****
Jack knew he was probably the only man on the planet who was happy to hear the words ‘We need to talk’ come out of his girlfriend’s mouth, but at the moment he couldn’t care less if he was a traitor to his gender. He was so damn glad she was there. For one brief heart-stopping second he was scared he might actually weep with relief. The past two months had been unbearable, but he had to do it. He had to step back. He had to know that she would step up.
The irony of a guy who once proudly described himself as a commitment-phobe being forced to hold back the big gushy fountain of wussy lovey-dovey goo that swamped him each time he heard her voice didn’t escape him. There just wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stem the flow.
Standing tough was so much easier when she was three hundred miles away, damn it. Ellie showing up at his place unannounced was definitely not part of the whole ‘play it cool’ game plan. How the hell was he supposed to keep his paws to himself when she was standing right there burrowing into his chest like some kind of helpless little woodland creature? Why did he ever want to? His arms tightened around her. He inhaled deeply, drinking in her scent. A spear of panic pierced his gut. Had she changed shampoos? She didn’t tell him that she changed shampoos, but all of a sudden her hair smelled like peppermint instead of strawberries.
All of a sudden. Crap.
Jack shook his head to clear it then pressed a distracted kiss to her cap of soft, dark waves. Nothing was sudden with them. This whole relationship seemed to play out at a snail’s pace. Now it had all but ground to a halt.
He understood her fears. He understood, but that didn’t mean they didn’t piss him off. He had done nothing to make her doubt him or his commitment to her, and the fact that he was forced to pay for some other idiot’s sins crawled all over him. The whole meet-the-parents experience was an eye-opener, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker. He could wait. He would wait. He wasn’t stupid enough to throw their future away over a timing issue and some moron who wasn’t smart enough to know a good thing when he had her. Ellie was his now. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and sit tight.
Jack pulled the overnight bag she’d stashed in the back seat from the car and draped his arm over her shoulders, holding her close as they walked in lockstep toward the door. Now that she was there, he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go. This last separation nearly killed him. He wasn’t entirely sure how much more he could take.
“What time do you have to work tomorrow?” The words rumbled over the gravel clogging his throat.
If she noticed the hoarseness in his voice, she didn’t let on. “I’m not on the desk until four, so I’ll have plenty of time to make it back.”
He held the door open and waved her into the narrow corridor leading to the repurposed freight elevator. “I can’t believe you just showed up here,” he said when she stepped into the lift.
“I had to, Jack.” She turned toward him, peering up into his eyes as the door closed after them. The car jerked then started its slow ascent. “I have to make things right with us.”
He swallowed hard, his gaze darting to the illuminated numbers on the panel. The door slid open on the fourth floor and he shooed her from the elevator. Stepping past her, he led the way to his loft and unlocked the door. Her overnight bag hit the foyer floor, but instead of reaching for her, Jack shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and forced himself to hold her steady gaze. “We’re fine, Ellie,” he said gruffly.
Her head swung slowly. “No, we’re not, and you know it.”
Turning away from those earnest eyes, he swallowed the recriminations and accusations he’d been bottling up for months. There was no use in turning them loose on her. He could see the regret in her eyes. He could taste the loneliness on her lips. Spinning on his heel, he took off for the kitchen. “Have you eaten?”
“Jack, I—”
He yanked open the refrigerator door. “I have some leftover Chinese in here.”
“Are you ever going to ask me?”
The blunt question slammed him like a sledgehammer. He slowly straightened. “Ask you? Ask you what?”
She closed the distance between them in two steps. It was all he could do to fight the self-preservation instincts that insisted he take one back. Standing his ground, he stared down at her, his jaw set. Her hands fluttered like hummingbirds, hovering in the too-small space between them. “Ask, Jack. Are you ever going to ask me?”
He captured her hands, subduing them by pressing her palms to his chest. “No.”
“No?” Her eyes widened. “No, not ever?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t say not ever, but not any time soon.”
“But why?”
The anguish in her tone soothed his battered ego even if it tugged at his heart. “You know why.”
“Jack, you know I love you—”
He held up one hand to stop her. “Is that why you’re here? You want a proposal?”
“No.”
She wagged her head so hard it made him feel dizzy. Grasping her arms, he tried his best to ground them both as he peered down at her. “Is that the deal? Now you’re not going to believe I love you unless I produce a ring?”
“No! No!”
Her hands slid up to his shoulders. Her fingers bit into muscle and her palms scorched through his shirt. He covered her hands with his, stilling them. He’d be damned if he let her seduce him into giving her what she wanted. Try as he might, Jack couldn’t mask the dejection in his voice. “I love you. You know I do. I want to marry you someday, Ellie, but I think we both know now that we’re not any closer to that than we were ten months ago.”
“Yes, we are.”
He couldn’t hide the sad smile that quirked his mouth. “Okay, maybe a little closer, but not anywhere near where we should be to be talking about marriage.”
“It’s my fault. I ruined everything.”
A fat tear seeped from the corner of her eye. He caught it on the pad of his thumb then raised it to his lips. “Nothing’s ruined. We just need to…fall back a little.”
The washed-thin cotton of his T-shirt bunched as she curled her fingers into fists. “I don’t want to fall back,” she said in a rush. “I screwed up. I got scared. It was me, Jack. All me.”
He nodded, unwilling to let her off the hook. “You’re right. It was you.”
“Then let me fix it. Ask me, Jack.”
Earnest urgency tinged her words. He wanted to give in so badly. The proposal tasted sweet on his tongue. His mouth watered with anticipation. He stared into her frantic eyes and the words melted away. He swallowed them, forcing them down deep where fear and desperation couldn’t coax them free. “Do you love me, Ellie?”
“I do. I do. You never have to wonder about that,” she answered, echoing his earlier reply.
“Then we’re good.” He spoke quietly, gentling the words in hopes that they wouldn’t feel like a rejection. “We’re good for now. The rest will come…later.”
She deflated, rocking back on her heels and searching his face. “You’re punishing me.”
“No, I’m not.” The denial sprang from his lips too quickly. Her eyes widened on impact. “I’m not,” he assured her. “I mean, I’m not trying to. I just want us to be…on the same page.” She bit her lip and stared into his eyes as if he had some other answer hidden there. Jack held her gaze, trying to stay strong despite the tantalizing pink of her lips, the plush softness of her breasts against his chest, and the sharp peppermint-y scent of her hair. “I’m going to see my mom next month….” It was a test. They both knew it was a test, but he wasn’t about to apologize for it.
“I’ll come too,” she said in a breathy whisper.
He nodded slowly. “We’ll figure out what weekend works for you.”
“I stopped in Indianapolis on my way here.”
She paused, clearly waiting for a response, but he had a hard time drawing the line between a trip to Florida to meet his mother
and a pit stop in Indy. “Huh?”
“I had a meeting with Richard Watkins.” The name left a vague impression, but he still couldn’t connect the dots. When he shook his head, she exhaled in a huff, realizing she was going to have to take his memory out for a jog. “Regional Manager? The guy I’ve been talking to about transferring up here?”
“Oh! Yeah. Him.”
“Yeah, him,” she parroted.
“What did he have to say?”
“The usual…Nothing open that would be suitable…Wait it out…Pay my dues….”
The last one struck a spark under his tinderbox of a temper. “Pay your dues? Haven’t you gone anywhere and everywhere they asked for the last five years?”
“Seven,” she corrected, validating his annoyance with a short nod.
“Seven years.”
Ellie smiled as she rose up onto her toes. She caught the tail end of his hiss with a kiss. Her lips clung to his. Her tongue tasted of stale coffee and chocolate. Before he could get a grip on his emotions, he lifted her toes from the floor. A sloppy smooch landed somewhere in the vicinity of her jaw as his hands slid down to cup her bottom. She gave a little hop, and the next thing he knew, her supple thighs were wrapped tight around his hips. Jack staggered a bit then pinned her against the cabinets, lifting her high enough to slide her onto the countertop.
“Ellie, I—”
“I told him I wanted to come home, Jack. I told him I needed something to open up ASAP, or I’d have to go elsewhere.”
He blinked in surprise. Ellie had worked long and hard to get where she was in the Chatham Hotel Group. He knew she took her career far too seriously to risk her credibility on idle threats. “Elsewhere? Have you had an offer?”
She shook her head as her shoulders hunched into a shrug. “No offer. At least, not yet.”
Taken aback by her nonchalance, he pressed the point, “But there’s been some interest?”
“Some interest, yes, but no formal offer yet.”
“But it looks good?”
She raked her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, reveling in the shivers of sensation dancing down his spine. There, in his kitchen, wrapped up in the tangle of her legs and talking about job offers and jerky bosses, he felt more alive than he had in weeks.
“Looks so good,” she whispered.
Something in her tone captured his attention. He forced his eyelids open and met her guileless green gaze. “Who’s it with?” The question came out on a rasp, but her answering smile made his battered heart sputter to life again. The challenge issued by her raised eyebrow was both unmistakable and utterly irresistible.
“I gave my landlord notice. I’ll be homeless as of November first.”
Jack closed his eyes again. “Damn it, Elfie.”
She pecked a kiss to his cheek, nipped at his ear, and then blazed a red-hot trail of you’re-gonna-give-me-what-I-want along his jaw. “Can I borrow your couch, Rudolph?”
“No,” he breathed.
Her lips brushed his, teasing, tasting, and tempting him beyond all reason. “No?”
“No, don’t do this to me.” His tongue touched the spot she just kissed. Hot breath tickled the damp it left behind. He opened his eyes to find her watching him intently. “You’re supposed to be working for it, Ellie,” he muttered in defeat.
“I will. Later. I promise.” A victorious smile curved her lips as she kissed him, but he was too far-gone to care about piddly little things like pride and defeat. She kissed him again, a tender touch laden with promise. “I’ll work so hard to make you happy, Jack,” she whispered as she drew back.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to—”
Grasping her ass, he pulled her from the counter and started toward the bedroom door. Ellie wrapped her arms and legs around him, clinging to him like a vine. For once in his life, he was happy to be entangled. At last it looked like they had finally found a place to plant their roots.
They tumbled to the bed. Jack grinned and grappled for the remote control. The screen faded to black as her bubbling laugh filled the room. “Won’t take much for you to make me happy, Elfie.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll work as hard as I have to, and one day soon you’ll see,” she murmured against his lips. “It’ll be a labor of love, Rudolph, and I’m going to be so good at it. Just you wait and see.”
A Voyage of Discovery
New car smell assaulted her senses the moment she slid into the passenger seat of the rental. She flashed a distracted smile as the car door slammed shut then concentrated on breathing through her mouth. Ellie knew she would probably be considered a freak, but the stink of new carpet fibers and plastic wrap did nothing for her. Seconds later, Jack Rudolph, boyfriend, lover, and soon-to-be-fiancé-if-he’d-ever-stop-being-stubborn, hurled his long body into the driver’s seat and jabbed the key into the ignition.
A deep dimple cut into his clean-shaven cheek when the engine purred to life. He adjusted the vents, dividing the flow 50/50 before turning to face her. “Mmm. New car. Love that smell.”
She figured his interpretation of her non-committal grunt was his problem. At the moment, every ounce of her was wrapped up in trying not to melt in the heat generated by his sinfully sexy coffee-brown eyes. Cool air poured from the vents, making a valiant attempt to cut through the stagnant Florida heat trapped inside the parked car, but it didn’t stand a chance against the smoldering man in the seat next to her.
They’d arranged to meet on a crowded concourse in O’Hare early that morning. Their economy-class seats on the flight from Chicago to Tampa were close, but not nearly close enough. It had only been five weeks since Labor Day weekend. One of the shortest stretches of separation they’d had since they started this crazy long-distance dating thing. Still, it seemed unending. Thank goodness Jack insisted on driving back to Louisville with her so they could spend what hours she had free with him. She didn’t even want to think about the cost of his one-way flight from Louisville to Chicago on Labor Day. It boggled her mind that she had doubted him or his love for one second. The man truly was too good to be true, and he was all hers.
Resting his head against the seat, he stared at her intently. “Whatcha thinkin’, Elfie?”
Damn. The man even blinked sexy. Two heartfelt but fairly chaste kisses while the crowd eddied around them and a couple hours of making cow eyes at each other on the plane had pushed her to her limits. Wetting her lips, she did her best to rise to the challenge. “I’m thinking I’m ready for a real kiss now. Not one of those fake, suitable for public consumption kisses, Rudolph.”
One eyebrow twitched, but he quickly smoothed it out. “A real kiss, huh?”
Double damn him and his sexy accountant-cop blank face skills. “Don’t be a tease, Jack. Girls hate guys who are teases.”
He released his hold on his smile, his lips curving in invitation as he leaned over, closing the distance between them. “I think I can manage that,” he murmured. His lips barely glanced off hers before he pulled back. His smile stretched into a grin and those dimples dug deep. “Better?”
She snorted. “Not hardly. Tongue, Jack. I want tongue.”
His chuckle rolled through her. One wide-palmed hand cupped the back of her head and his long, graceful fingers slipped into her hair. She sighed as he lowered his mouth to hers. Her name whispered across her lips a nanosecond before he made contact. He trapped it there and she drank deeply, opening to him, tasting his desire for her on the tongue she demanded just moments ago. The kiss itself was hot and hungry, definitely not suitable for public consumption.
Ellie knotted her fingers in his shirt and hung on. Hitching one leg under her, she rose up in the seat and gave as good as she got. His hand slid down her back, tracing the line of her spine. He ducked his head, trailing hot, wet, open-mouthed kisses to her ear. He whispered her name in that deep, husky rasp again. His teeth grazed tender skin then his lips found the pulse pounding in her throat. Ja
ck drew gently on her skin and her brain pinged. The next thing she knew, his head bounced off the window, she was sprawled across the console, and he had a breast in one hand and her ass in the other.
She tried to get a grip, but he stared up at her with such baffled arousal she couldn’t have pried herself off him with a crowbar. Unable to wrap her mind around the inevitability barreling down on them, she whispered, “Oh God, we’re going to do it here…in broad daylight…in a parking lot….”
“No, we’re not,” he growled.
Still, he didn’t relinquish his hold on her. If anything, it intensified. The blunt tips of his fingers kneaded her breast. He squeezed her ass, gathering her into the heat of his palm. She laughed and shook her head, darting a meaningful glance at their semi-prone bodies. “The evidence is adding up.”
“No.”
Ellie could almost hear him grinding his teeth as he surrendered his hold on her. She didn’t give up quite that easily. A sassy smile twitched her lips while she pecked soft kisses to his lips, his cheek, and his jaw. She stretched to catch the tender skin of his earlobe between her teeth then settled down in to nip at his neck.
“Damn.” The word fell from her lips, weighted with genuine regret. When he laughed, she bristled a little. “What? You’re just lucky I’m wearing jeans, Rudolph. If I’d thought to put on a skirt….”
Ellie let the thought trail off, knowing the man was clever enough to add two and two together and come up with yes-ma’am-please. His rumbling groan proved her faith in him was not misplaced. Just over their heads, a plane took off into the cloudless blue sky. The thrust of its engines provided enough vibration to hurtle the occupants of one brand-spanking-new Hyundai Sonata right back into the danger zone.
Flopping back into her seat she reached for the air vents, hoping a blast of good old A/C would help cool her jets. “How far are we from your mom’s?”
Jack huffed out a breath as he sat up straight, pressing the legs of his jeans down with his palms and surreptitiously rearranging…things. He fiddled with the airflow a bit himself before daring a quick glance in her direction. “About forty minutes from her condo, but we’re meeting her for lunch.”
Unforgettable Heroes Boxed Set Page 114