From The Ashes (Golden Falls Fire Book 3)

by Scarlett Andrews

  All of a sudden, Elizabeth felt uncertain about what to do next. Jack’s bedroom was the last place she’d ever expected to be again.

  Is this a mistake?

  Elizabeth went to the window, and as she looked down at the guest cabin where she’d been staying, she thought back to when she’d made herself visible at the window to Jack. That had been trying to play out a fantasy. So, too, had been the sex they’d had later that night. It had been powerful and right, and yet blind to the true situation.

  Not this time. Her eyes were open to what Jack was—and wasn’t.

  If she committed her body to him now, it would be a choice to allow him in her life despite the past. It was her choice.

  To undress and bare herself, maybe to be hurt again someday, but to forgive him.

  Or, to keep her clothes on and her walls up.

  Elizabeth lifted her gaze across the sparkling snow field to the black line of trees, and up again to the northern lights arcing above it all. She clutched the collar of her sweater. There was still time to go back. Still time to protect herself.

  Motion caught her eye closer to the house. Jack’s strong figure strode across the snowy path, carrying the firewood he’d dropped to help her. It was too dark to see anything of his face, but Elizabeth could somehow tell from the set of his shoulders and head that he was smiling.

  The surge of affection that rose from her core was enough to make her decision.

  Elizabeth closed the curtains and pulled off her sweater. Unbuttoned her flannel shirt. Wiggled out of her jeans and long underwear. The chill from the air contrasted with how warm she felt between her inner thighs, her body already anticipating Jack’s touch. At last, she unfastened her bra and took off her panties, setting them on a chair.

  She heard the mudroom door open and close, and heard the pitter-patter of Rugby’s feet. Jack said something gentle to the dog.

  Come upstairs, she willed him. Not least because she was starting to get cold.

  After a few minutes, Elizabeth grabbed the cream-colored lambswool blanket folded at the end of his bed and wrapped it around herself.

  “Hi, beautiful,” Jack said from the doorway.

  She turned, clutching the fabric of the blanket with both hands and keeping it closed around her. She could feel her nipples were erect, yearning to be fondled by Jack’s hands, and her whole body felt primed for what was to come, but despite that she felt awkward and at odds with herself. There was so much still unspoken between them.

  “Let me guess.” Jack glanced at her clothing on the chair. “You’re naked underneath there?”

  She smiled, her heart lightened by his presence. “That’s a good guess.”

  He stepped into the room, his lustful eyes on her. “Well, take it off.”

  Elizabeth let the blanket fall to the ground. Her nipples arched toward Jack and her insides quivered, knowing what was soon going to happen between them and how good it would feel. She closed her eyes and felt Jack’s physical presence in the room. She heard the quickening of his breath, the murmur of fabric as he began to undress. She imagined his chiseled body, his thick cock standing tall and ready for her.

  Against the powerful tide of her desire for Jack’s body, all else that had happened seemed to vanish. It wasn’t solved, not totally, not yet. But for a little while, Elizabeth could let it all go. She could even unleash her anger with Jack, right here and now. She could take her pleasure from him, fuck him hard, slam herself against him.

  And it would be all right.

  Jack stepped toward Elizabeth. She’d closed her eyes and this gave him the opportunity to feast his gaze on her naked body, standing so beautiful and so vulnerable before him. Every cell of his body ached to be against her, holding her, inside of her.

  He moved past her so that her back was to him. His erect cock pressed against her backside, and he brought his hands around and touched his palms lightly against her stomach. Elizabeth leaned into him, and the exposure of her neck made Jack unable to resist lowering his head and kissing her there, his lips lingering against her soft skin.

  She put her hands over his, holding them tight against her stomach.

  “Are my hands cold?” he murmured.

  “Yes,” she said. “Is my body hot?”

  “Your body’s hot. So hot I can’t think straight.” He dipped his tongue in her ear and let the fingers of one hand slide lower down her abdomen. He wanted to feel just how hot and wet she was. “Open your legs for me. Ah. That’s it.”

  As one finger and then two delved into her and he felt how slick and ready she was, Jack’s cock throbbed. He pressed into the space between her legs and moved his other hand upward to cover one of her breasts. His hand easily encompassed the whole thing, and as he circled her nipple with his thumb, she leaned back further and her teeth grazed the line of his jawbone.

  Jack was shocked to discover that he wanted her to bite him, and then she did, a gentle but firm bite followed by the sizzling trail of her tongue. His cock sprang fuller against her.

  Moving from his jawline to his lips, drawing him into a kiss, she spread her legs further apart. Jack nudged the tip of his cock inside her and extended his tongue into her mouth. As their tongues tangled, he teased her clit with gentle presses, wanting nothing more than for her to let go and ride the pleasure he wanted to give her.

  “Don’t, Jack,” Elizabeth whispered.

  “Why not?” he murmured back. “I love to make you come.”

  Jack’s touch was masterful, making her whimper one moment and moan the next. But this was too tender for her to bear. His loving touch had brought her emotions to a boiling point.

  She wanted raw physicality from Jack, wanted him to fuck her from behind so hard and deep that his balls would slap against her. She didn’t want tenderness, didn’t want him knowing so perfectly how her body worked and best responded to him. She needed to lose herself, erase the past and feel only pure, animalistic sensation.

  Elizabeth extricated herself from Jack’s delicious fondling and stepped to the bed. She bent forward and thrust her ass into the air, keeping her stance wide so he could enter her from behind.

  She looked back and met his gaze. His eyes were so dark with arousal that they were almost black.

  “Jack,” she said, in a voice so low and commanding that she almost didn’t recognize it as her own, “I want you inside me. Deep. Now.”

  He put his hands on her hips. Again, the tip of his cock pushed inside her, but he didn’t thrust forward.

  Elizabeth pressed backward to meet him instead and rode his thickness deeper, and then Jack groaned. He slammed into her then, just the way she wanted it.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes. Like that.”

  Jack took her urging and his thrusts became hard, brutal, fast. It didn’t take long before Elizabeth felt an orgasm thundering towards her, rolling her body into a glorious oblivion, and as if from a distance she heard herself cry out in rage and pleasure and completion.

  35

  Jack felt Elizabeth pulse around his cock, heard her cry out, and he held her hips hard against him as she bucked and shuddered. Her white-knuckled hands gripped the comforter on his bed, and her head was thrown back in release, spilling her soft blonde hair across her thin shoulders.

  He wasn’t done with her yet, though. He caressed her soft, round ass cheeks and leaned over her, placing a kiss between her shoulder blades.

  “Turn over,” he murmured. “I want to see your beautiful face now.”

  For a moment she hesitated. But he pulled out of her, moved her gently by the hips, and she turned so that she was lying back on the bed.

  Jack was startled to see tears in her eyes. “Elizabeth!” He crawled onto the bed with her and wrapped his arms around her slight body. He ached to continue fucking her, but he set that aside for the moment. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” Tell me I didn’t hurt you again.

  She shook her head. “I wanted to stay angry at you.”

 
He gazed down at the delicate features of the face he’d come to adore. “Let me in, Elizabeth. Let me show you how much I love you.”

  She raised her hand and touched his face. For a long moment she looked into his eyes, as if searching for something or trying to decide something. Then she wrapped her leg over his hip and drew him closer.

  Jack slid inside her again. They didn’t break eye contact as they moved together, as her hips bucked upward, as her legs wrapped around him to force him deep. She offered her palms to him, and he intertwined his fingers with hers. She clenched his fingers hard as she pulled him inside her, her movements slow and sweet.

  When Jack had entered her from behind, it had been raw and fast and hard. It was different now, deep and slow and close, as if something in Elizabeth had given way and she was, for the first time, fully open to him.

  Nothing in his life had ever felt so right.

  They moved together in a beautiful push-pull that brought Jack ever closer to orgasm. Each movement was a shock of pleasure that built up at the base of his cock, each graze of her nipples against his chest as she rose to meet him, each slide into her tight, hot wetness.

  Elizabeth’s breath grew erratic, and she moaned with increasing intensity, watching him through half-closed eyes.

  “Tell me when you want me to come,” Jack said.

  This made her gasp again, and then she moved her hips so he could thrust to the hilt. “Now,” she said. “Now, Jack, please.”

  He gave it to her hard and watched her as she came again, her hands clutching his as she writhed beneath him in her beautiful, shuddering orgasm.

  Her pleasure sent him over the edge, and he closed his eyes and exploded into ecstasy, into Elizabeth.

  As Elizabeth lay on the bed next to Jack, flushed and spent, she felt like her entire soul had been wiped clean of the past. In the floaty post-sex haze she could acknowledge that she’d been angry with Jack, but she also knew that anger was gone. She’d forgiven his nineteen-year-old self, and now her future was with the man he’d become.

  This wasn’t a giddy, lust-fueled realization. It was a serious, weighty, wonderful one.

  She turned her head to look at him. He was already watching her, his dark eyes questioning.

  It had been easy to be open with him in bed. Now, she thought, came the difficult part. This would be the first time they talked with total honesty, starting over again now that the truth of the past was out in the open. Elizabeth knew it was a conversation that needed to happen, but she didn’t know how to start.

  “Are you cold? Let’s get under the covers,” Jack said.

  “I have a better idea,” she said. “Do you have tea?”

  “I do.” He propped up his head and looked down at her. With his other hand he caressed the curve of her hip. “And I just realized it’s probably not even six o’clock. I hope the fact that you’re naked on my bed means you’re willing to stay for dinner.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “When you put it that way, yes, I’m willing to stay for dinner.”

  They stood up and got dressed. While she buttoned her flannel shirt, she asked Jack if Rugby had been sleeping upstairs.

  “No, he doesn’t seem to have the hang of it with the staircase yet,” Jack said.

  “Ah, yeah, he’s never been in a house with stairs before.”

  Jack took her hand as they walked downstairs. He led her to the sofa in front of the fireplace, at which point Rugby jumped up next to her. The little dog might not have understood stairs quite yet, but he’d long ago mastered jumping on furniture to be with his humans.

  “What kind of tea?” Jack asked her.

  “Something herbal, if you have it,” she said.

  He put another log on the fire and went to the kitchen to heat up the water. Elizabeth petted Rugby and watched the flames, gathering her thoughts. Her body was still suffused with the relaxing afterglow of sex, and the hypnotic warmth of the fire only added to it.

  “Thank you,” she said to Jack when he brought their mugs of tea. It was an herbal hibiscus and she took a moment to inhale the fragrant steam rising from the red tea. She shifted so that Rugby wouldn’t cause her to spill, and so that Jack could sit next to her, which he did.

  Jack spoke first. “Do we have a future?”

  Elizabeth blinked. She hadn’t expected such a direct question, but she also appreciated it. Despite the secret he’d kept from her, it firmed up her view of him as an honest person, with an honest heart. She answered carefully.

  “I’m still working through everything. But I do forgive you, Jack. Or I’m in the process of forgiving you.”

  He exhaled as if a weight had been lifted off of him.

  “You seem … unburdened,” she said.

  “I am. I’m glad you know the truth. Although if I were you, I’d still want to kill me.”

  “I guess forgiveness comes easier for me.”

  “That’s for sure.” His brown eyes darkened. “It’s taken my entire adult life to figure out that I can utterly reject the choices my dad made but still accept him for who he is. You seem to have accepted your dad no matter what he might have done—or not done.”

  “My dad is flawed in many ways, and I spent plenty of years ashamed of him, but when I look back, I don’t see that he ever did anything less than his best for Emmett and me. He tried to be the best father he knew how to be.” She felt her heart open up—for both Nate and Jack. “It’s the same with you. You were trying to do what was best for your family, and you never meant to hurt me. Both those things are true.”

  “You know I held back,” he said. “I couldn’t help what I felt around you, but I could help how I acted, and I did. That’s why I pulled away at the beginning. I’m telling you, Elizabeth, you can drive a guy crazy with how sexy and irresistible you are. I did my honest best at keeping my distance, but something comes over me every time I’m with you––and when I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you.”

  Elizabeth reached for his hand and squeezed it, feeling tears well up. “I feel that, too, Jack. I really do.”

  “I think maybe it’s destiny.”

  Wow, she thought, her mouth dropping open. Did he really just say that?

  “I think so, too!” she said. “I’ve thought it since the moment we waved to each other out there on the path, and I fell down. It felt—as weird as it sounds—that it was your love that knocked me down.”

  “You were weird that day,” he said with a laugh. “Talking all kinds of nonsense.”

  “But it wasn’t nonsense,” she said. “It was destiny, and I knew it even at the time.”

  “I believe you,” he said. “I feel like we’re at the start of a journey that’s supposed to be beautiful. And I know there’s nothing beautiful about what we’re going through right now, but I still see that path with you—with my arms around you, holding you close. Lifting you up, supporting you. Loving you, always. I think if we can get through something like this, then nothing can ever stop us.”

  “We’ll get through it,” she said.

  “So what do you need?” he asked. “What do you need to move forward?”

  “That’s a good question.” She looked out the large floor-to-ceiling window at the swirling glow of the night sky. “I feel like I need a do-over on life. You know?”

  Jack nodded that he understood.

  “I mean, I used to be a rough-and-tumble little kid,” she said. “I watch the little girls on my hockey team, and I’m just in awe that I ever used to be like them. They’re ferocious little beasts! And I used to be, too! And yet now I feel …” She looked back at him, floundering for words. “I feel like I’ve been stuck in the penalty box my whole life—since my dad was arrested, anyway. That’s how everyone has treated me. Like I’ve done something wrong and need to sit on the sidelines while everyone else gets to play the game.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “How have you felt all these years?”

  “A lot the same way, actually,” he
said. “Only I’ve put myself in the penalty box, and I’m not willing to be stuck in there anymore.”

  “Neither am I.” She lifted her mug of tea for a toast. “To stepping out of the penalty box.”

  “To stepping out of the penalty box,” Jack said.

  They clinked their mugs.

  “And here’s to having our own little hockey monsters one day,” Jack said, raising his mug again hopefully.

  Elizabeth’s eyes lit up. “You want kids?”

  “Absolutely.” He swept his free arm across the length of his spacious house. “That’s why I built such a big home––so I could fill it with little ones, if I ever crossed paths with a woman I couldn’t walk away from.”

  Be still, my heart. “And have you?”

  “You already know the answer to that, Elizabeth Armstrong,” Jack said. “Literally, all I tried to do was walk away from you, but you never let me. You kept showing up and you kept showing up.”

  “I am persistent.”

  “Thank you for that,” Jack said. “Thank you for showing up––and I promise that from this point forward I’m going to show up for you every day for the rest of our lives. I will never try to walk away again.”

  You’d better not, she thought, but she knew he wouldn’t. Jack was a smart man, and he knew better than to fight destiny.

  “Well, then.” Elizabeth clinked his still-outstretched mug again. “Here’s to lots of little hockey monsters running around––and here’s to us.”

  “And here’s to us,” he agreed.

  They sipped their tea and talked for hours about things they’d never talked about before. Elizabeth stayed for dinner, and there was no question as to whether she’d spend the night.

  She was home now.

  Home with Jack.

  And once they were back in bed, when his hands went under the blanket and set her body on fire, Elizabeth knew it would be that way forever.

  Epilogue