by Orla Bailey
“Always.”
He draws my panties down and eases my knees apart. Holding himself above me on one arm, he studies my eyes. I don’t break contact, afraid even to blink, even as his gaze travels down my body. He penetrates fully in one thrust and I gasp. He withdraws as I pant through the sensations he provokes. He breaches me again, hefting me up the bed beneath him. I moan in the heat of desire for this taking as my fingers claw his buttocks urging him deeper inside me.
“More, Jack.”
His prevailing lunge seals us together and when he swivels his hips in a slow circle I throw my head back and groan out his name like a prayer.
“I’m ready to come.” His guttural tone is rough and urgent, like his need for me. It is sweetly erotic. Tonight he won’t last. The need to possess absolutely is primitive and raw with masculine compulsion. There is no denying such will.
I nod in understanding as he stiffens and comes, grunting out his pleasure. His sound tips me over the edge and I clench his body to mine, draining him of everything. Never have we been so perfectly in sexual harmony. In this one flawless moment I understand the depth of his need for me and mine for him.
We rise and fall together.
Later, I wake beneath him as he stirs. I have no idea how long we’ve been here. Drawing back, he looks at me as if wondering how I got there. He relaxes the instant he knows he has me encompassed safely within his limbs. He brushes the hair out of my eyes and rolls to one side releasing me from the weight of his wanting but I hook my leg over him to stop him travelling too far.
Pushing up on my elbow, my eyes run over his face and chest and ribs. Fingers flutter over deepening contusions. “I’m so sorry.” I acknowledge the part I played in this.
“You’re not to blame,” he tells me.
“Nor you.”
My reply amuses him but I can hardly be surprised. I’ve been only too willing to make everything Jack’s fault recently. Yet I bear guilt too. Perhaps I really am growing up at last. Learning to be a woman in his arms.
“Let me wash you?” I ask.
He nods and his lips twitch. “I’d get into a punch-up every day if I knew it would elicit this much attention.”
I drop a kiss to his shoulder and bury a smile into his skin. “Don’t joke about getting hurt.”
He pushes upright, pulling me behind him and we walk to the shower where I won’t let him do a thing except stand passively and allow me to soap him and wash his hair. It’s like subduing a fully male savannah lion.
“I adore that you want to take care of me,” he says. It’s the closest he’s come to telling me he loves me since the hotel. Do I have hope?
“I’ll always take care of you, if you’ll let me.”
“I will.” His expression turns from adoring to serious. “Will you let me protect you too? Even when you know you can protect yourself.”
“I will.”
We offer our strange exchange of vows and he hugs his strong wet body to mine as we stand beneath the deluge, equally protected in the bubble of our warm content.
“You need to eat,” I tell him.
“It’s late.”
I smile. “Perfect for a midnight feast.”
“Is that what all you naughty little teenage girls did at boarding school?” His lips curve with wayward imagination.
I laugh and nod. “We got caught plenty of times, too. No punishment ever stopped us.”
“The illicit is far too tempting.”
“Sounds like you understand the criminal mind.”
He laughs, refraining from explanation and pats me on the behind. “Let’s have naked dinner.”
“Are you sure we should do that?” I tease, widening my eyes in mock horror. I’d agree to anything he asked of me tonight. The more deliciously naughty, the better. Sex grounds us.
We dry off enough not to soak the furniture, throw the wet towels into the hamper and wander hand in hand to the table where everything is prepared. I freeze before we get there.
“What?” he asks.
“Do you have hidden cameras at Belvedere too?
He laughs loudly, leans in and kisses me behind the ear, whispering. “For my eyes only.”
I blush like a nun thinking of everything we’ve done here together.
He turns his attention to the table. “Did you do all of this? It’s fantastic.”
“The food is Lenuta’s.”
“I like it.” He stares at me.
I stare back. “I like it too.”
“We could make this an anniversary.” Jack’s boyish Irish charm emerges from beneath his virile masculinity and I’m pleased to have helped him recover from his traumatic day. I might be forgiven for thinking he’s planning a future with me in it.
“And what would we celebrate?”
“The great battle of CaidCo?”
I snigger at his exaggeration. “Great battle, was it?”
He chuckles. “Come on, kitten. I’ve wounds to prove it.”
My eyebrow twitches. “Two stitches or three?”
“Nine as it happens.”
“My poor baby.”
“Am I?” He seems amused by the thought.
I don’t want to spoil this sweet moment but I have to know. “Is Phil alright?”
“Fine.” Jack’s tone is so clipped I drop it, for now.
He may not tell me everything I want to know, but I’m certain he doesn’t lie to me. I only hope Phil isn’t under arrest. I think the freedom of the streets is a necessity for him. I’ve no idea how he’d cope locked up but I’ll try to find out what’s happened to him tomorrow.
“I’m hungry. Let’s eat.” It’s far too late for a heart-to-heart. That can wait.
Without even needing the conversation, I’ve come to realise that beneath this authoritarian Boss, my flesh-and-blood man still exists. He’s not exactly the old Jack but I’m not exactly the old Tabitha either.
And tonight, I need only this one precious moment with Jack safely in it. It’s good to feel contented at last.
Chapter Ten
We spend another night wrapped up in each other.
How simple and beautiful it is to be surrounded by Jack’s warmth and strength. It’s this simple intimacy I miss when we’re apart. If his quiet wakefulness as he gently kisses and caresses me into the dawn is any indication, he gathers as much pleasure from being with me, as I do him. We drift in our own thoughts, side by side.
By the time it’s light I find him lying motionless, observing me and wonder how long he’s been watching me sleep. I gift him with a drowsy smile.
“Feeling better?” he asks me.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?”
“Go on then.”
A smile tugs at my lips. “Feeling better?”
“Wonderful.”
He stretches what must be stiff, bruised muscles, dragging me with him as he refuses to let go. I end up lying on top of him, even though it makes him wince so I have to spend the next few minutes kissing his bruises better. He seems to know I want and need only this closeness, as he doesn’t try to take things further even though he’s clearly in the mood. But when isn’t he?
“I love you.” I have so much to say to Jack but this is where it will always start and end.
“I know.” He kisses me softly. Even though he doesn’t say it back, I tell myself it’s enough he understands.
“I need to shower.” I sigh, rolling away and heading to the bathroom.
As I pause on the threshold I glance back over my shoulder. Jack is lying on his back, head propped up, arms thrown behind his head and he’s as beautiful, powerful and confident as always. But it’s the contemplative look in his eyes that makes something shift inside me.
I switch on the flow of water as he calls through the door. “I need a hit of coffee to iron out the kinks. I’ll bring you one.”
As I step under the steamy flow I’m overwhelmed with infinite sadness because no matter what I do, Jack still d
oesn’t love me the way I love him. I sink to the floor, clutching my knees to my chest and sob, wracked and shaking. A complete train crash.
Holding so tightly to the dreams of that eighteen year old child I used to be, I no longer understand the woman I’ve become. I don’t know who I am any more. The entire focus of my adult life has been finding a way to negotiate Jack’s absence from my life. In the place I find myself, I have no knowledge. No point of reference. It’s as if time has slipped and I’m suddenly here with nothing between now and then to buffer all these feelings inside.
A different country, an alien landscape, I no longer need the girl’s familiar anguish and soul-deep ache for someone I miss like the air I breathe, because he’s here. And yet, he’s not. Everything I’ve learned has been swept away as the Jack I clung to so tightly no longer exists either. He was a heart-breaking, bitter-sweet fantasy.
This is a death. An everlasting goodbye.
What we were is ashes and dust and I never grieved for Harry nor my parents, the soul-twisting way I’m grieving now for the Jack I used to love.
The shower door swings open. “Christ, Tabitha.” Jack steps inside, half-clothed. He sinks to his knees, gathering me in his arms, hugging me close. His gentle concern only renews my devastation but he lets me cry it out. He scrapes wet strands of hair from my face to press his lips against my clammy skin as I close my eyes. There is no avoiding this misery.
“Don’t, baby. I can’t bear to see you like this. What’s wrong?”
I cling hard and sob harder. He knows everything’s changed. Finally I must accept it too. He’s here but he doesn’t know if he can love me. There is nothing to be done. That he will leave again is as inevitable as the stars and the moon.
Jack is uncomfortable with any problem he can’t solve and he can’t fix this. This is insurmountable.
“Talk. We’ll talk.” He gropes for a solution to my distress and I love this strange, yet familiar man with a mature vengeance even more for trying. He collects me to him, lifting me wet, naked and weeping, back to his bed. “Tell me how to make it better.”
He sits beside me and I see him through my tears. No longer rock solid and immoveable but flesh and blood, fears and doubts. The concern on his face moves me. I know he cares. There’s not a shadow of doubt in my mind about that. I wrap my arms round his neck and bury my face in his shoulder.
“You’re not crying because I got hurt are you? It’s just a few bruises and a little cut. I’m fighting fit.” He tries to make light of the knife attack yesterday.
I shake my head.
He struggles to understand as his voice turns to anxiety. “Did he hurt you? Before I got there? He was dragging you along… Gripping you so tight.”
“No.” My voice shudders. “Phil wouldn’t hurt me. He didn’t.”
“I thought… You’d tell me if…”
“No. This isn’t the same as that hotel.” I look at Jack’s anxious face knowing he sees everything through the filter of that awful experience where I was drugged, stripped and forced to break his heart.
He pauses, searching. “Is it the security cameras? Is that what this is all about? I’ll remove them. Nothing is worth this.” He raises my chin with his fingers wanting me to look at him. His eyes are full of dread. “Christ, Tabitha. What have I done to you?”
I shake my head. “Not you. Me. Us.” I force the words out. “We’ve changed.”
“Don’t you want me anymore?” His voice is a ruin.
I stare. My sobs subside to an intermittent heave of the shoulders and hiccough of broken sound. “I love you. Nothing that fixed in me will ever fade.”
He presses his forehead to mine. “Thank you, kitten.” There’s a catch in his voice. He tugs a corner of the sheet across and dries my cheeks. “Then what’s this about?”
How do I explain what is happening to me? I try. “When I was eighteen I fell crazy stupid in love with an amazing guy.”
“Hey, that better be me you’re talking about, lady.” His attempt to joke is familiar and comforting. Yet beneath it I hear a hidden fear.
“I couldn’t stop loving him, even when he left me. I just stopped living.”
“Please believe me. I had no choice. I did it for you.”
“I do believe you, Jack, but it wasn’t the right thing to do. You and Harry were wrong about me, but I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.”
“Yet I did. Badly. I see that now.” He tries to soothe the pain away with his hand moving steadily up and down my spine. Guilt is reflected in the earth deep chasm between those Arctic blue eyes.
“It’s what happens when someone decides your fate.” I’m a little bit mad at him for ever believing that would help me; for not discussing things with me first; for causing such devastation without ever realising the truth. “I never escaped being that pathetic little creature who discovered love far too early and lost it far too easily. I thought I was unlovable. All I was left with was this black hole sucking me down inside it a little bit more every day.”
“After losing your parents so young, I should have realised. I’m sorry. So sorry.” He kisses my face, over and over.
I put a finger to his lips. Hard to believe after my outburst but I feel better already. “I can let go of the past now.”
He looks at me uncomprehendingly. “Then why so devastated now we’re together?”
He thinks it’s that easy. Poor Jack. “The man that girl fell in love with has gone. He’s someone else. You told me so yourself. My Jack has changed into this Boss who needs to control everything around him. Everybody.”
“You are talking about the security cameras. We can renegotiate. I don’t want to see you like this.”
“Because you care?” I know he does. I know too, caring will never be enough. I would have stolen those crumbs from his table once, and gratefully, but no longer. I simply can’t.
“Of course, I care. I never stopped caring. I’m not saying I haven’t changed. We’ve had the same past to handle. But you know me, Tabby. You know me and I know you.”
“The Jack I loved was a dream. If I replace him with a man who looks like him but isn’t, then he’ll always remain a dream.”
“What are you saying? I don’t understand.” He takes hold of me by the upper arms as if he wants to shake the truth out of me quicker than I can reveal it.
“I let myself believe for one brief moment I had you back with me.”
“On the boat.” He understands.
Does that make him more real? He’s confusing me again when I had it all so clear in my mind a moment ago. “Yes. On the boat. And inside here is still the man I love.” I stroke my hand down his beautiful face. “But then there’s this domineering Boss who complicates matters; who keeps me stationary, like the eighteen year old child I once was. I’m not that person anymore and I’m not entirely sure who I’m in love with.”
“I want to protect you, Tabitha. We’ve been through all this. I’m not going to let you come to any harm.” He takes refuge in familiar habits. “Don’t ask me not to keep you safe. I can’t do it. Especially after everything that’s happened.”
“I know you care.” I try to reassure. “But what happened with Phil last night, what could have happened to you, finally made me wake up. I tried to tell you Phil wouldn’t hurt me but you wouldn’t listen.”
“I thought –”
“I know. You thought he was hurting me. I understand. I do. And because of that you got hurt. I don’t want you to get hurt over me. I could have lost you.”
“It was nothing.”
“It was. When I saw all that blood…”
“You’re in shock.”
“Perhaps.” I pause. “But I’m seeing clearly too. I’m trying to tell you, I’ve changed. Being with you these past weeks has been a dream come true. But it’s a dream. You helped me to understand that.”
His features freeze. “If you’re telling me this is over, I won’t accept it. I won’t lose you again.” He jumps
up and paces the bedroom floor. “Don’t do this to us, Tabitha. Not now. Not after everything we’ve been through.”
Fat, sorry tears roll down my cheeks unchecked. “I don’t want to lose you either but I’m scared we’ll destroy each other, bit by bit.” I get to my feet, wrapping the damp sheet around me, go to him and kiss him gently. “I don’t want to do that to you; to us.”
“There won’t be any us if you leave.” He turns from my arms, pacing again and drives his fingers through his hair. “Are you telling me you’re giving up? After everything? I’m not having it. It’s a deal-breaker.” He rips the damp t-shirt over his head and flings it in the corner while his naked torso in the long slung joggers takes my breath away.
I stride the short distance between us and wrap my arms round his waist, resting my head against his chest. He holds me tightly. “This isn’t about any deal. We’re not a deal. Either we love each other as we are now or we don’t.” I look up at him.
He’s hurt, confused. Angry. “I won’t do this. Not again. Are you saying you can live without me?” He holds me at arms’ length and stares. “What sort of love is that?”
“One-sided if you can’t love me back. I can’t hold on to a memory. It isn’t fair to you and it certainly isn’t fair to me.”
“I asked you to become my wife.”
“Because of compromising photographs in the newspapers.”
“It might have looked that way.” His expression confuses me.
“You were furious because I’d forced you into something you didn’t want.”
He looks at me incredulously, like I’m stupid. “I was angry that what I did want was made to look like damage limitation. And you ran from me. You didn’t want me. But I followed because I wanted you. I wasn’t able to let you go. When I went down on one knee at Lassec, I meant every word of it. It was you who laughed off my feelings, not the other way around.”
I can hardly believe what he’s saying to me. Is he telling me he thought I didn’t want him? Is he saying his proposal was genuine? “Then why did you let me walk away?”
“You tossed my ring back; made a joke of it. Made it clear you didn’t want to be with me. You never told me you loved me then, did you? I just kept hoping, if I gave you a little more time…” He halts. “You say it’s me that wants everything my own way but have you ever stopped to think how much you control everything?”
