she had responded to his kiss or how much she had, amazingly enough, seemed to want his touch, he knew damn well he never should have let things go this far.
Sex—even earthshaking, pulse-pounding, incredible sex like they had just shared—was never enough to make the hurt disappear. It might mask it, might make you forget for a while. But he’d learned in those dark months after his father’s suicide that making love with the wrong person would only intensify loneliness and pain.
And he was definitely the wrong person for Grace Solarez.
He risked a look at her lying against his shoulder, at long black lashes against dusky skin, at the straight line of her nose, at that full, generous mouth that melted so sweetly under his.
She was sweet and beautiful and brave, and she deserved so much more than he could give her.
She deserved someone whole and unbroken, a man who could open his heart and let her climb inside.
He wasn’t that man and hadn’t been for a long time.
He suddenly wished fiercely that things could be different. He had told the truth when he said he cared about her. He admired her strength a
nd her courage and he would never be able to repay her for what she had done for Emma.
In any other man it wouldn’t take much for him to slip headlong into love with her.
But somewhere between his father’s suicide and Camille’s selfish abandonment, a part of him had been smashed beyond repair—the part that could give the complete and unconditional trust so necessary for a healthy relationship.
He hadn’t lived like a monk since Emma was born. He wasn’t a diehard skirt-chaser like Piper but he liked women and spending time with them. He dated occasionally and had enjoyed a few healthy sexual relationships in the last five years with women who expected nothing more of him than that.
That’s the way it had to be.
Early on, when Em had still been a toddler, he had started to regret his decision to raise her alone and had begun to think maybe she would be better off with a mother. It sounded cold-blooded in the abstract, but he had thought it through carefully and selected a woman he thought would fit the bill admirably. Kate had been sweet and kind and loving and she would have made Em a wonderful mother.
But every time their relationship started to feel too serious—when she would begin to talk about setting a wedding date—he would think of Camille and the bitter silence of his parents’ marriage and would end up feeling like a coyote in a trap.
He had ended up hurting a very nice woman, something he still regretted deeply.
From that point on, he decided he would be better off if he limited his discreet entanglements to only those women who wouldn’t expect anything from him, who wanted the same kinds of things he did at this stage in his life.
Grace wasn’t that sort of woman.
And even if things were different, she didn’t need this kind of complication right now. She was still trying to put her life together, and she needed someone solid, someone who could love her wholeheartedly, to help her through it.
Not that any of his angst mattered. He stared up at the moon and the scattering of stars, as regret pounded through him in time to the surf. Once she awoke and reality had time to settle in, he knew she would be quick to pull away from him.
And he would have to let her.
Somehow he would have to find the strength to stay away from her. It was the only option.
He blew out a frustrated breath, and immediately cursed himself when her eyes fluttered open at the sound.
“Hi there,” she mumbled sleepily.
He felt a muscle in his jaw twitch as he fought the urge to kiss her again. To capture that mouth and again lose himself in the warm welcome of her body.
“Are you okay?” he asked instead.
“Wonderful.” Her smile was soft, sexy. “And I thought flying with you was great.”
He was surprised enough to laugh, but he instantly sobered as the inevitable guilt returned. “Seriously. Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“Jack, I’m fine. Better than fine.”
She gave another of those soft smiles, and something inside him snarled and twisted painfully.
“Although if someone would have told me a few days ago I would be lying naked on a Hawaiian beach with you,” she continued, “I probably would have decked them first, then had them committed.”
“You always lead with your fists, don’t you?” This fragile tenderness bubbling through him both astonished and terrified him.
She shrugged. “Most of the time. Beats getting hit first.”
She felt his body tense beside her, around her, becoming as hard and implacable as the huge chunks of black lava scattered all around them.
“Who hit you first?” he asked.
She clamped her mouth shut, wishing she could call back her words. She never talked about those years with Tia Sofia, when her aunt would go off in sudden, zealous rages at nothing and everything that would sometimes last for days at a time.
She never, ever talked about it. Not even with Riley. It was simply a time she had survived, a time she rarely thought about anymore, other than the random, fleeting memory.
And the odd slip of the tongue.
“Nobody,” she lied. “It was just a figure of speech.”
In the moonlight, his eyes searched her face, trying to gauge the truth. She schooled her features not to give anything away, and he finally looked away. “It’s late. We should probably go inside.”
She heard the distance in his voice, felt the tension in his arms and a cold, heavy ache settled in her stomach. She rolled away from him and sat up, then felt around until she found her sundress. Even after she pulled it over her, she felt cold despite the balmy night air.
He couldn’t have made it more plain that he wanted nothing more to do with her.
“Jack, I have no regrets,” she said quietly.
He gave a short, harsh laugh. “That makes one of us.”
“We’re both grown-ups. We both knew what we were doing.”
“You’re my employee. A guest in my home. I didn’t bring you to the islands for this. I hope you know that.”
“I do.”
“I never intended this. I only hoped that coming here would help you find peace.”
“I did. Jack, tonight, with you, I found more peace than I ever believed I would have again.”
But at what cost? she wondered later as they walked silently to the house. Now she had the added tumult of remembering exactly how it felt to hold him and kiss him and burn with him.
CHAPTER 14
On the eve of their departure from Hawaii, Jack stood inside the house gazing through the screen toward the lanai, captivated by the scene in front of him.
The three females in his life were so busy with their own projects they didn’t even notice him. Emma was repeatedly dunking her hapless doll into the birdbath, Lily’s round face was content as she peeled potatoes for dinner and looked out to sea, and Grace frowned with concentration, her dark head bent over the Hawaiian quiltwork she always seemed to be working on.
They made quite a sight—the little blond cherub, the regal Hawaiian, and the exotic, exquisite Grace.
He had been afraid she would withdraw again after their night on the beach, that she would climb back into her distant, solitary world.
He was wrong. The lost, wounded Grace with the sorrowful eyes who had drifted through his house in Seattle like some kind of wraith had largely disappeared.
Although she reemerged at odd moments, for the most part Grace had become this bright, vital woman who took his breath away—who smiled more often and who even laughed occasionally, though rarely at him.
The change in her made it even harder for him to keep his vow to stay away from her.
An image of the day before flashed through his mind and he felt his blood begin a slow, thick churn at the memory. Emma had gone to a family party with Lily and Tiny, eager to play with their grandchildren.
Their departure left him in the house alone with Grace. After about five minutes of contemplating just how gloriously they could manage to fill those hours, he had jumped up and told her to put a swimsuit on under her shorts and grab her walking shoes.
He thought she would refuse—he had wanted her to refuse so he could put as much space between them as possible without feeling like a terrible host abandoning his guest.
To his surprise, she had frowned for a moment, put that damn handiwork aside, and done as he requested.
When she learned he wanted to take her to a remote waterfall he knew in the soaring, knife-sharp mountains that made up much of the interior of Oahu, she had protested that she wasn’t much of a hiker.
But once she started up the jungle-like trail, he’d had to hurry to keep up with her.
Grace had been entranced by it all—the brilliant explosion of color and scent from the many species of tropical flowers, the lush, fern-like undergrowth, and especially the twenty-foot waterfall that cascaded down from a moss-covered cliff to a glistening pool.
She had been entranced by her surroundings. And he had been
entranced by her.
He had wanted to kiss her—had ached with it—but had somehow found the strength to refrain. She hadn’t made it easy on him. When she smiled at him, that soft, sweet smile, it had been all he could do not to take her there, against the bark of a hala tree.
He rubbed at his chest, at the sudden emotion clogging it. She was getting too close and it scared the hell out of him. For the last five days, he had been able to think of virtually nothing else but the silken welcome of her body.
He should probably let them know he was here, he thought now, and moved to open the door when Grace suddenly made a face. The breeze carried her mild curse to him.
“What’s wrong?” Lily set down the potatoes she was peeling and tried to peer at the small wooden quilting frame in Grace’s lap, covered in blue-and-white fabric.
“I can’t do this. It’s just too damn hard for me.”
“You’re doing fine.” Lily’s voice was calm, untroubled, like the Sound on a hot July day. “You just need to have more patience.”
“I just need about four more hands to keep this blasted thing in place. I hate all these tiny stitches and having to turn the fabric after every darn one. I stink at this.”
“You’ve made good progress. See? You’re almost done with the dolphins. You just need to finish that and then do the outline of the shells around the edge.”
“I’ll never be able to finish it,” she muttered. “I should never have let you talk me into starting it in the first place.”
He felt like some kind of voyeur standing here listening to their private conversation, but couldn’t make himself turn away. Instead, he leaned forward so he could hear them better.
The quilted wall hanging meant something significant to her, something greater than just the sum of thread and fabric. He didn’t understand it, but he sensed that finishing it was more symbolic than anything else, and he was pretty sure it had to do with her daughter.
With healing and rebirth.
She worked on it all the time with an almost manic determination. He knew she even slipped out of bed in the early hours of the morning to work on it because he heard her moving around while he was in his own bed, tangled in his sheets.
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