He caught me watching him and forced a sad smile. “Sorry, my mind drifted. My parents died in a boating accident when I was seventeen.”
“Oh God. Jackson, I’m so sorry.” My stomach halted its lurch and just plain plummeted as my hand covered his. “I didn’t mean…” I didn’t even have words to cover my utter insensitivity. Seventeen. He’d been so young.
“Don’t be. You didn’t know.” He looked back over the water as his fingers splayed on the railing. Mine fell into the gaps, and he tightened slightly, leaving our fingers laced. “Dad knew the waters really damn well, but the weather came in faster than forecasted and…” He exhaled slowly. “I lost them both off the coast of Maine. The thing about the ocean is she can lull you into thinking you’re her equal. You understand her tides, her waves, her currents, and you begin to feel like you’re partners, as though the love you feel for her is somehow returned.”
“Love, huh?” I questioned softly, wondering if that’s what had driven him to study oceanography. Where I had avoided everything that reminded me of my loss, he’d embraced and examined the very thing that killed his parents. Had that exorcised the demons of his grief? Or was I the only one who had those?
“Love,” he confirmed. “Being out there on the water is as life-affirming to some people as sex is to others. The ocean is in their soul. And you’re right, maybe it’s a little bit of insanity that brings people out on those waters in particular.” He nodded toward the divergence of the two currents in front of us. “But from what I’ve seen, the only emotions that overpower our own sense of self-preservation are obsession and love, and the ocean is both for a lot of people. They fuck up when they forget that she’s too deep, too stubborn, and too powerful to love you back. There’s never a partnership because she’s always in control.”
“I’m so sorry you lost them.” It was all I could think to say. It was the only thing I’d ever wanted to hear, so maybe it was the same for him.
His fingers tightened around mine in a reassuring squeeze. “Thanks. They would have really liked you, and they would have been utterly wrapped around Finley’s finger.”
I made a mental note to call Mama tomorrow and absorbed his words quietly as a comfortable silence fell over us. The ocean looked exactly as he described. Inky black under the night sky, breathtakingly beautiful, and wickedly powerful. His thumb moved, stroking the edge of my pinky in an absentminded pattern. It was soothing—comforting, even—and I had no desire to pull away or put distance between us.
Holy shit, I liked the way he touched me. I liked way more than that about him, if I was being honest with myself. Sure, I liked the way he looked, but there wasn’t much to not like. His profile was strong, his chin carved and nose straight—with a slight bump that made me wonder if he’d broken it once—and his lips somehow managed to look hard and deliciously soft at the same time. I’d seen enough of his body to know what was under that shirt, and the simple memory of him jogging toward me on the beach sent a flash of heat through my veins strong enough to kick up my pulse. He turned his head, looking down the beach, and I mentally sent up a prayer of thanks that he hadn’t caught me staring at him or turned those eyes on me.
I swung my face the opposite direction and found a thick strip of scarred land that ran between the lighthouse and our own homes. “What’s that from?” I pointed with my free hand so I wouldn’t have to let go of his.
He followed my gaze, still stroking that swirling pattern on my skin. “That’s the path from when they moved the lighthouse.”
“They what? No way. This lighthouse?” My jaw dropped. This thing was huge, and they moved it?
“This lighthouse,” he confirmed, a corner of his mouth lifting in clear amusement at my disbelief. “A little over twenty years ago, they moved it from there”—he gestured a little north, where the path ended at the beach—“to here. It was the only thing they could do to save it.”
“Save it? From what? Men who mislead unsuspecting women expecting a little sightseeing and get a StairMaster instead?” I raised my eyebrows, and he laughed. Flirting. Oh my stars, I was flirting, and it felt…great. My heart stuttered a beat in the best possible way, and I outright smiled, reveling in both the emotion and my ability to feel it.
Jackson’s eyes flared, darting between my lips and my eyes, before he shook his head slightly and blinked. “The ocean,” he replied in a voice that sounded like it had been scraped over sandpaper. “They had to save it from the ocean.”
“Because the shoreline changes so much.”
“Exactly.”
Those eyes. Even in the moonlight, when I couldn’t see every shade of blue that made them so irresistible, they turned my knees to Jell-O. Or maybe that was just Jackson in general, if I was still on that honest-with-myself kick.
I looked back to the path. “How far did they move it?”
“Man, I’m glad I studied for this date.” He laughed. “Twenty-nine hundred feet.”
I didn’t cringe at the word “date.” “How on earth do you move something this big?”
“Just like you take on any huge project—one tiny step at a time. It took them twenty-three days and a hell of a lot of engineering.”
“Did they take it apart and rebuild it?” I leaned over a little, taking in the distance to the ground and hoping it was the dizzying height that had my heart strumming faster. God, what was wrong with me? I’d been around Jackson plenty of times and never had such a schoolgirl reaction.
You’ve never been completely alone with him before. There had always been Finley, or Sam, or an entire barbecue’s worth of people around us.
“No, they left it intact.”
“Impossible.”
He laughed. “Why?”
“Look at this thing! It’s huge!” I gawked up at him.
“Don’t forget old. Almost a hundred and fifty years,” he added, turning his body toward mine. “Told you I studied.” Like we were a pair of magnets, I moved to face him, our hands falling from the railing but staying twined. With his free hand, he stroked the back of his fingers down my cheek slowly. “But she’s also too important, too unique, and too beautiful to stand by and do nothing while she drowns. While she might look delicate, she’s actually incredibly strong and capable of taking a storm or two.”
I stilled, knowing that he’d stopped talking about the lighthouse.
“Jackson,” I begged, but I wasn’t sure what for.
“Morgan.” His fingers slid to the back of my neck while his thumb repeated the stroke across my cheek.
God, that felt good. A rush of longing filled my entire body, stirring parts of me I was sure had long since died—the parts that remembered need, want, and desire. The parts that remembered how it felt to be the object of someone else’s desire, too. And those neglected pieces of me hungered as they roused, demanding to be acknowledged and appeased.
I fought to find a shred of my common sense amid the onslaught of pure, selfish craving that had me staring at his mouth.
“You don’t want this,” I told him softly, my Jackson-less hand clutching the railing as if it would keep me grounded.
“I don’t want what?” he questioned, lowering his head until our foreheads touched. “Because you can’t tell me that I don’t want you.”
Oh God. Joy, disbelief, yearning—emotions flew at me so fast I could barely process them, but one stood out the loudest. Fear. Was it fear for him or fear of him? Yes.
“You don’t. You can’t. I am a mess, and not just a little mess. I’m the kind that has a pile of wreckage for a heart, anxiety attacks I can’t control, and a therapist I see every week in the hopes that I can eventually talk to my best friend again or just open the door of a truck I never wanted.” My eyes squeezed shut. “Trust me, you don’t want this. You don’t want me.”
“Morgan—”
“No.” I retreated from his arm
s, and my skin ached at the loss of contact. Was I so desperate for human touch? Just Jackson’s. “I’m not being coy or playing games, which is ironic since I used to be really good at all that. I’m genuinely telling you to run for your life.”
“From you?” The skin between his eyebrows wrinkled, and I was struck with a ridiculous urge to smooth it with my fingers.
“Yes!”
His jaw ticked, and his eyes turned fierce, pinning me to the lighthouse deck with the force of his stare. “Morgan, you don’t get to tell me what I want any more than I get to dictate your feelings.”
I blinked, admitting the undeniable logic of his statement. “That’s fair.”
“If you don’t want to start something with me, then that’s your choice, and I’ll respect it, no matter how badly I want to convince you otherwise.”
“Thank you.” Crap, was that a twinge of disappointment that lowered my shoulders?
His head tilted back as his chest rose and fell with a deep breath, as if he was the one struggling for control—not me. When he met my gaze again, I held my breath.
What the hell did I really want? To press pause on this moment, call Sam and get her take on it, and then press play again so I know what I’m supposed to be feeling. Like that was going to happen.
“I know about the anxiety attacks. Remember, I was there for one,” he stated simply, like we were talking about what we’d had for lunch. “I’m glad you have a therapist because I’m well aware that you’re working through something that you’re not ready to let me in on, and that’s okay. You don’t exactly know everything about me, either, and chances are the more you know, the more you’ll think you’re the one who should run.” He didn’t move a muscle, but the way he looked at me felt like a caress all the same. “In fact, I know you’ll be the one running.”
“From you?” I scoffed. “You’re the most together person I know.” Even if he was still pining for his ex, but who was I to judge?
“Then you should meet more people.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Morgan, I like you, and I don’t just mean as my neighbor. I want you in a way that keeps me up at night, mentally calculating the steps between my door and yours. I want you so badly that I barely stop myself from taking those steps every single night. I have no problem owning my feelings about you. And while I’m not going to push you for something when you obviously don’t feel the same—”
My jaw dropped. “I never said I don’t want you—”
“I damn well think you deserve to know that you might preach you’re a mess, but I think you’re pretty fucking perfect, wreckage and all.”
Every protest died on my tongue at the tangible sincerity in his voice.
“Are you struggling?” he started again. “Yeah. That’s obvious. But, God, you’re a fighter, even if you don’t see it. You had the courage to pick up your whole life and move because you knew you needed a fresh start. You might not be able to open that truck door, but you didn’t just dump it in some storage lot and run. That shit is in your front yard where you choose to confront it every day. You push your boundaries, whether it’s on a surfboard or letting me drag you to a barbecue. You have loyal friends, which means you’re pretty damn loyal yourself, and when death came flying at you in the form of the weathervane that time forgot, your first instinct was to protect my daughter, which is enough to make me fall at your feet without the fact that you’re the most exquisite woman I’ve ever laid eyes on—which you are.” He lifted that eyebrow in challenge again.
My lips parted, and the butterflies in my stomach fluttered so fast the friction warmed me from the inside out, even as they threatened to turn to flame and catch my body on fire. He actually wanted me. He saw the mess and wanted me anyway, somehow finding beauty in everything I called wreckage. Damn it, I didn’t want it to be wreckage anymore. I wanted to be whole again. I wanted to have something to offer this man who took me hiking in the moonlight and pulled me away from my own shadows with his light.
My breath abandoned me as the realization hit—he made me want to live, not just survive and hope for the best. He’d reignited that spark within me from the moment I’d felt that flare of attraction on the beach and the care he’d taken when rescuing me from my own staircase. That spark grew every time he made me laugh, or smile, or roll my eyes. It thrived when I made plans with him, finally willing to look forward in my life. I might have been doing the work in therapy, but there was no denying that Sam was right—Jackson had become my reward for learning to live again.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He raked his hand over his hair. “You’re gorgeous, and that’s not even close to being the best part about you. Every time you let me in to that head of yours, I feel like the luckiest asshole on the planet, and there’s nothing I’ve found that would make me want you any less. God, everything about you pulls me in closer without even trying. Like I said—I can own that. And sure, the way I feel about you scares the shit out of me, but that’s what tells me it’s real. So yeah, I’ll respect your lack of feelings because I feel way too much, but please don’t tell me that I can’t want you, because I do. And I’m sure of this enough to wait until you’re in a place to see just how amazing you—”
I stopped his words with my lips.
Chapter Eleven
Jackson
One second I was laying into the woman about how incredible she was, and the next, she was pressed against me with her mouth on mine.
I lost a heartbeat or two in shock, but I got with the program in the next breath, wrapping an arm around her waist and cradling the nape of her neck with the other.
“Morgan?” I whispered against her lips in question.
“Kiss me, Jackson,” she demanded, looping her arms around my neck.
The words struck me like a match to a pile of kindling—the flame instant and consuming. I locked down the need pounding through my veins and kissed her gently, savoring her quick intake of breath and the way she rose against me for more. I was not going to fuck this up by moving too fast. I’d keep up these light, sipping kisses all night if that kept her in my arms. Sound plan. Take it slow.
She swept her tongue over my lower lip, then gently tugged it between her teeth.
Fuck the plan.
I kissed her deep, sinking my tongue between her parted lips with a groan I couldn’t contain. She tasted sweeter than I could have imagined, citrus with a hint of vanilla on her lips. Her arms tightened around me, and I tilted her head slightly so I could sink into her mouth over and over, learning every curve and line as her tongue rubbed and swirled around mine. More. I wanted more.
I wanted to kiss her until neither of us could remember any kiss that came before this one. My fingers flexed at her waist, holding her tight as our mouths moved together like we’d been kissing for years, not minutes. She fit perfectly against me, soft and curved everywhere I wasn’t. My hand slid into her hair as the back of her dress whipped at my arm in the wind. Do not think about what’s under it.
She gasped as another gust lifted the fabric, but she dove back into the kiss, her tongue darting into my mouth with little flicks that drove my need for her higher and wound me tighter. I lowered my arm over the curve of her ass and lifted, keeping my fingers splayed on her hip as I pivoted and took three steps, putting her back against the lighthouse so I could use my body to shelter her from the wind.
Her eyes flared at the contact, and I rested my forehead against hers as our breaths became choppy and harsh. Fuck me, how was I ever going to stop kissing her? She was one of those drugs you were never supposed to experiment with—one hit and I was addicted.
“Too much?” I asked, my voice rough as I lowered her feet to the deck.
She shook her head slowly, then ran her tongue over her lower lip. “Not enough.” Her knee rose against the outside of my thigh.
I muttered a curse, then filled my hands with her ass and pi
cked her up the way I’d wanted to since the moment I’d found those curves dangling in my face. Her long legs wrapped around my waist, her ankles locking at the small of my back as I brought my mouth to hers.
She whimpered, one of her hands in my hair and the other holding the nape of my neck like I was a prisoner instead of a more-than-willing participant. The sound didn’t help the current situation in my shorts, and I didn’t honestly care. I kissed her deeper just so I could hear it again.
She ripped her mouth from mine and tilted her head back as she gasped for a breath. I moved to her neck, kissing a path down the slender, soft column and pausing to suck gently at the spots that made her grip tighten.
“Jackson,” she moaned when I reached the sensitive spot beneath her ear.
I rocked against her instinctively, then stilled, letting my breath release slowly as I counted to five. The woman had me dancing on the edge of my self-control. I could have blamed it on my months of celibacy, but it was simply Morgan. Everything about her turned me on, and getting her in my hands and under my mouth robbed me of every logical thought, which wasn’t good for either of us. I had to slow this down before we went too far.
She brushed her lips over my cheek and tightened her thighs at my waist as she made her way back to my mouth.
I groaned in surrender as I kissed her breathless, living for the caress of her tongue against mine. Fuck, I could feel the heat of her skin through the fabric of her dress. If I shifted my grip, I could slide my hand up her bare thigh—
Stop. You can’t take this any further.
I mentally swatted my conscience when she rocked her hips over mine with a little moan. We were going to be so damned good together. I’d give her as many orgasms as her body could take and then start all over again, only stopping when she was just as addicted to me as I already was to her. I’d be whatever she needed—
You’re the opposite of what she needs, and you know it.
I stilled against her mouth.
The Reality of Everything (Flight & Glory) Page 16