by HELEN HARDT
“I haven’t passed the bar yet,” I reminded her.
“For a genius like you, that’s just a formality. You know you’ll pass, Jade.”
I had felt pretty confident coming out of the test, but I’d also known people who felt just as confident or more so and hadn’t passed. “I hope so. Otherwise, I’ll have to wait another six months to try again. But no worries. I can always get a job waiting tables or something while I study. I’m not going to be a burden on you guys.”
“Who says you’re a burden?”
Ah, good. The opening I was waiting for her. “Well, your brother, for one.”
“Talon? Why would he say such a thing?”
“He didn’t say those exact words. But while we were driving home yesterday, he mentioned that I was imposing.” Okay, so I fudged a little. He’d actually said I could drive one of their cars. I was the one who’d used the word imposing, and then he’d repeated it.
“I’m sure he was just kidding, Jade. Tal is… Well, that’s just the way he is.”
My curiosity was piqued. “What do you mean ‘just the way he is?’”
“You know he was overseas with the Marines. He doesn’t talk about that. The truth is he’s always been the kind of guy who keeps to himself. I’m much closer to Joe and Ryan than I am to Tal. He’s definitely a loner.”
“Yeah, I can kind of see that. I got up last night in the middle of the night to get a cup of tea, and he was sitting alone in the dark in the kitchen.”
“He has trouble sleeping. He gets up at night a lot.”
“But why does he sit in the dark? Why doesn’t he turn on the TV or read a book or something?”
Marjorie bit her lip and fidgeted with her hands. “Talon has always been a little bit…off. But he’s a good man, Jade. He just has…issues. I mean, he was in Iraq. I have no idea what he saw over there, and he never talks about it, at least not to me. But it had to have some kind of an effect on him.”
“Do you think he has post-traumatic stress disorder?” I asked.
Marj shook her head. “I’ve considered— Oh!” Her eyes widened as the door to the coffee shop clicked open.
I turned around, and my heart nearly stopped. Talon Steel strode in, his ass looking delectable as ever in snug jeans, the sleeves of his black western shirt rolled up, his gorgeous bronze forearms visible.
“Hey, Tal, over here.” Marj gestured for him to join us.
My skin prickled. All I could think about was that kiss last night, his tongue devouring me as if I were his last meal. I hadn’t seen him since then. I wasn’t sure how to react.
“I’m just getting a coffee to go, but thanks.” He walked to the counter.
“Please, join us.” Now why in hell had those words come out of my mouth?
Marjorie looked at me like I had two heads, her brow furrowing. “Yeah, come on over, Talon. You have a few minutes to hang out with your little sister and her friend, don’t you?”
Talon turned away from the counter, his dark eyes a mixture of fire and…was it sadness? “Yeah, sure. I guess I have a few minutes.”
“My brothers don’t deny me anything,” Marj said, smiling. “Of course, they’re also overprotective as all get out. The price I pay for being the youngest and the only girl.”
Yes, Marj was the youngest. I had never even thought to ask the ages of her brothers. “How old are all your brothers?”
“Jonah is thirty-eight, Talon is thirty-five, and Ryan is thirty-two.”
Wow. Talon was ten years older than I was. Of course, I knew he was older. I just hadn’t considered how much older. Marj was twenty-five, the same as me. Sounded like she was an afterthought. “I guess I didn’t realize they were that much older than we are.”
“Oh, yeah, I used to chase after them when I was a kid and drive them crazy.”
“You must have had a fun childhood.”
“Well, I never knew my mother…”
I let out a breath. God, I was such an idiot. Her mother had killed herself when Marj was only two. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
Marjorie attempted a smile. “It’s okay. I mean, I did grow up on a gorgeous ranch with everything that money could buy and three older brothers who adored me.”
“Adore you?” Talon sat down and set his coffee and the scone on the table. “Why do you think we would adore you, squirt?”
I let out a chuckle. The nickname squirt did not fit Marj. She was model tall.
“So what are you doing in town today, Tal?” Marjorie asked.
“Just had an appetite for one of Rita’s scones.” Talon took a bite of the confection, crumbs falling to the table. “What are you all doing here?”
“I’m just showing Jade around town. Had to introduce her to Rita’s coffee.”
“Yep,” Talon agreed. “Best coffee this side of the Rockies.”
They were delusional, but I smiled anyway. If that was what passed for good strong coffee around these parts, I needed to stop at a store and pick up a coffee maker, grinder, and some decent beans.
“The city attorney’s office isn’t far from here,” Marjorie said. “I know the city attorney. His name is Larry Wade. We could stop by, and you could introduce yourself if you’d like.”
I looked down at my Daisy Duke shorts and scarlet tank top. I was hardly dressed to meet a potential employer. “Not today. I mean, look at me.”
Talon turned toward me and met my gaze, his dark eyes burning. The few clothes I had on were being melted off by his piercing stare. My nipples hardened under my bra and soon were visible—two pencil erasers encased in red. As well endowed as I was, I made a point never to wear padded bras. I didn’t need any extra. Of course, the price was whenever I was cold—or incredibly aroused—my headlights flashed.
Talon’s lips trembled just a bit. Was he holding back a smile? He didn’t smile a lot. He had noticed my nipples—I was sure. At least the warmth of my skin and my skittering heartbeat were sure. I crossed my arms over my chest…which made it pretty difficult to drink coffee. But the coffee sucked anyway.
Talon finished up the scone and wiped the crumbs from the table into his hand. “I’ve got a few errands to run, ladies. See you back home for dinner.”
Yes, dinner. The Steels had a housekeeper and cook who came every day—Felicia. I wasn’t sure when I would get used to being cooked for and cleaned up after. This was so far from how I had lived for so many years. My dad was in construction and made a decent living, but that was light years away from how the Steels lived. We never even had a cleaning lady, let alone a housekeeper and cook who came daily.
I couldn’t help watching Talon as he walked out the door. He was one fine-looking man. With one fine-looking ass. My palms sweated, and I rubbed them on the denim of my shorts.
My breath caught.
I would never forget our kiss.
Chapter Four
Talon
The boy huddled in the darkness, his worn T-shirt and the ragged gray blanket his only warmth, and they did little. His eyes had long ago adjusted to the darkness of the dank cellar where he was kept. Nighttime was the hardest, even though he was left alone then.
Aloneness came with its own demons.
Isolation. Fear. Vulnerability.
Frigid air pricked at the boy’s skin. Haunting squeaks drifted toward him. Cancerous blurs emerged against the walls, dancing eerily to a discordant violin. Black claws descended, and the cold concrete walls inched forward slowly.
The boy’s breath grew rapid, and he scooted backward, the concrete floor chafing his bare skin. Couldn’t breathe… The ceiling descended, blackness engulfing him.
And the walls continued forward. Always the walls. Cold and hard and impenetrable. They laughed maniacally, their voices low and terrorizing, as they enclosed the boy.
Breath. Need a breath… Air…air…
“You are nothing,” the walls taunted, their distorted faces appearing as they creaked closer. “You will die here
. Used and abused and worth nothing more than the ragged blanket you sleep on. No one cares. No one is coming for you. No one but us. We will take you into hell…”
I sat at the kitchen table again, a glass of water in front of me that I never touched. Why did I always get a glass of water when I came to the kitchen at night? Seemed like the thing to do. When a person got up in the middle of the night, he got a drink of water. I wasn’t thirsty. As usual, I hadn’t turned on the light. I always sat in the dark. I was more comfortable that way.
Didn’t make sense. All the worst times in my life had taken place in the dark. Still, darkness gave me a cloak of comfort that I didn’t understand. I had stopped trying to understand myself a long time ago.
I blinked my eyes when the light came on. Jade again. Did that woman never sleep?
She wore a robe this time. Too bad. Her body was a goddamned work of art. The most luscious rack I’d ever seen, and I’d had plenty of women. Women had been throwing themselves at me since I was fifteen. I took what they offered. Why not? I enjoyed myself, and so did they. I never really wanted any of them. They fulfilled a physical need, nothing more.
“Sorry. I didn’t think you’d be here tonight again.” Jade shuffled over to the canisters and pulled out a tea bag.
“I didn’t think you’d be here again either.” I turned back around and stared at my glass of water.
Her nipples weren’t visible tonight, though the robe she wore was skimpy, showing her long shapely legs, her well-formed ass. My cock stirred. What the hell was wrong with me? I’d been around plenty of beautiful women. I’d had tons of women more beautiful than Jade Roberts.
Okay, maybe only a few who were actually more beautiful than she was. She was a goddess. Still, I’d had beautiful women, so what was it about her?
The microwave dinged, and Jade walked back over to the table with her mug of steaming tea. “I don’t want to disturb you. I’ll just take this to my bedroom.” She turned to leave the kitchen.
“Don’t go.”
Had those words come from my mouth? What did I want with her? I was only sure of one thing. I did not want her to leave the kitchen.
She turned and faced me. “Honestly, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Why can’t you sleep?” I asked. “Is something wrong with your bed?”
Jade shook her head. She knelt down to give Roger a pet—“How are you doing, boy?”—and sat down at the table. “No. My bed is perfectly comfortable. I don’t know why I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Maybe I’m not as over the whole wedding thing as I thought I was. Maybe I’m anxious about my bar results. Maybe I’m worried about getting a job and imposing on you guys for too long. Probably all of the above.”
“You don’t have to worry about the last one. We have plenty of room. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to. Marjorie wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“That’s kind of you. I appreciate it more than you know. But I’m just not the kind of person who can sponge off of others. Freaks me out.”
“Freaks you out? What do you mean?”
Jade let out a sigh. “My dad was always really adamant about making his own way in the world, and he transferred those values to me. We had a modest life, but we were always fed and clothed. And I knew he loved me.”
“So you’re close to your dad?”
She nodded. “I miss him.”
“What about your mom?”
“I haven’t seen my mom since I was a kid. She left us for her career.”
“Her career? What kind of career would she leave her kid for?”
Jade shook her head and let out a sarcastic chuckle. “You ever hear of Brooke Bailey?”
“Yeah. She was a supermodel a couple decades ago, right?”
Jade nodded. “She was. She’s also my mother.”
I arched my eyebrows. Brooke Bailey had been the hottest thing walking when I was a teen. Jonah had nursed a major hard-on for her while we were growing up. The signature poster of her in the royal-blue bathing suit had hung on the wall right by his bed. She was taller than Jade and thinner—leaner and not as buxom. Her hair was a dark blond compared to Jade’s soft brown. She must’ve gotten her father’s hair.
But Brooke’s eyes—they watched you from the wall. Every guy fantasized that Brooke was looking at him, smiling for him, her nipples hardening and poking through that blue spandex for him. The camera loved Brooke Bailey. She must have made a mint on that poster. So why had Jade had such a modest childhood?
I gazed at her.
And then I saw it.
Jade had Brooke’s eyes—that steely blue-gray that seemed to penetrate through every layer of a person.
That’s what had first drawn me to Jade—those eyes. I felt naked, like she could see right through me, into the very recesses of my broken soul. It scared the hell out of me.
So why did I want her so much? I hadn’t been able to get that kiss out of my mind. Her lips were so full, so red, and she tasted like champagne and strawberries. I had never tasted anything when I kissed a woman. Something about the kiss with Jade had been different, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. All I knew was that I desired her.
In my bed.
She was my sister’s best friend. I couldn’t just bed her and forget her like I did with the others. Even more scary? I didn’t want to.
Those eyes… I could never let her get close to me. She would see right through all of the walls that I had built up around me, all the secrets I’d buried deep inside. I could never tell her the truth about why I didn’t sleep, about the demons that haunted me in my dreams. I could never tell anyone.
“Really?” I finally replied to her revelation.
She looked down to her teacup. “I know it’s hard to believe. I don’t look anything like her.”
“You have her eyes.” I couldn’t help myself. It just popped out.
“You think so?”
I nodded. “Joe was obsessed with Brooke Bailey when he was younger. He had that blue swimsuit poster that she made. You know, the one where you could swear she was looking right at you and smiling?”
Jade rolled her eyes. “That poster embarrassed the hell out of me while I was growing up. Most people didn’t know Brooke was my mother, and I kept as quiet as I could.”
“Why would you be embarrassed? That poster was a hit. Your mom is beautiful.”
“Yeah, more beautiful than I’ll ever be, but that’s not why it was embarrassing.”
I didn’t agree that Jade wasn’t as beautiful as Brooke. Brooke was model beautiful, but Jade… Jade was stunning, warm, inviting.
“Then why?”
“Well…it’s kind of hard to say…” Her cheeks flushed an adorable pink.
“Come on,” I urged. “Tell me.”
“Well…because pretty much every teenage boy I knew had masturbated to my mom’s hard nipples poking through that blue suit, that’s why.”
I let out a chuckle. Poor girl did have a point. “I’m sure the poster made a lot of money for you.”
“I never saw any of it. Her second husband took most of it and gambled it away. After she divorced him, she came back, wanting to work things out with my father and me. I was around fifteen at the time, and I was having none of it. Neither was my father.”
The pain of loss washed over me. I knew what it felt like to lose a mother. My mother had been great up until… I shook my head to erase the images that tried to sneak in. I was twelve when my mother killed herself. Marjorie didn’t even remember her.
“I see. So it was the classic ‘choosing the career over the family’ kind of thing.”
Jade nodded. “That about sums it up. She was more interested in being Brooke Bailey than she was in being my mom, until she lost everything.”
“What’s she up to now?”
“I haven’t the foggiest, other than she’s broke and botoxed.” Jade took a sip of her tea. “And I don’t care.”
I nodded. What co
uld I say to that? She had every right to feel the way she did.
“I guess I should get back to bed.” She stood.
But I didn’t want her to leave. I enjoyed talking to her. I really didn’t talk to much of anyone other than Marjorie and my brothers. I found myself wanting to talk to Jade, and that had to stop. The more I talked, the more cracks got into my wall. I could not risk my wall coming down. I would die.
So I had to let her go. I couldn’t let her in, as much as I wanted to.
But I stood anyway, went after her, grabbed her, and turned her to face me.
“What is it?” Her eyes were wide.
“This,” I said and slammed my mouth onto hers.
God, the same strawberry-champagne flavor… She returned my kiss, twirling her tongue against mine. My cock stiffened under my lounge pants. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, and I desperately wanted to feel her breasts against me. Still kissing her, I untied her robe and slipped it over her shoulders until it ended up in a silky puddle on the kitchen floor.
Her beautifully full breasts were bound in a white tank top. Such beauty shouldn’t be bound. It should be free. I broke the kiss and looked down. Her dark areolas were visible through the white cotton, her nipples puckered and hard. I cupped one breast in my left hand and kissed her again.
She groaned into my mouth. I felt the vibration more than heard it. My cock was full-on hard now. I desperately wanted to push her down to her knees, force her mouth onto my erection, and make her suck me into oblivion.
Instead, I kept kissing her, thumbing her erect nipple. When she sighed into my mouth, I gave the nipple a little pinch.
She jerked against me but did not stop me. She continued to kiss me, letting her soft, sweet tongue wander into my mouth. I drank from her, quenching a thirst that I hadn’t realized I had. She was so beautiful, so giving, so…everything that I was not. Soft where I was hard.
Whole where I was…broken.
Could she heal me? Could anyone heal all the holes in my soul?
As we kissed, I almost believed that she could.
