Jax could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He was going to be the first twenty-two-year-old to die of a love-induced heart attack. He smiled. There were certainly worse ways to go.
Kelly returned his smile, then closed her eyes, lifting her lips to him. He moved that final fraction of an inch, and then he was kissing her.
Her mouth felt warm and soft as he slowly, gently brushed his own lips across hers. It took every ounce of control he had to keep himself from deepening the kiss, to keep himself from touching her lips with his tongue, from entering her sweet mouth.
Breathing hard, he pulled back to look at her. Her breasts were rising and falling as if she, too, were having trouble pulling air into her lungs.
“T., don’t stop,” she whispered, and he groaned, knowing he shouldn’t kiss her again, knowing he should stop right here and right now before this got out of hand.
“Please,” she whispered, and everything he knew he should do went right out the window as he bent his head to kiss her again.
This time her arms went up around his neck. He felt her fingers in his hair as their lips met. He felt her mouth open underneath his, her tongue lightly touch his lips.
He swept his arms around her, pulling her against his chest as he gently met her tongue with his own. He wanted to pull her over the parking brake onto his lap, to reach under her light spring shawl to cup her breasts in the palms of his hands. He wanted to kiss her long and hard and deep, and he wanted to keep kissing her until she turned eighteen. And then he wanted to make love to her. He wanted to be her first lover, and her last.
“Kelly,” he said between kisses, his voice raspy and thick. “Kelly—”
He had to do it. He had to kiss her just once the way he was dying to. Just one real kiss.
He swept his tongue into her mouth, fiercely, wildly, claiming her, possessing her. He could feel her fingers tighten in his hair as she pulled him even closer to her, as she met his kiss with a passion that equaled his own.
One kiss became two, then three, then more, and suddenly nothing else mattered or even existed. There was only Kelly. Kelly, who knew him better than anyone in the world. Kelly, with whom he shared all of his secrets. All of his secrets, including this one—he loved her, the way a man loves a woman.
But faintly he was aware that time was passing, and somehow, somewhere, he found strength to pull away from her sweet lips.
“Oh, T.,” she breathed, “I’ve never been kissed like that before.”
He closed his eyes, still holding her in his arms, her head against his shoulder as waves of emotion flooded him. It was an odd combination of relief and guilt and love, happiness and great sorrow, all mixed together, blended in a confusing blur.
He held her for what seemed like hours, until his pulse slowed. When it reached as close as he thought it would get to normal for that evening, he released her.
His hands shook as he tried to get the keys out of the ignition, and he dropped them on the floor. He took a deep breath and combed his hair back with his fingers, then turned to look at Kelly.
She smiled as he met her eyes. “Well, I guess you’re not gay.”
Jax stared at her, momentarily floored. “What did you just say?” he asked in a burst of air, even though he knew he’d heard her correctly.
“A few days ago, Christa asked me if you were gay.”
“You’re kidding.” Christa was Kelly’s aunt who had lived with the O’Briens that same summer that Jax had.
“She’s been wondering for a while why you don’t have a girlfriend. I told her I didn’t know what your sexual preference was,” Kelly said with a nonchalant shrug.
“Kelly!” Jax’s voice reached up an octave in outrage before he saw the amusement sparkling in her eyes, before the smile she was trying to hide crept out.
“Relax, Jackson. I told her that you were straight…but I don’t think she believed me. She’s very big on proof, and frankly, I didn’t have any.”
This conversation was getting way out of hand. And the clock on the dashboard now read 6:03. Man, had he really sat here in his car for the past half hour making out with Kevin’s little sister? Someone was surely saving a place for him in hell, because that was right where he was going to go after Kevin broke his neck.
And Kelly was looking at him as though she didn’t want to get out of the car for at least another half an hour.
“Kelly, let’s have dinner,” he said desperately, his usual cool demeanor slipping. “Please?”
With a smile, she adjusted the rearview mirror and carefully reapplied her lipstick. Jax couldn’t bear to watch, afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from kissing it off her lips, too.
He forced himself out of the car, picked his keys up off the floor, then went around to open Kelly’s door. He offered her his hand to help her out, and she put her slim, cool fingers into his as she smiled up at him. He caught a quick, breathtaking glimpse of her shapely legs through the slit in her skirt and then she was out of the car. He closed the door behind her, reminding himself to keep breathing.
As they crossed the gravel driveway to the front entrance, Kelly slipped her hand into the crook of Jax’s arm. He covered her hand with his, unable to keep himself from lightly stroking the tops of her fingers.
“T.,” she said quietly as they approached the door to the restaurant. He looked down into her steady blue gaze. “It didn’t really help, did it?”
She was talking about those practice good-night kisses. With a laugh, Jax shook his head. “No, Kel, it sure didn’t.”
“Well, at least I’m not nervous anymore,” she said with a small smile.
Yeah, but Jax still was. In fact, now he was twice as nervous.
Chapter 4
Dear Kelly,
Another day dawns and I am still here in this damned miserable cell.
One of the guards takes pity on me and slips me some American paperback books that were left behind in the hotel where his wife works as a maid.
There are three of them—all romances. One is a long historical, the other two are shorter and set in the present day. I read them eagerly, voraciously, in the dim light from my little window. I read them over and over again, taking great joy in the happy endings, the tender embraces of the lovers reunited at last.
You come after sunset, when it’s too dark to read any longer, and I proudly show the books to you. They are my prize possessions, and I keep them carefully out of sight of the other guards.
Tonight you are sixteen, and you leaf through the books casually in the darkness, far more interested in the paper they are printed on than the words themselves.
“If you write really small,” you tell me, “you can use this paper and write between the lines.”
I stare at you stupidly.
You laugh. “T., you always said that you’d write a novel if you could only find the time,” you say. You lift one eyebrow humorously. “Well, suddenly you’ve got plenty of time.”
I am elated, but only briefly. “I have nothing to write with.”
“Ask the guard who gave you these books. Ask him for a pencil or a pen.”
“I will.”
You smile, and I suddenly realize you are wearing your prom dress. You are so beautiful, my heart nearly stops beating.
You lean forward to kiss me, and I can feel your soft lips, smell your perfume. You take me with you, back in time, and for a while, I am out of my cell. I sit with you in my sports car, clean-shaven and smelling sweet, wearing my tuxedo, and we kiss.
You are still so young, and I’m even older now, and I still don’t know better. I still can’t stop myself.
I love you.
Love, T.
It was well past 2:00 a.m. by the time Kelly shut down her computer and turned off the lights in her apartment. She moved to the living room window, remembering that she hadn’t closed and locked it the way she did every night. As she pulled the window down, the sound of a car’s engine starting out on the street
caught her attention. As she watched, a sleek sports car pulled away from the curb, dimly lit by the streetlight on the corner. She looked closer, sure that she could see the glint of golden hair through the driver’s side window.
The first thing she felt was anger. What the hell was T. doing, spying on her until all hours of the night?
But it didn’t take long for rational thought to intercede. He couldn’t have been spying on her. The only way he could have seen into her windows was if he’d somehow gained access to the apartment across the street. And it was hardly likely that he had gone to such lengths. If he had wanted to know what she was doing, he would’ve no doubt simply knocked on her door.
So then, what was he doing? Sitting out in his car in front of her house for God only knows how many hours?
Why?
The only answer she could come up with was more than a bit alarming. It had to be the physical attraction, the same old irresistible pull that they had nearly given in to on her prom night, so many years ago. She still felt it tugging at her every time he was near. No doubt he did, too.
Kelly lay back in her bed and threw her arm across her eyes. She was exhausted, but sleep didn’t come. Finally, too tired to fight, she closed her eyes and let her memories carry her back in time to that wonderful, terrible Saturday night of the prom.
She couldn’t begin to remember what she ate for dinner at the Breckenridge Inn. She wasn’t sure that she even knew at the time. Her attention had been so totally captured by T. Jackson Winchester the Second….
He’d reached across the table between courses, holding her hand lightly, playing with her fingers, making her think about the way he had kissed her in the car. He’d kept up a steady stream of conversation about books, movies, music, anything and everything, but there had been an odd fire in his eyes that had let her know he, too, had been thinking about kissing her again.
When the waiter brought their dinners, he also brought them each a complimentary glass of white wine. T. looked at Kelly, one eyebrow slightly raised, but he said nothing until the waiter left.
“People always think I’m older than I am,” she said. “It was a drag back when I was eleven. I used to get into arguments with the ticket lady at the movie theater. I finally had to bring her my birth certificate to prove that I really was under thirteen.” She smiled. “But now I’d say it’s paying off.” She toyed with the long stem of her wineglass. “I wish, at least, that I was eighteen.”
T. was leaning back lazily in his chair, his handsome face lit by flickering candlelight. “I wish you were, too.”
“I feel like I’m spending all of my time waiting.” Kelly gazed into the stormy gray-green of his eyes. “I know exactly what I want to do, I know exactly what I want from life, but it’s going to be another few years before I’m allowed to start living.”
“Four hundred and fifty-nine days.”
She looked at him in surprise.
He smiled. “I’m counting.” He leaned forward suddenly. “What do you want from life?” His eyes were electric green now, and they seemed to shine in the dim light, intense, piercing.
You.
She almost said it aloud. Instead she said, “I want what I’ve always wanted, the same thing you want—to be a writer.”
“So do it,” T. told her. “Be a writer. Just because you’re living at home, just because you’re still in high school, doesn’t mean you can’t start sending your stories out to magazines. It doesn’t mean you can’t get published. If you really want something, if you’ve really figured out what you want, then go for it, work for it, do it. Don’t hold back. No matter what else you do, just keep writing.”
His face was so serious. A lock of hair had fallen across his forehead, but he didn’t bother to push it back. Kelly gazed at his perfect features—perfect except for the tiny scar below his left eye, close to his temple, on his cheekbone. He’d been in a fight in high school, he’d once told her, being purposely vague.
That scar had always been a reminder to Kelly that there was more to T. Jackson than he’d let the world believe from his cool and collected outward appearance. There was a fire inside of him, ready to spark into flames if he was pressed hard enough.
She’d tasted that fire when he’d kissed her. But even when he kissed her so passionately, she’d felt his control, felt him holding back. She’d never seen him when he wasn’t in control, and had only rarely seen him rattled. She smiled again, remembering his reaction when she’d mentioned that Christa doubted his masculinity. But still, even then, he’d really only been slightly fazed.
That scar, though, was proof that there was a side to T. that she’d hadn’t yet seen. And although the scar interrupted the lines of his face, it added a mysteriousness and an unpredictability to him, and Kelly found that wonderfully, dangerously attractive.
As he gazed across the table at her, his eyes held the same fiery fierceness that Kelly had seen right before he had kissed her in the car—those amazing, industrial-strength kisses. As she watched, he forced his eyes away from her, down to his plate, and stared at the food in front of him as if he hadn’t realized it was there.
If you really want something, he had said, if you’ve really figured out what you want…
She wanted T., there was no doubt about it. And she wanted him forever. It couldn’t be much clearer to her, it couldn’t be more obvious.
Then go for it…don’t hold back.
“There’s more,” she said quietly, and he looked up at her. There was uncertainty in his eyes, and she realized he wasn’t following. “There’s more that I want,” she explained.
As she watched, understanding replaced the confusion. As she gazed at him, she saw his sudden comprehension, along with a renewed flare of the fire that was burning inside of him.
I want you.
She didn’t have to say the words. He knew.
He smiled at her, but it was tinged with sadness. “Oh, Kel,” he whispered. “What am I going to do about this?”
She picked up her fork and toyed with the food on her plate for a moment before she answered. “You could start by asking me out on another date.”
He reached across the table, lacing her fingers with his. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
Kelly felt her heart flip-flop. He was taking her seriously. “I’ve got nothing planned.”
“Will you go to a movie with me?” he asked. “We could get something to eat before or after, depending on what time the movie starts.”
Kelly looked down at her barely touched dinner and laughed. “Maybe we should skip the meal. Neither of us seems to care much about food these days.”
“Is that a yes?” His hand tightened slightly on hers.
“Yes.”
“Will you go out with me Monday night, too?”
“Yes.”
“Tuesday?”
Kelly laughed. “Yes.”
“How about Wednesday?”
“I’m supposed to baby-sit for the Wilkinses. You know, they live down the street.”
“I remember,” Jax said. “Kevin and I filled in over there for you last year when you got that virus. Do you think they would mind if I came along?”
“No,” Kelly told him.
“Good.” Jax smiled. “Then that just leaves Thursday and Friday…and every other night for the next one year and ninety-four days. Will you go out with me those nights, too?”
As Kelly gazed into his warm green eyes, she was incredibly, deliriously happy. “Yes,” she whispered.
He brought her hand up to his lips, gently kissing the tips of her fingers. “Good.”
“Why only a year and ninety-four days?” she wondered aloud.
He lifted her hand to his mouth again, this time kissing her palm. Kelly inhaled sharply at the sensation, and heat raced through her body. She could see the same heat in T.’s eyes as the warm green turned hot. “Because in one year and ninety-four days, you’ll be eighteen.”
“What happens then?�
�� She watched, mesmerized as he kissed the soft inside of her wrist, pressing her throbbing pulse with his lips.
“Lots of things,” he replied, watching her through half-closed eyelids. His thumb now traced slow circles on the palm of her hand, and Kelly felt nearly overpowered by her feelings. She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted…
She knew about sex, even though she had no experience. She’d read plenty of books, seen movies, heard talk, but she’d never really quite understood what the big deal was all about. Until now.
“When you’re eighteen, you’ll start college,” Jackson was saying lazily, still smiling at her. “You’ll leave home. You’ll marry me.”
Kelly pulled her hand free. “Tyrone, don’t tease about something like that.”
“I’m not teasing.”
She looked up at him. His smile was gone. Kelly felt a rush of dizziness, and she started to laugh. “I thought, according to convention, that a man is supposed to ask a woman to marry him, not simply tell her that she will.”
“Oh, I’ll ask,” Jax had said. “The minute you turn eighteen, Kelly, I’m going to ask….”
But he hadn’t. Even though he had disappeared a few days after the prom, even though he had broken all of the other promises he had made to her that night, Kelly had spent her entire eighteenth birthday waiting for him to show up, to call, to come for her.
But he never had.
Tears still stung her eyes as she remembered the bitter disappointment, the hurt. It was on that day she convinced herself that she had truly stopped loving T. Jackson Winchester the Second. It was on that day that she started moving ahead with her life. It was the day she finally agreed to go out with Brad Foster.
It was better it had happened this way. Better that she’d married Brad instead of T. Because although finding Brad with another woman had hurt her, it wasn’t the end of the world. It was simply the end of their relationship.
But if it had been T. Jackson she had found in bed with someone else…that would have destroyed her. Her heart would never have recovered.
Now that Jared was cooperating, Jax’s writing should have been going much more smoothly. But it wasn’t.
Letters to Kelly Page 6