“You’re trembling. What’s wrong?” Jack seemed to be attuned to every small detail, to every change in her mood.
Miriam wasn’t sure how to answer. “I—it’s nothing.”
“No, it’s not. Are you nervous? We don’t have to do this, you know. I thought you wanted to, but if you’re not ready—”
“No! It’s not that. I want this. God, I do. It’s just that—” She cut herself off, laughing in embarrassment. “It’s stupid. I’ve never let anyone in my room before. I mean, like, no one. Ever.”
“Not even your parents?” It seemed like an innocent question, but it reminded Miriam that Jack knew nothing about her. The one thing about Ben was that he knew it all. She didn’t have to explain her past to him. He knew all about her parents. That might have been part of why Miriam was so hesitant to start anything with Jack: She didn’t want to have to explain her life story.
“My parents are both gone, Jack. It’s a long story.” Miriam hated how much of a non-answer that was.
“I’ve got time.” Jack sat down on the bed next to her, switching from passion to empathy with a speed that amazed her.
“Well, the short version is this,” Miriam said. “My dad died of a heart attack when I was eleven, and my mom left when I was sixteen.”
“Okay, so what’s the long version?”
So Miriam told Jack about her mother’s abrupt departure, living with Yanira, getting her first job, her first apartment. Nick. Waking up with a knife to her throat. Meeting Ben and thinking he was different.
Jack listened through it all, watching her attentively. When she finished her story and fell silent, Jack pulled her to him, and Miriam lay down next to him, placing her head on his shoulder, her hand over his heart, feeling it beat—thumpthump-thumpthump. She felt safe. Jack wasn’t as big or strong as Ben, and he wasn’t a combat-hardened badass like Ben, but somehow he made her feel safer than ever before in her life. Desire stirred in her stomach, and she slipped her hand under his shirt, tracing circles in the light coating of hair on his chest.
“I’d rather tell you all this now. Just have it out of the way. I’ve tried not telling guys about my history, but it never went well. I prefer honesty.”
“Are we dating now?” Jack had his face buried in her hair, muffling his voice.
“I don’t know, are we?” She craned her neck to look at him.
“Are you done with Ben? For good?” His tone was serious, and he propped himself up on an elbow, searching her face.
“I threatened to kill him if I saw him again, so I’d say, yeah, I’m done with him.”
“That was awesome, by the way.”
“What? The threatening to kill Ben, or the thing with the fire?”
“Both.” Jack lay back down, and Miriam cradled her head against his chest again, touching his skin, greedy for his warmth, for the comfort of his presence. Jack let the issue drop, and she was glad. She wasn’t ready to talk about that yet.
“So, I guess we are dating, yeah,” Miriam said. There were several minutes of comfortable silence, and then Miriam said, “Jack? I have a question.”
“What’s that?”
“How is it you were there, on that road at that exact time? I mean, it seems like a crazy coincidence. You keep turning up exactly when I need you.”
Jack didn’t answer right away. “You know Gramps’ second sight? He says I have it, too. I had a dream about you. I saw you walking in the rain, and I saw Ben show up in his car…and it wasn’t just a dream, it became real. I had intended to go to your apartment, but that just didn’t feel right, so I turned around and headed back to where I first met you, at the apartment complex. I assume that’s Ben’s apartment, right?
“Well, I knew I should’ve taken my Jeep, but I was in too much of a hurry. Something bad was going to happen if I didn’t stop it. I just knew it in my gut. Just after I left home, it started pouring, and then I saw this glow. At first I thought a building was on fire, but as I got closer I realized it was you—the glow was coming from you. But I was going too fast, and I lost control on the slippery road….” Jack trailed off, shrugging. Miriam traced lines on his chest, waiting for him to continue.
Jack looked down at her, a thousand unasked questions glittering in his gaze. He rolled slightly so he was leaning over her, then dipped his head down and kissed her, his lips soft and gentle and questing. Miriam couldn’t help her reaction. Any second thoughts she had were brushed away by the tenderness in his kiss, a gentility that was not at all lacking in passion or masculinity, but rife with affection and tenderness.
God, it was all so alien to her, but so wonderful. She couldn’t help pressing up into the kiss to deepen it, tangling her fingers in the hair at the back of his head, her other hand on the hard muscles of his stomach. His strong arms curled around her and fanned the coals of her passion into burning flames. She was so hot she worried she might burst alight once more.
Miriam skated her trembling fingers underneath Jack’s T-shirt, following the ridges of his spine, sliding the cotton upward with her touch. Jack broke their kiss briefly, tore the shirt over his head, and tossed it aside, and Miriam’s breath was snatched by the beauty of his body—the hard planes of his chest, the sculpted perfection of his abs. And then she was lost even more as he leaned in to kiss her, stealing her breath all over again, making her heart hammer and her soul swell with joy and belonging and comfort and need. He palmed her ribs, pushing her shirt up, moving his lips to her throat as she wiggled out of the shirt. He continued pressing kiss after kiss onto her skin, down between her breasts. Miriam arched her back, roaming the broad expanse of his shoulders as he tugged her bra cups down one at a time, flicking his tongue over her rigid, hypersensitive nipples. His fingers sneaked under the arched bridge of her spine and released her bra straps.
She was bare from the waist up, and his mouth was roving over her heated flesh, his palms cupping her tits and his thumbs scraping back and forth over her nipples. His jaw was stubbled, and she loved the feel of it as his face rasped over her skin. She could only hold onto his shoulders as he kissed her side, her ribs, and then just below her navel, his busy, dexterous fingers hooking into the elastic waistband of her yoga pants and her underwear, tugging them down to bare more skin, his lips sucking and his tongue laving.
Her gasp turned into a moan as his stubble brushed over the soft skin of her inner thighs, his hands roaming upward along her legs, caressing the outside first, palming her thighs, her hips, and then sliding between her body and the bed to cup her ass. Miriam tangled her fingers in his hair as Jack lifted her lower half off the mattress, bringing her core to his mouth, his tongue parting her folds, tasting her essence.
Fire and magic blasted through her, pleasure igniting them to nova intensity, and then Jack let her down to the bed, sliding his fingers inside her, finding her G-spot and rubbing it in time with his lapping, circling tongue. Miriam cried out, feeling the heat billow off her, hearing the crackle of flames.
Miriam was seized by tremors, and an orgasm hurtled through her, shaking her, forcing her hips to lift off the bed. Wrenching moans issued from her throat, causing her to grind her core against Jack’s mouth as she clutched his head, clinging to him, writhing and moaning. The fierce heat and power of her climax left her limp and wrung out, hypersensitive all over, and she pulled at Jack, tugged him up to her.
She opened her eyes and realized that her hair, tangled over her shoulders and splayed on the pillow around her head, was no longer plain brown locks but rather living flame, flames that coiled and flicked as if semi-sentient. Dancing bits of flame clung to her still-mortal flesh, running up and down her arms, bursting from her pores to evaporate, erupting in gouts to trip from her to Jack, running along his skin as well.
Jack leaned on his forearms above her, watching the flames play, then turned his gaze to Miriam’s. She felt his body above hers, felt the thick presence of his arousal between them.
She wanted to feel him, to touch him.
Miriam pushed at Jack’s shoulder, and he rolled to his back, pulling her over him. She straddled him, her still enflamed hair trailing around her shoulders and hanging in flickering hot curtains around them both as she leaned down to kiss Jack’s mouth, then his chest, then down to his flat, hard stomach.
Now it was his turn to groan and shift beneath her. Miriam ran her hands over his torso, learning him, feeling him, kissing his skin and tasting his flesh. She unbuttoned his jeans and tugged at the zipper, lowering it impatiently, pulling at his jeans and boxers. Jack kicked them away, and he was naked beneath her. They were flesh to flesh now, bodies poised to join. But Miriam wanted to feel more of him, taste more of him. She wanted to make him feel as good as he had her.
Lips stuttering over his skin, she kissed above his navel, then beneath it, and then she had his erection in her fist, hot and hard and thick and perfect. She stroked him gently, slowly, savoring the feel of him in her hand. She wrapped her lips around him, felt his soft springy head between her lips, took him in deeper and swirled her tongue over him, stroking his length with both hands, one and then the other, clutching and pumping and squeezing and plunging her fist around him, root to tip, sucking on him until he moaned and lifted his hips off the bed.
“Jesus, Miriam, you’re gonna make me—” Jack began, but then groaned in pleasure as she brought him as deep into her mouth as she could.
Jack lifted his hips off the bed, writhing as she stroked him quickly with a loose touch. She pulled back to let his cock slip from her mouth, letting her saliva coat him, wrapping her palm over his broad head and smearing it down his length. Then she put her lips around his tip, sucking hard, moving her hands up and down his throbbing length.
Jack didn’t stand a chance. He made one token effort to pull away, to bring her up, but she resisted, and now he tangled his fingers in her hair, which was flashing back and forth from coiling snakes of flame to her normal dark brown locks. He held on, gasped out a warning just before he released into her mouth. She took it all and kept going, drew another wrenching groan from him as he spurted again and again, groaning and cursing.
When he was spent, Miriam pulled away, intending to lie beside him, but she blinked, and in that instant, Jack’s beautiful, naked form was replaced with a startling vision—a nightmare of bloodied features, and somehow she knew, she knew, Ben had done this.
Miriam blinked again, and Jack was himself once more, unhurt and staring up at her in confusion and concern. A sob wrenched through her, her passion and desire doused by the sudden and unwelcome vision, her eyes stinging with tears. She shook her head, trying to banish the vision, but it wouldn’t leave her. The guilt of seeing Jack hurt because of her overwhelmed her every thought, taking over her emotions. Another sob wracked her, and she slumped forward, still straddling Jack, who sat up and wrapped his arms around her, cupping the back of her head as he kissed her temple.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Miriam covered her face with her hands, not answering, not knowing how to explain what she had just seen. Jack tugged at her hands away, gently but firmly, and brushed the tears from her cheek.
“ I’m sorry, Jack, I just…I can’t. Not yet.” Miriam buried her face between his neck and shoulder, finding comfort in his hand wandering up to rub her back. “I’m so sorry, I know I told you—I know you must be so frustrated. I keep doing this to you. I keep backing off.”
“Miriam, look at me, please?” Jack tipped her chin up, and she finally met his eyes. “If you don’t want to, if you’re not ready, I understand. Just tell me why, okay? I don’t want to do this if you’re not ready. I want you, yes. I’m…god, so turned on by you, so attracted to you. How could I not be? Look at you, you’re so beautiful.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not beautiful. And it’s not that I don’t want you. I do. I want you so bad. I want to do this with you more than I—more than I should, considering how short a time I’ve known you. It’s crazy how badly I want this. So please, please, don’t think it’s that.”
“Then what is it?” Jack rubbed her back, brushing her hair out of the way and massaging the muscles of her neck. He moved aside so that she was lying on her stomach, and he kneaded the muscles of her shoulders and back with a sensuality and affection that was in no way sexual, simply relaxing and comforting.
“It’s Ben. I know I told you I was done with him, and I am, I promise. But I just…I don’t think he’s done with me. He won’t let go easily. I—I just had this vision of you all bloody and beaten, and I knew Ben had done it, and that it was my fault. I healed you back there, but what if…what if he followed you to work and waited for you, jumped you as you were coming out? He would kill you, Jack. I’ve seen him do that before. Not actually kill a man, but close. With his bare hands.”
Miriam shook her head, trying to push away the memory, but she couldn’t. She went on, “We were out having dinner, and Ben had had too much to drink. We went out to the parking lot, and this guy was there, talking on his cell phone beside his car. He’d parked so close to Ben’s truck that Ben couldn’t get in, and the guy just ignored him when Ben asked him to move. Ben lost it. He just snapped. He attacked the guy and beat him into hamburger. He was unrecognizable before I managed to pull Ben away.
“It was…god, it was awful. And that was just a random guy who had ticked Ben off. If he knew we were doing this, talking, going out together…what we just did—I don’t know what he’d do, but it’d be bad. He’s not…he’s not stable. I know I’ve said this before, and I know you think you can handle him. I’m not trying to insult you, Jack. I’m sure you can take care of yourself. But if anything happened to you because of me…I’d—I couldn’t deal with that.”
“Isn’t that my decision?” Jack asked.
“I can’t put you at risk like that. You deserve better than this.” Her voice went quiet, almost inaudible. “You deserve better than me.”
Jack stopped massaging her and looked at her with incredulity. “I know I didn’t just hear that. Miriam…god, I can’t believe you’d say that. You are…how do I even say this so you’ll believe me? You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met. Let’s start with that. You’re beautiful, I mean…gorgeous. I—there aren’t even words for how sexy you are. You’re smart, and kind, and strong…Miriam, you’ve got it backward. It’s me who doesn’t deserve you.”
“Jack, that’s stupid.” Miriam rolled to prop herself up on an elbow. She loosely pulled her thick brown hair into a braid.
“It’s not stupid. It’s the way I feel. Listen. Let’s not talk about who does or doesn’t deserve what. The important thing is that you can’t scare me away with stories of Ben beating people up. It doesn’t scare me. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t. I like you, okay? I like you a lot, and I won’t be scared off by anything. Unless you tell me that you aren’t attracted to me, and you don’t want to be with me, you can’t get rid of me. Everything else is just an obstacle.”
Jack played with her braid as he spoke, his eyes intense. “I’ll be honest here. I want you to be finished with Ben for selfish reasons—I want you for myself. But it’s more than that. You deserve better than him. I want you to be with me because I think I can take care of you, and treat you right. I know I can. I can treat you like you deserve. I can protect you. I will protect you, no matter what. Ben will kill me before he hurts you ever again. I swear it.”
Miriam felt his confidence, and she didn’t doubt him for a second. “I believe you,” she said. “And I want to be with you, Jack. In every way possible. I want to be your girlfriend—I want to kiss you, and make love to you. I just can’t…not yet.”
Jack cupped her face, a smile on his face that was so…complicatedly wonderful…that she almost lost her determination. “That’s okay,” Jack said. “I can wait as long as you need.”
That kind of answer from Jack did nothing to help her efforts to resist him. She fought her desire, watching his liquid blue eyes drinking her in, admiring her. She had to look awa
y from him before she kissed him. She lay down, rolled away from him, reached behind her for his hand, and pulled him close to her. She knew it wasn’t fair of her to ask him to lie this close to her, pressed up against her, but she wanted it, wanted the comfort of his presence, even if she couldn’t have him the way she truly wanted. His arm slipped over her waist, his hand on her stomach, his breath soft on her hair. She lay awake for a long time, trying not to imagine what it would be like to be loved, actually loved.
Jack’s breathing evened out to a soft snore, and he cradled up against her in his sleep, holding her tightly, gently, protecting her.
It might feel something like this.
y, waiting for that one detail to jump out at him.
Rachel Korolivycz, 4555 Gardenia Avenue, Royal Oak, 248-555-6545. Often seen at Woody’s Diner. Another girlfriend, perhaps?
Definitely worth chatting with her.
* * *
“Yeah, Ben is—I mean…was my boyfriend,” Rachel said, eyes red from crying. She’d obviously heard about Ben’s death. “And yeah, I knew he was sleeping with—what was her name? Mary? Miri? Mara? Whatever the hell it was. That other girl.” Rachel sat at the bar at Woody’s, a sweating bottle of Michelob Lite in her hand.
“So you knew that, and it didn’t bother you?” Carson tried to keep the disgust out of his voice, not entirely successfully.
Rachel shrugged. “She was just a booty call. Someone to take care of his urges when I’m working. She was nothing.”
Carson shook his head, not quite believing what he was hearing. “Wait, so you knew your boyfriend had another girlfriend, and you didn’t care?”
Rachel shot him a petulant look. “She wasn’t his girlfriend. I was. He was fucking her, not dating her. There is a difference.”
“So there was no jealousy at all?” Carson was pressing the point, trying to elicit a response out of Rachel.
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