Back to the Start (Dangerous Love Book 4)

by Elle Keating

  Her body ached for him and she wanted him to know it, to feel how desperate she was. She took two steps, placed her palms against the cool tiles and bent over. “Please,” she begged as she stared at the shower wall.

  She heard a guttural growl from behind before his hands found her hips. His grip was firm and absolute, and she spread her legs wider. She felt one hand knead her ass while the other gathered up her hair and tugged it gently, forcing her neck to arch. “Please what?” he asked, his tone dark and dripping with the kind of control she once had.

  “Please fuck me,” she said. “Now.”

  His grip tightened around her hair and he drew her head back just enough so he could place a trail of hot kisses along her neck. His leisurely pace was driving her crazy and just as she was about to grind her ass against him to expedite things, he planted one last kiss beneath her earlobe and whispered, “There’s no turning back, Morgan.” He drove into her from behind and she cried out as pleasure ripped through her body. With his hands at her hips his thrusts came in unmerciful waves, hitting her hard and right where she needed it. “Fuck… Morgan!” he yelled.

  The first in a string of orgasms hit her with one of his more powerful poundings and she heard her groans and his name rattle off her tongue, only to echo against the shower walls. She didn’t know how it was possible but his pace increased even more, sending her over the edge multiple times. But it was the sudden sensation of his fingers circling her clit, rubbing that sensitive bundle of nerves over and over as he pumped into her that brought forth an orgasm so powerful that it put the others to shame.

  “You feel so fucking good,” he ground out, almost as if he was in pain. His cock throbbed as he spilled every drop inside her.

  They were both panting and struggling for breath when he pulled out and turned her around. He soaped up his hands and finished washing her, first her chest and then her tender folds. He was gentle as he lathered and rinsed them thoroughly. When she was clean she took the soap from his hands. He trembled beneath her touch as she returned the favor. There was such intimacy to the act, something beautiful. The dark look in his eyes remained but it softened somewhat, and she got a glimpse of the boy who had made love to her all those years ago.

  Morgan was fighting back the tears when he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He came back seconds later with two white towels. “Arms up,” he directed. He started to wrap the towel around her when she noticed his lips turn up to form a smile.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  His smirk remained as he stared at her with one of his paralyzing gazes. God, he was gorgeous!

  “Just recalling the last time I saw you wearing nothing but a bath towel.” He wrapped the towel around her and tucked one of the ends in so it was secure.

  “And you found that funny?” she asked. Morgan knew exactly which incident he was referring to. She had just taken a shower in Carina’s bathroom when Jake had walked in on her. She had expected him to turn around and leave but he didn’t. In fact, he had stood there and stared. The heat in his eyes had floored her. Finally he had seen her. Her. Not some little prepubescent girl or his pseudo little sister. She hadn’t rushed to cover herself because she had enjoyed the reaction she had caused. But it wasn’t like she was being a tease. If he had slammed the bathroom door shut, locking them both in, she would not have resisted him. She would have given herself to him right then and there if only he had asked, which to her disappointment he hadn’t.

  Jake patted himself dry and then wrapped the towel around his waist. “There was nothing funny about that night. If you recall, I left for college within an hour of seeing you naked, not the next morning like I had originally planned.” Morgan had no difficulty remembering that night. It had crushed her that not only had he left, but he had left without saying goodbye.

  Jake took her by the hand and led her into his bedroom. The sudden shift in temperature from the steamy bathroom to his bedroom gave her a chill and she shivered. She hated to be cold. Even now a cold room reminded her of her childhood, of those times when their heat had been shut off because her mom couldn’t pay the bill that month. “I’ll make you a fire,” Jake said. He let go of her hand and walked over to the woodburning fireplace opposite his king-sized bed.

  He was on his knees and placing the logs on top of each other in a strategic pattern when she said, “I would have let you do anything you wanted to me that night.” She didn’t know why she wanted him to know that, but for some reason she felt like she owed it to him. She hadn’t been teasing him that night by giving him a free show.

  Morgan heard the swipe of a match and she watched Jake light the corner of a rolled-up newspaper. He then placed the lit piece under the grate and watched it burn. “I know. And that was why I had to leave. It wouldn’t have been fair to you… to be with you like that just for me to leave and go off to college.” Jake bent down and blew into the fire. A few puffs later and the fire caught.

  Morgan grabbed two blankets from his bed and laid them out on the floor in front of the fire. The crackling flames had successfully cut the chill out of the air and she settled onto the floor beside him. He was still tending to the fire when she said, “You didn’t even say goodbye.”

  Jake stood and walked over to his bureau. He retrieved a pair of lounge pants and a t-shirt from a drawer. He let his towel drop and Morgan didn’t hide her interest. She could stare at him and the part of his body that sent hers into a fucking frenzy all day long if he let her. Jake chuckled when he caught her looking at him. She felt heat rush to her cheeks and she turned away. She heard him cross the room and stop right behind her. “I had never planned on telling you goodbye that night. It would have been too difficult.” Jake dropped the t-shirt into her lap. “You can wear this. I know how much you hate being cold.”

  There were no words to describe how she was feeling. Her past was invading the present and forcing her to recall moments that brought her both joy and inconsolable pain. “Thanks,” she said. That was all she could muster.

  “I’m going to get us something to eat. But when I get back we will talk, Morgan.”

  He wasn’t asking her. He wasn’t seeking her permission. Allison was right. Jake wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man who deserved answers, a man she could very well lose for good if he discovered her secret.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jake

  “Are you willing to share?”

  She peered up at him and smiled. Sitting cross-legged in his oversized t-shirt next to a roaring fire, Morgan looked like a fucking goddess. So much so that he almost dropped the ice cream sundae he was holding. “Yes,” she purred.

  Jake sat down on the floor, handed her a spoon and set the bowl of Bassett’s ice cream down between them. She dug right in and was mid-lick when he said, “We didn’t use protection.” Her eyes darted away from his.

  The conversation needed to take place. He knew even as he slid into her that he should have used a condom, but his need to take her, to feel her with nothing between them, had trumped everything. Including common sense. “I know,” she said. Morgan licked her lips and then went in for another scoop of chocolate ice cream. “If you’re worried about me getting pregnant… well, don’t. I have a… condition that makes it extremely difficult for me to conceive… almost impossible, actually.”

  He hadn’t expected that. And though the news that he most likely had not impregnated her the three times he had taken her should have relieved him, all that registered was the pain in her voice… and regret. She evaded his gaze and continued to put a hefty dent in the sundae that they were supposed to be sharing. “I’m sorry,” he said. He may not have shaken off his anger toward her completely, but he meant what he said. He was truly sorry that she would struggle to have children one day. “How did you learn about your condition?” he asked.

  Morgan laid her spoon in the bowl and stared at him. Her tight smile and the way her back went rigid told him that this conversation was making
her uncomfortable. Still he pressed her. He couldn’t help himself. He needed to know.

  “About two years after I got married we started to try to have a child. But months went by and still nothing. So I went to my doctor, and after a few tests she told me that my best chance of getting pregnant was through in vitro fertilization. Getting pregnant the old-fashioned way was not in the cards for me and Owen.”

  The sound of Owen’s name infuriated him. He had never met the man who had convinced Morgan to marry him, to be his, to wear his ring, but there was not a doubt in his mind that Owen was a fucking prick. Jake took a couple deep breaths. He had brought this on himself. He had asked, so that meant he would have to force himself to listen to Morgan discuss her ex-husband.

  “So you went through with it? In vitro, I mean?”

  The sound of the logs shifting captured Morgan’s attention and she went to her knees and tended to the fire with the poker. With her back to him, she answered his question. “Yes. We went through four rounds of in vitro but it never took. I was frustrated. Owen was frustrated… and angry.” Morgan placed the poker back in its holder and stared at the fire. As much as he hated to hear about those years she had spent with Owen, he wanted to know how she had come to this place in time. “After the last failed attempt, Owen and I had exchanged some hurtful words and it was clear that we needed a break from each other. I packed my overnight bag and went to visit my mom for the weekend. She was happy to see me, of course, but she also saw how unhappy I was. My mom told me not to give up hope. And then I thought about your brothers. How if they hadn’t been adopted by your parents, what kind of lives they would have had. It took all of two seconds for me to consider and then fully fall in love with the idea of adoption. All I had to do was convince Owen that it was the best route to go.”

  “He wasn’t for the idea?”

  Morgan was still lost in the flames, her gaze unwavering. “I never got the chance to ask him. When I arrived home a day before Owen had been expecting me, I found him in our bed with another woman. The receptionist at his vet clinic.”

  Fucking fuck!

  Jake may have been angry with Morgan for hurting him and breaking his heart, but she didn’t deserve what her ex-husband had done to her. She had most likely put her body through hell, injecting herself with hormones on a monthly basis only to discover that her husband at the time was banging someone… in their fucking bed! “What happened next?”

  She chuckled but no smile adorned her face, just hurt and sadness. “He apologized and then quickly tried to justify his actions. He said if I would have just gotten pregnant sooner then he wouldn’t have had the affair, one that had been going on right under my nose for two months.”

  What an asshole.

  “I left him that night. I hired an attorney and had the divorce papers drawn up. Owen didn’t contest. I knew he wouldn’t.”

  “How?”

  “Because he knew there was no chance of me changing my mind. He had cheated, which as you know is a deal breaker for me. I don’t believe in second chances, not when it comes to that.”

  There were so many questions he wanted to ask her. So many fucking whys that needed to be answered. But only one mattered right now. And if he didn’t get the answer to the question he feared to ask, he thought his head was going to explode. “Did you love him?” He barely choked out the words, but he knew she had heard him. Her spine stiffened as she allowed the fire to lure her in and to his delight, coax the truth out of her.

  “Did I experience the kind of love that makes your heart skip, the kind that leaves you breathless, shaken… and ruined?” Morgan shook her head. “No.” Morgan crawled over to him and sat in his lap. They were chest to chest, her bare legs wrapped around his hips. Her eyes were brimming with tears when she said, “There just wasn’t enough room in my heart for another.”

  Her raw admission unleashed the beast within and he decided right then and there that his remaining questions could wait. If it took weeks, months, to learn what had gone wrong, why she had broken up with him, then so be it. She was worth it. There was nothing she could say that would not make him want to be with her.

  Jake took her face in his hands and stared into her blue eyes. She may no longer be eleven with barely-there boobs and smudges of dirt upon her brow, but the soulful way she had gazed at him then, like nothing else in the world mattered to her but him, still persisted. That ironclad wall he had built around his heart, that wall that had gotten stronger with each woman he had taken to bed came tumbling down, leaving him dangerously exposed. “If you want me I’m yours. But you can never leave me again, Morgan. Ever.”

  Her lower lip began to quiver as the floodgates opened and she was crying in his embrace. The first two times and then just a little while ago in the shower, he had taken her hard, allowing his longing and straight-up hunger for her to take over. But this time would be different.

  ***

  Morgan

  The boy who had made love to her under the stars was sitting before her now. She broke down the minute he told her never to leave him again. What would he say if he knew why she had left all those years ago? She didn’t want to go there. He was here now in her arms, and if she understood correctly, willing to move on.

  She felt him shift beneath her and she lifted her hips to allow him to pull off his lounge pants. But when she sat back down, she felt his cock nestled between her slick folds and the need for him to be inside her again became overwhelming. Morgan kept her eyes on his as she raised her hips once more and lowered herself on his erect shaft. He let out a gentle hiss between his teeth as he cupped her ass in his palms. But she wanted to feel all of him, she wanted her heart against his as she rocked into him. She took off her shirt and his eyes darkened. Morgan wove her arms around his neck and pressed her breasts against his muscular torso. She ground into him, impaling herself over and over again on his cock.

  He lifted her chin and kissed her neck, slowly at first and then as he went lower, he grew hungry and took a nipple between his teeth. He nibbled at her, making the taut point glisten in the firelight. She was riding him, feeling the soft, smooth skin of his cock glide in and out of her when he took her breast in his mouth and sucked. The sensation it evoked shot right to her core and she neared the edge. He gripped her shoulders as she swung her head back and chanted his name. It was the only word she could formulate as those waves of pleasure rippled through her. When she came back down to earth, Jake hugged her against his chest and then laid her on her back. He spread her legs wider with his knees and pushed into her. “Tell me you’ll stay this time,” he said, claiming every inch of her with slow, deep strokes. “Tell me you’ll never leave me.”

  She brushed the backs of her fingers against his cheek and watched him unravel before her. He was making love to her, cherishing her, remembering her. God, she loved him. “I won’t leave you,” she whispered, meaning every word.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Morgan

  Morgan hadn’t lied to him. She may not have told Jake all the details, but everything she had confessed, why she had left Owen, how there had never been room in her heart to love her husband completely, had been the absolute truth.

  Morgan shifted to her side and as if on instinct, Jake readjusted and spooned her. The glowing embers of the dying fire were still hot and she cherished the heat they gave off. She didn’t need to peek behind her to know that Jake was asleep. She had slept with him enough to know when he was truly under sleep’s spell and when he was faking it, as he had when she would come to him in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm.

  The first rumblings of a storm could be heard through the open window across the room. Thunderstorms no longer delivered the same impact, yet they still had the ability to wake her and cause a touch of unease in her belly. Morgan brought his hand to her chest and settled into his embrace for the night. She wanted her last thoughts before surrendering to sleep’s pull to be of the hours they had just shared and the promise tha
t tomorrow could bring. But as she fluctuated between sleep and semi-consciousness, all she could think about were the things she had left out of her story, a tale that one day she would have to tell in its entirety…

  The doctor had called her five minutes ago with her blood test results, but she wanted to see it for herself. A glutton for punishment, she had peed on the stick and placed it on the bathroom sink. She had waited the three minutes as per the kit’s instructions before looking at one, not two lines. She had failed again. Another month, another round of in vitro, for what? She couldn’t go through this again. Her body was tired; tired of all the shots and the mood swings as a result of the hormones that flooded her body.

  With the pregnancy stick in hand, she opened the bathroom door and faced Owen. He looked at her and then the stick and turned away. He began to pace the room. When he reached the nightstand next to their bed he picked up the lamp, yanked the cord out of the wall and threw it across the room. It shattered into the wall, just to the left of her head.

  “This is his fault. Because of him I have to go through this month after month. If you would have just kept your legs shut years ago, this wouldn’t be happening!”

  Morgan’s jaw dropped. She knew he was frustrated. Even before today she had sensed Owen drifting away from her. In the beginning of the IVF journey, as her fertility doctors called it, Owen had been excited and a willing participant, accompanying her to all her appointments and holding her hand as she was pricked and prodded. But within the last two months, his interest had waned and as she just learned, so had his patience.

  “I know you’re upset and frustrated like me. That’s why I’m not going to respond to what you just said to me, not right now, anyway.” She wasn’t going to give him a free pass for his heartless remark, but her hormones were in overdrive and all she wanted to do was get away from him.