Cat shook her head. “I won’t be free to live my own life until I know I did everything I could to make her life good again. When Chris left, it came down to me and I always felt Dad beside me, begging me to stay. Coming here is the best thing I did...for me, not for her. Now it’s time for me to go back. Alone.”
He blew out a breath and wiped his hand over his face. “If I let you go, then what?”
Hope rose inside Cat that he understood. Understood her regret of doubting him, that they still had a chance. She stepped closer, stopped just a few feet away from him. Her fingers itched to touch him so she curled them into fists at her sides. Tears pricked her eyes. “Then I’ll be back...if you still want me.”
For a long moment his gaze locked on hers, his jaw tight but his eyes soft. “I don’t know if... I can’t let you go, Cat. I love you.”
She inhaled. His dark brown eyes shone with desire in the muted light, the strong contours of his face set in concentration, his lips ever so slightly apart. He looked so roguishly handsome, Cat struggled to maintain eye contact.
He leaned forward and the soft welcome warmth of his lips brushed the sensitive flesh beneath her earlobe. Somehow managing not to melt to the floor with her legs wide open, Cat shivered. Any words froze on her tongue. He slipped his hands to her waist and kissed her.
Helplessly, Cat lifted her hands and gripped thick, muscular forearms as Jay groaned into her mouth. Any possibility Cat might resist him puddled like liquid in her stomach. His warm soft tongue sought and took hers as desire twisted and turned inside her. His musky masculine smell, the way he towered over her made Cat believe he could take care of everything.
Her eyes snapped open and she eased him back. He couldn’t take care of everything. Only she could. Only she could fix her mum, find Sarah’s killer, live her life. She shook her head and looked to the floor.
“Jay, I have to do this for myself.”
“Why are you running away again?”
She snapped her head up and her tears blurred his face. “I’m not running. I’m surviving.”
“It feels good be back here, doesn’t it?”
Cat stared. It felt so good being there with him, being with George and Marian, seeing the beach and the tiny boutique shops. The thought of going home became more and more of a dread every day. She took a step back. “It feels better than good. It feels absolutely right.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Without warning, he lifted her off her feet and laid her on the bed. Cat quivered. Fighting her love for him was futile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
HE WANTED TO MAKE HER his so much it was more than he could stand every time she insisted on having to deal with Julia alone. With Bennett arrested, Jay’s heart had ached all night knowing she would leave in the morning—their words hanging cold and unfeeling between them. He loved her and she was going nowhere without him. He would show her, not tell her how much he loved and wanted her, how much he wanted her in his bed and in his life.
It had always been Cat, and over his dead body would he let her go again.
His heart beat a mad tattoo in his chest as a wave of feral possessiveness stormed through him.
“I love you. When you go back to Reading, I’m coming with you.” He stared deep into her eyes, willing her to see how firmly she held his heart in her hands.
Her eyes were wide. “Jay, please. I’m not doing this because I don’t want you there. I’m doing this because I have to. Don’t make this—”
He swallowed any further protest by crushing his lips to hers and her body stiffened for an imperceptible moment before she melted beneath him. He slowly moved his body over hers. Her arms came up and her fingers splayed over his shoulder blades. She pulled him closer, breathed his name into his mouth and masculine pride rose like a lion’s roar inside his body.
His tongue found hers. They fought, they claimed and Jay’s heart burst wide open. There was no going back. Pulling away, he rolled over, taking her with him. She stared down at him, her gaze darting over his face, their vivid green beauty shining with love and laughter.
“Say it,” he demanded. “Tell me how you’re feeling right now.”
The skin at her neck shifted, her cheeks flushed and her wanting gleamed undisguised in her unwavering gaze. “I love you, Jay Garrett. I love you so damn much.”
A lone tear escaped over her lower lid and he thumbed it away. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Her gaze changed to something infinitely more dangerous, more demanding, and the air around them charged with electricity. She shimmied back and sat up in his lap, her breasts showing high and pert beneath her nightdress, her nipples spearing the satin. Jay’s heart beat wildly, his penis waking beneath her.
She shrugged the matching robe from her shoulders before clasping the hem of the nightdress and pulling it over her head, revealing her perfectly round, deliciously full breasts. Her skin was pure cream, the nipples soft brown and budded with arousal. The pain of wanting her shot straight to his erection, filling every muscle in his body with red-hot fire.
“I swear to God cops never looked like you when I was growing up.”
She grinned, her eyes impishly delighted, full of laughter and blatant desire. God, he loved her more than life...loved her more than he should. She scored her index finger along his jaw, down the side of his throat and under the neck of his T-shirt, making every hair on his body rise. Cat was in control and she damn well knew it. Jay was hers for the taking, whether he liked it or not and he did—a lot.
Leaning forward, she kissed him. Jay tried to ignore the sensation of her breasts against his chest, tried to focus his mind wholly on the then and there. They parted and she gently touched his lips. Jay caught her fingers in his hand. Their gazes locked.
He kissed her fingers one after the other and the soft scent of her perfume seeped into his nostrils. Jay committed the smell to memory along with the way she looked at him as though he was the most amazing man in the world. He couldn’t hold her as his prisoner. He had to let her go if that’s what she wanted but, God, how he wanted her with him forever. Wanted her to be his wife, bear his children.
Cat pulled her hand from his and dropped her gaze to his chest. Torturously, slowly, she ran her fingers down his torso toward the waistband of his jeans. Her forehead was slightly creased in concentration, her body trembling like a flower in the softest breeze. She sharply pulled his shirt from his trousers and ran it up over his body. He lifted his head and she pulled the shirt effortlessly off and tossed it behind her.
Jay’s breath caught; his desire flared as if her touch were paraffin thrown on a fire. Her gaze traveled with her hands over his chest hair, over his sensitized nipples, driving him to insanity and back. She slipped off him and her hands moved to his jeans, her red hair falling like a velvet curtain across his stomach. She unbuckled his belt and lowered the zipper. He couldn’t see her face but felt her smile as his erection burst free and no doubt tented his boxers like a damn pylon.
He curled his hands into fists to stop from reaching for her, to stop from dissolving the rare and mind-blowing moment of her guard being down, of it just being them. Alone. Together. The outside noise and all their problems forgotten. Leaving his jeans, she shimmied lower and his shoes hit the carpet, the two soft thuds followed by his socks. She tossed him a smile, his breathing the only sound in the silent room. Shifting and lifting his pelvis to aid her seduction, the jeans were soon disc
arded, his boxers following straight behind them.
“My turn.”
Her smile dissolved. “Who said this was a game of equal participation?”
Grinning, Jay growled and sat up straight. She fell backward, giggling, onto the bed, her hair cascading out around her like a sheet of fire. Jay’s heart beat fast as animal lust pumped through his veins.
“Turn over,” he demanded.
Her eyes widened and then darkened. “What?”
“You heard me. I’m taking these panties off right now.”
Smiling, Cat slowly, erotically, turned over and Jay’s arousal increased as he slid his hands over the silk of her underwear. They were cut high on her buttocks and he moved his hands over the softness and gently squeezed. She groaned into the duvet and Jay smiled. Payback.
She lifted her pelvis and Jay dragged her panties down over her hips, her legs and feet. He tossed them to the side. She moved to turn and he placed his hand firmly on the base of her spine.
“Did I say you could move?”
“You’re a bad, bad boy, Jay Garrett.”
Jay smoothed his hands in soft circles over her flawless back, reveled in the feel of her ribs beneath his fingers, the way her body dipped and curved from waist to hip. His breath shuddered. Cat Forrester was all woman. Sexy, successful, her body lean and strong, the internal power she so often forgot she possessed radiated from her every pore, turning heads wherever she walked.
He would make her his if it was the last thing he did. Images of Sarah threatened at the periphery of his mind and he closed his eyes, pushing them away. Before the drugs, he’d promised Sarah he’d go to Reading and get Cat. Beg her to stay. Now Sarah was dead and there was no way he wasn’t delivering on that promise. No way in hell.
Jay dug his thumbs harder into her flesh, massaging them up and over her shoulders. She sighed as he kneaded the strain from her, banishing the pressure of everything she kept from him, both here and at home.
“Jay, you’re killing me.” The smile in her voice belied her words.
Sarah left his mind as he focused on the most beautiful woman in the world. “Do you want me?”
“I want you.”
He stared at the back of her head. “Really want me?”
She stiffened beneath his fingers and he silently berated himself for pressuring her. He wanted to hear it before he took her, wanted to know she couldn’t deny the power between them any more than he could. After a long moment, her body collapsed into the bed and she slowly rolled over.
Her steady green gaze, slightly glistening with unshed tears, bore into his. “I really want you.”
His mouth came down hard on hers. She didn’t need to say any more. She wanted him and he’d find a way for them to be together. He would coax her fears out of her and help her fight them. Going back to the crack house had further fueled an unending desire to right so many wrongs. He wouldn’t forget the people they had left there and he wouldn’t lose the woman he loved.
One of her hands gripped his biceps, the other his shoulder. As his mouth and tongue battled with hers, Jay reached lower and found her hardened nub.
He touched her and Cat clung harder. He smoothed his fingers over and over her most intimate place and she trembled beneath him. He slipped lower into her wetness, hovered and then thrust two fingers deep inside.
“Oh, God.”
Her mouth lifted from his and her eyelids fluttered closed as he stimulated and loved her. Jay’s erection ached with want. When he sensed her need for him, felt her throb around his fingers, Jay moved away from her and reached over for a condom from his side dresser. He sheathed himself and moved back to her. Silently, he hovered above her, his body poised for the possession he desperately wanted.
Once her eyes locked on his, shining bright with unadulterated trust and love, he thrust deep inside her. She cried out and Jay’s heart left his body and merged with hers.
Slowly, he drove his shaft deep into her warmth. Her eyes misted with longing, her lips parting as she called his name on a soft exhalation. Together they rode and took, loved and promised. When she called out his name and her body shuddered and tightened around him, Jay closed his eyes and savored the strength of his orgasm as it ripped through his body. They were joined and nothing would ever separate them again.
* * *
THE RINGING OF HER CELL phone shook Cat from her peaceful slumber. “Damn it.” She sat bolt upright. What time was it? The sun shone bright and warm through the windows bathing Jay’s naked body in golden light. Cat’s mind wandered...the phone. Focus.
She slipped from the bed, just managing to evade Jay’s hand as it whipped out to grab her. She laughed. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I am.”
Cat shook her head, his eyes were still closed. She walked to the dresser where her phone lay on its surface. She hummed happily to herself, her entire body alert and warm from Jay’s incredible lovemaking. She glanced at the display and her smile dissolved. The digital name told her in no uncertain terms that nothing was as it should be at home. She pressed talk and looked at Jay as he flipped over and shimmied up the cushions, watching her. Her gaze locked on his.
“Mum?”
“I’ve done it, Cat. It’s all over, my love. You’re free.”
Nausea rose bitter in Cat’s throat. Her mum’s voice was barely above a whisper, her words slurred and incoherent to anyone else but Cat who knew her so well. “Done what, Mum? Where’s Chris?”
“Gone. They’ve all gone. And now I’ll finally get to see your dad.”
The line went dead and Cat dropped the phone to the floor. “Oh, my God, she’s taken something. She’s trying to kill herself.”
Jay scrambled from the bed and rushed toward her. The entire room spun making her nauseated. His arms came around her but Cat stiffened. She couldn’t allow herself to weaken, to give up, to sink to the floor and cry. She shook him off.
“No, no. I’ve got to go. Now. Where’s my bag?”
“Cat, wait. You’re shaking. You can’t go like this.”
“Yes, I can. Just you watch me. Where’s my bag?”
She gripped the dresser as she leaned down to retrieve her phone and the carpet rose up to meet her. She teetered backward and Jay’s arm came around her once more. “Give me the phone. I’ll call Chris.”
Cat wavered, suddenly wanting his help more than anything in the world...but then she slammed down her emotions, thoughts and feelings. Her mum tried to kill herself. Tried to end her life because Cat wasn’t there. The only person she trusted, her only constant. Holding her hand to her mouth, she shoved the phone into Jay’s hand.
“Call him. Do what you want. I have to pack a bag.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
JAY WHIPPED HIS CAR keys from the plate by the door and followed Cat outside. She stood beside the car, one hand on her hip, the other across her mouth. The heartbreak and fear for Julia shone like a beacon in her dark green gaze. The color that had left her face when she picked up the phone had yet to return.
He swallowed back his anger and shame. He had undoubtedly put his mother, his father and Sarah through exactly the same thing. Whatever happened, Jay was getting on that train with her, whether she liked it or not.
Jay pointed the keys at the car, the locks shunted open and Cat got in, apparently mindless of her single suitcase sitting beside the car. Jay lifted it into the backseat before rushing around to the driver’s side. He slid in
to his seat and shoved the key into the ignition. They roared away from the cabin, gravel flying up by the side of the car. He headed down the descending road of Clover Point toward the town center as fast as he could drive without tipping them over the edge into the sea.
“Come on. Come on. For Christ’s sake, Chris, where are you?”
Jay turned as Cat shook her phone in the air. “He’s still not answering?”
“No. I can’t believe how far away I am from her.”
“I called the ambulance, Cat. She’s on the way to the hospital. You know she’s stable.” He reached across and squeezed her hand. “It’s going to be all right.”
She snatched her hand from his and glared. “Knowing an ambulance has taken her on her own to the hospital isn’t making me feel any better, Jay. I want to be with her. I want Chris with her.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t know how I’m going to control myself when I see him. How could he do this?”
Jay turned back to the road. “We don’t know what happened yet. You need to take it easy.”
“Take it easy? My God, are you defending him?”
“No, I’m saying we have no idea what tactics Julia used to get rid of him. Come on, Cat, if I wanted a fix, I didn’t give a shit who I lied to or what I said. Chris is new to this. So is his fiancée. Your mother could easily have set this up.”
Jay clenched the steering wheel tighter in an effort to stop from touching her. He’d never seen her so scared or angry—the way she yelled at him to stay away from her when they were at the cabin reverberated in his ears and sliced at his heart. She was terrified. That was what caused the ice-cold anger in her stormy green eyes. She was beyond livid with Chris leaving their mum alone to try to take her life. That was what was behind the venom in her tone. It couldn’t be about him. It couldn’t be about him annoying the hell out of her on top of everything else she was going through.
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