Kelly stood in the center of the room, watching T. He looked exhausted, and she knew that, like her, he hadn’t slept at all last night. But he smiled at her, a smile that erased the fatigue from his face and lit his eyes with happiness.
She realized she couldn’t let herself think about the future. She couldn’t think about the pain and heartache that would surely come from loving him. There would be plenty of time to suffer when he was gone. But right now he was here, and here and now were what mattered. Here and now his heart was hers.
Kelly smiled at him. “Can we take this from where we left it last night?” She crossed to the bed and sat on the edge. “I think I was over here.”
T. walked across the room almost impossibly slowly, holding her gaze every step of the way. The fire from his eyes burned into her body, infusing her with a heat that seemed to rise from deep within her. As he sat down next to her on the bed, he picked up her hands, lacing their fingers together.
He kissed her, and Kelly could feel his restraint. He was holding back, as if he were afraid to overwhelm her, as if he were afraid he’d lose control.
“It’s not many people who get a second chance to make love for the first time,” he said with a crooked smile.
“I’m going to have to disappoint you,” Kelly admitted. “That night in your hotel room? That wasn’t just sex. We were making love. I loved you then—I was just too stupid to admit it.”
“I’m not disappointed.” He kissed her again, still so carefully.
Kelly reached up, lightly tracing the small scar on his cheekbone as she looked into his eyes. Like the high school boy who had scarred him in that fight, she knew firsthand about the passion that burned inside of T. Jackson.
She loved T. because he was sweet and kind and funny and smart. But the fact that he could manage so successfully to hide his passion behind a cool and collected facade of control made her love him even more. Especially since she knew that she had the power to take that control of his and tear it to shreds.
Which was exactly what she intended to do right now.
She knelt next to him on the bed and kissed him fiercely, pulling him closer to her, running her hands up underneath his T-shirt, against his smooth, muscular back. She could feel his control slipping as his arms tightened around her, as he returned her kisses. Drawing her leg across him, she straddled his lap, and he groaned.
Together they pulled his T-shirt off, then hers, tossing them onto the floor. Her bra soon followed.
Picking Kelly up, Jax turned, pushing her back onto the bed, covering her body with his. “I love you, Kel,” he breathed, touching, caressing the smooth softness of her neck, her shoulders, her breasts.
As he kissed her again, his fingers fumbled with the button on her cutoff jeans. Nearly growling with frustration, he pulled away from her. Laughing, she unfastened the button, then, holding his gaze, slowly drew the zipper down.
As she slipped out of her shorts and her panties, Jax could barely breathe. He was frozen in place, spellbound, hypnotized. “Are you real?” he whispered. “Are you really here with me, or am I dreaming?”
For a long time after he’d returned from Central America, he had been struck by feelings of unreality, expecting at any moment he would awaken still locked in his prison cell. He felt that way now.
Kelly sat up, putting her arms around his neck as she kissed him. “If you think you’re dreaming, maybe you better hurry up, get your clothes off and make love to me before you wake up.”
Jax laughed, then gasped as her hands found the hardness of his arousal pressing against his shorts. She deftly undid the button and his shorts quickly followed the rest of their clothes onto the floor.
He quickly covered himself with a condom, then slipped between her legs. His hands and mouth were everywhere then, touching her, kissing her, drinking in the softness of her skin, the wet heat of her desire.
“Tell me again that you love me,” he whispered, looking down into her eyes.
He was poised over her, the muscles in his arms and shoulders flexed as he kept his weight lifted off of her. His golden hair was a jumble of unruly waves, messed from her fingers.
She smiled up at him, and he kissed her again, as if he couldn’t bear to be separated from her lips for too long.
“I love you,” she said. “I always have.”
He filled her then, both her heart and her body, and for the first time in her life, she felt truly whole. She had loved him forever, a love so pure and true, it had triumphed over the passage of time and all of her pain and heartache. She knew in that instant she would love him until the end of time, long after he’d moved on.
She held him close, moving with him, pushing him farther, more deeply inside of her, hoping if she held him tightly enough, he would never go away.
“I love you,” she cried, the waves of her pleasure exploding through her.
She felt T.’s body tighten with his own stormy release, heard him call her name, his voice hoarse with passion.
Don’t ever leave me, she thought.
It wasn’t until T. answered her that she realized she had spoken the words aloud. “I won’t, Kel,” he said, kissing her sweetly. “I promise I won’t.”
But it was a promise he’d already broken once before.
Chapter 15
“Do you want to go for a swim or make love?” T. asked, nuzzling Kelly’s neck.
The morning sun was streaming through the windows of his bedroom, and Kelly stretched. “What day is it?”
He smiled at her lazily. “I can only give you a rough estimate—I can tell you the month and the year. Well, wait a minute, maybe I can’t even do that. Is it July or August? It could be August.”
Kelly laughed. “Impossible. August was at least a week away. I mean, all you need is love and all that, but I just can’t believe someone as spoiled as you—”
“Spoiled?” T. feigned insult.
“—could go for a whole week without food,” Kelly finished teasingly.
But suddenly he wasn’t laughing anymore. His eyes were strangely haunted and his smile disappeared. “You’d be surprised at how long I could go without food,” he said quietly. But just as quickly as that odd mood had fallen over him, it was gone. He smiled with a quick flash of his white teeth and pulled her on top of him, kissing her hard on the mouth.
“I have a deadline coming up,” he told her, “and I’m having a bitch of a time finishing this book. Argh! I don’t want to think about it. I don’t even want to work on it anymore.” He kissed her again, then looked thoughtful. “Of course, if it is August, then I’m already late with the manuscript, and there’re probably twenty-five very irate messages from my editor on my answering machine.”
“And if it’s August, Stefanie and Emilio are back from their cruise,” Kelly pointed out.
“Oh, damn, there goes our privacy.” T. closed his eyes with pleasure as she ran her fingers through his hair. “No more running naked through the house.”
“Have you been running naked through the house?” Kelly teased. “Without me?”
“Well, no.” He caught her hands and kissed the tips of her fingers. “But you know how it is. As soon as you can’t do something, you immediately want to do it.”
“If I tell you that you absolutely can’t work on your manuscript, will that make you want to finish writing it?”
“No. But I just got a sudden wild craving to play miniature golf.”
Kelly laughed.
“And then I want to call your parents and tell them that we’re getting married.”
She froze. T. was smiling up at her. He hadn’t shaved in days and his hair was wild, but with his eyes lit with love, he was so utterly handsome he took her breath away. But she wasn’t going to marry him. She couldn’t. “T., we’re not getting married.”
He was unperturbed. “Yes, we are.”
“No, we’re not. Besides, that’s not the sort of thing you’re supposed to just tell someone. You’re sup
posed to ask—Didn’t we have this conversation once before?”
He turned suddenly, flipping Kelly onto her back, pinning her to the bed with his body. “Marry me,” he said, all teasing gone from his voice and eyes. “Kelly, please, will you marry me?”
As she looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “How many years do you want to marry me for, T.?” she asked. “Two? Maybe three?” She pushed him away from her and sat up on the edge of the bed. “I can’t go through that again.”
“I’m not Brad,” Jax said quietly. “I want you for forever.”
She turned to face him. “That’s what Brad said, too. But he changed his mind.”
“Maybe he realized that you didn’t love him. Maybe he figured out that you were still in love with me.”
Kelly just watched him quietly, and Jax wished he could get inside her head, read her mind and know what she was thinking.
“I love you,” he said. “And you love me. We should have been together right from the very start—”
“If you believe that, then why did you go to London?”
It was a direct question, deserving of a point-blank answer. Jax looked straight into Kelly’s eyes and fired both barrels.
“Because Kevin gave me a choice between going to London or being brought up on charges of attempted rape.”
Kelly was shocked. Attempted rape? “That’s ridiculous—”
“You were underage.” His eyes were intense as he tried to make her understand. “If Kevin had made any noise, there would’ve been an investigation at the very least. It would’ve been horrible, Kel, not just for me, but for you. You would’ve been examined by doctors, questioned by the police and all kinds of social workers and psychologists. And God, if any word at all had slipped out to the papers, it would’ve been a total media circus. Your reputation would have been shredded.” He was silent, looking out the windows at the deep, clear blue of the sky. “I didn’t give a damn about myself, but I couldn’t do that to you, so I went to London.”
“Kevin was bluffing!”
“I sure as hell didn’t think so.”
“Why didn’t you at least talk to me about it?”
“It was part of the deal,” Jax said. “I couldn’t try to see you. I couldn’t call. I couldn’t even write to you.”
“I thought you didn’t love me,” she said softly.
He shook his head. “It was because I loved you that I left. And if I had to do it over again, I’m not sure I wouldn’t do exactly the same thing.”
Kelly was older now, but he could still see that sweet sixteen-year-old girl when he looked into her eyes. He had let her down all those years ago.
“You broke my heart.” It wasn’t an accusation. It was a fact. And somehow that made it even worse.
“That part I’d do differently,” Jax told her.
Jax sat at his computer, looking out his office windows. If he craned his neck, he could see down to the deck where Kelly was sitting, reading the unfinished draft of his manuscript. She was wearing the black bathing suit he’d bought her. Black bathing suit, black sunglasses, all that lightly tanned, smooth skin…
“Aren’t you supposed to be writing?” Jared’s familiar voice broke into his thoughts. “Look, Kelly’s a real babe, but can’t you take your eyes off of her for even a few minutes?”
Jax dragged his eyes back to the computer screen. He had left Jared out in the barn, brushing down his stallion. A light rain was falling outside of the open barn door.
“Kelly’s finally mine.” Jax laughed. “I am so lucky—”
“Yeah, well, she hasn’t agreed to marry you, so don’t send the tux out to the dry cleaners yet.” Jared wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his cotton shirt. “You may have the ‘happily’ part down, but the ‘ever after’ needs some work.”
“You’re just jealous—” Jax crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair “—because Carrie still won’t have anything to do with you.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t trust me,” Jared admitted. “But hey, you know what they say about art imitating life.”
Jax frowned, leaning forward. “Are you intimating that Kelly doesn’t trust me?”
“That’s exactly what I’m ‘intimating.’” Jared grinned. “Man, where do you come up with these words?”
“I’m a writer,” Jax said absently.
“Coulda fooled me,” Jared said dryly. “I’ve been hanging out, waiting for you to write me out of this barn for days.”
Jax was deep in thought. Kelly didn’t trust him? Yeah, it made sense. “Is it men in general that she doesn’t trust?” he wondered out loud. “Or is it me?”
“Mostly you,” Jared guessed. “You hurt her badly once already. She’s waiting for you to do it again.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” Jax asked, adding, “God, I must be desperate if I’m reduced to asking you for advice.”
Jared leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms in front of him. Thinking hard, he looked down at the toes of his dusty boots as he scuffed them in the dirt. When he looked back at Jax, there was a twinkle in his dark eyes.
“Maybe you should let life imitate art for a change,” he said with a smile. “How do you plan to get Carrie to agree to marry me? Just do the same thing with Kelly.”
Jax ran his fingers through his hair and laughed, a short, humorless burst of air. “It’s hardly the same situation—”
“It’s exactly the same—”
“If you must know, you’re going to take a bullet that was meant for Carrie,” Jax told his character. “When you nearly die, she’s going to realize how much you mean to her.”
“You’re going to have me get shot again?” Jared straightened up. “That’s one gunshot wound for every…what? Every hundred and ten pages? Thank the Lord this book’s only four hundred and fifty pages long. I’m beginning to feel like I’m walking around with a sign around my neck saying ‘Shoot me, I’m a romantic hero.”’
“Stop complaining,” Jax said, tipping his chair back on two legs. “It’s going to get you what you want, and you’re going to save Carrie’s life.”
“Just watch your aim, okay?” Jared began to pace. His big horse snorted and glanced back over his shoulder at him. “Well, obviously you can’t use that same solution for your problem.”
“Obviously.”
“Ahem.”
Jax lost his balance and his chair went over backward with a crash. “Hi.” He smiled weakly up at Kelly from the floor.
In the barn, Jared was laughing.
“You really do talk to yourself, don’t you?” She put the notebook that held his manuscript down on the table.
She’d put a big, filmy gauze blouse on over her bathing suit. The tails came down to her knees, but she’d left the front unbuttoned. The flashes of smooth, tanned skin that Jax could see beneath the white gauze made his mouth go dry.
She held out her hand to help him up, but instead of getting to his feet, he pulled her down onto the floor with him.
“I wasn’t talking to myself,” he said, kissing her. “I was talking to Jared.”
“Jared.” She nodded. “You outdid yourself with him. He’s a real hunk, and I mean to-die-for in a major way. I think he’s your best hero yet.”
“Oh, yeah!” Jared strutted across the barn. “She likes me. Watch out, Winchester, you’re history.”
“Yeah, well, you’re fictional,” Jax countered. Kelly was looking at him, one eyebrow raised, and he kissed her quickly. “Sorry. Just…you know…” He cleared his throat. “So you liked Jared, huh? And how about Kelly—Carrie,” he corrected himself, then rolled his eyes.
Kelly laughed. “Ah, the truth comes out with the old Freudian slip. I thought she looked suspiciously like me. Well, a glorified, perfect me, anyway. And Jared’s obviously you, only not blond and a little bit more stupid.”
“Hey!” Jared was insulted.
“More stupid!” Jax repeated happily. “That’s a great way
to describe him. I like it. More stupid. I can picture the blurb on the back cover now. ‘Jared Dexter, stronger and braver than most, more stupid than some—”’
“Oh, shut up.” Jared turned his back pointedly, picking up the brush and starting in on his horse’s coat again.
Laughing, Jax kissed Kelly. “He’s pouting now.”
“If you told me you planned to shoot me, I’d pout, too,” Kelly said, pulling herself to her feet.
“How long were you listening to me—”
“Talk to yourself?” Kelly finished for him with a grin. “Long enough to know that you’re planning to get Carrie and Jared together with the old hero-almost-dies ploy. It’s been used before, but that’s okay.”
She was standing with her back to the windows, and the sunlight streamed in behind her, making her cover-up seem to disappear. “There’s just one thing I need to ask you.”
Jax held up one hand. “Wait. Let me get rid of some distractions.” He cleared the computer screen, then walking toward her, he took her gently by the arm and switched their positions, so that he had his back to the window. From where he stood now, the sunlight streaming in made her shirt opaque again. “Okay, now I’m listening.”
“Why hasn’t Jared told Carrie where he was all those years?” Kelly asked. “I mean, my God, he went through hell, and Carrie doesn’t have a clue. As far as she’s concerned, he did desert her. Why doesn’t he say something?”
Jax frowned down at the floor. This was it. He had to tell her. As much as he didn’t want to, he knew he had to. It was definitely time.
Kelly leaned back against the table, waiting for his reply. As she watched, T. moistened his lips and cleared his throat. When he finally looked up at her, he had the strangest expression on his face.
“What’s he gonna say?” he asked her quietly. “How’s he going to bring it up? It’s not easy for him to talk about, you know, what he went through. And it’s sure as hell not a topic of conversation to have over dinner. He can’t just say, ‘Oh, by the way, I spent twenty godforsaken months of my life in a rat-infested prison in Central America.”’
Letters to Kelly Page 19