by Lora Leigh
Her arms tightened around him, her body quickened beneath him, but the words he needed didn’t fall from her lips. Didn’t echo in the air around them, and he knew it wasn’t something he could force from her.
She had given him her love unconditionally once before, and now he was fighting for it. Begging for it.
He moved harder, deeper, snarling with the pleasure and the pain of loving her, taking her. Her cries shattered the stillness of the air as he lunged desperately inside her over and over again. He fucked her with a desperation that would have shocked him had he the sense to pay attention. All he knew was the pleasure, the incredible hunger and the love ripping through him.
As she exploded beneath him again, her pussy rippling and clenching around him, reality darkened. His only pinpoint of light was Jessie as he felt the sizzling warning of his release race up his spine and fill his head.
He thrust harder, his hips pounding against her, his cock stroking furiously inside the melting heat of her pussy until he came apart as well. Driving deeper, fighting to become a part of her forever, he felt his release shatter him. Hard, blinding, his semen shot from his dick, filling her, flooding her with rich, heated seed, searching for that ultimate bond, the dream that had filled him for years.
Jessie.
Chapter Eighteen
“We have a date this evening,” Slade reminded her as she lay in drowsy, sated splendor on the bed after another bout of mind-blowing sex. The man was a walking orgasm. A bone-melting, rocking, incredible orgasm waiting to happen. Her pussy still throbbed from the pounding he had given it, even as it ached with satisfied pleasure.
“We don’t have a date.” She stretched, laziness filling her as her eyes drifted closed and a nice long nap became a major consideration.
The silence that followed her statement wasn’t noticeable to her at first. Her senses were still dazed, her nervous system on overload. There was nothing quite like sex with Slade. It did something to her. Made her drunk or high or maybe sedated? It was better than any drug she had ever heard of. And she guessed, working as she did with some of the more precocious kids at the school, she had heard of most of the current drugs.
Maybe it was adrenaline overload, she thought lazily. Didn’t you fall really fast when you crashed from it?
“Jessie, I’ll be back tonight…”
“…don’t wanna hear it.” She really didn’t. It was like tempting fate. She had been there before, she didn’t like it then and she was going to like it even less as a second dose of disillusionment.
She heard his sigh and ignored that too. She was just too damned boneless to argue right now. Of course, if he wanted to lie down beside her, maybe nap just a little bit before he rushed off to that stupid meeting, she could handle that. They hadn’t talked much, she realized. From the moment he had burst his way back into her life, they hadn’t done much but fuck. It was a helluva way to spend a summer day, but she had to admit, she was beginning to wish for more. Beginning to crave more.
She wanted to spend the night in his arms. Wanted to share dreams, and tell him about the kids at school, the bitch principal from hell. She wanted to hear about his day at work, listen to his dry humor as he recounted his day to her. She wanted more than just the sex and that had the power to piss her off.
As she lay there, she could have sworn she felt a breath of air at her hip, a light caress on the tattoo placed there. A fragile memory flitted through her mind. Midnight, a party raging outside as she slipped into sleep, the feel of Slade’s eyes watching her, his lips at her hip, seconds later his voice at her ear.
Take my heart with you, baby girl. It follows you…always… The sound of his pain, his voice hoarse, ragged, as torn as her soul. As though it had actually happened, rather than a wishful dream, a kernel of hope to keep her heart warm. She was pathetic, she admitted, not for the first time. A walking, talking fool for one man.
She opened her eyes, staring down where he knelt beside the bed, his head raising from her hip. Chills raced up her spine as he stared back at her, his gaze still holding the shadows of a bleak, grief-torn pain.
The words were on the tip of her lips, knowledge fighting to find its way through as she pushed it ruthlessly back. She wouldn’t revisit the past, she swore to herself. She was taking one day at a time with him, one touch at a time. If and when he was gone again, she would survive, knowing she had expected nothing more.
A resigned quirk tugged at his lips. “I’ll never leave you again, Jessie.”
She shook her head, that clenching cold chill racing over her scalp as that memory whispered through her head again.
“No promises, Slade.” She reached up, her fingers brushing over his beard-stubbled jaw as he caught her hand, holding it to his cheek. “I have to survive. No promises.”
He shook his head, weariness filling his expression before he clenched his teeth in irritation. Irritation on Slade’s face amused her. He had a way of lowering his brows, slicing into you with those stormy eyes, and making most people wish they had never crossed paths with him to begin with. It had always made her laugh.
“I’ll be back tonight.” He laid his fingers across her lips as she began to negate the statement. “Tonight, Jessie. Bet on it.”
She wasn’t a betting woman. Not anymore.
He rose, giving her one last, brooding look.
“You’ve carried my heart, all this time. Hell, you owned my soul. Don’t ask me to stop dreaming of you, or to stop asking for tomorrow. Because for five fucking years the hope that came with each tomorrow was all I fucking had left. Remember that.”
He turned and stomped from the bedroom then the apartment as Jessie frowned up at the ceiling.
Take my heart with you, baby girl. It follows you…always…
Shaking away the chill of premonition, she rose from the bed. Forget sleep, she would only dream. Lately, her dreams had been too shadowed, too disturbing to want to face again. The only time she didn’t dream of him was when he held her. The nights were long, restless, her need to feel his warmth against her overwhelming.
She should have demanded answers by now, she thought as she dragged herself to the shower and scrubbed at her body angrily. She should have demanded answers before she ever allowed him to touch her. But she hadn’t. Too stupid to live, she thought with a sigh as she dried and pulled on her bathing suit and wrap. The clear water of the small lake outside the office building pulled at her. Her float was secured in the seat of Jazz’s fishing boat, and the sun was coming up hot and bright. She was going to enjoy it before lesson plans, parent-teacher meetings, and the stress of the school year began. She hadn’t time to worry about Slade or his reasons for anything. She told herself there was no excuse for his actions five years before. If he had loved her, truly loved her, they could have worked through anything.
Stepping from the building, she let a smile tug at her lips as she heard the ducks quacking at the end of the dock. There were dozens of small groups of the cute little fiends that fought for every scrap of food they could find. As she walked across the parking lot, shock soared within her as she saw the small scrap of humanity squatting at the edge of the floating walkway, leaning forward, hands outstretched for one precious feathered baby.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” She began to race along the path, knowing she would never get there in time. Never… “Oh my God. Slade! Jazz. Help me!” She was screaming as the baby toppled into the water, his little head disappearing into the murky depths as she tore her wrap from her shoulders and dived in.
The warm water enclosed her, deep, too fucking deep. And dark. The child’s hair was dark as well, and vision was severely limited beneath the dark waters.
She stretched, kicking her feet, her hands moving frantically before her as she fought to feel for the child’s dark head. He couldn’t have sunk far, she thought irrationally. He couldn’t weigh enough. He was such a little scrap he couldn’t have gone far. But the fall to the water was nearly four feet, it would
have given him enough momentum with the way his body had curled, reaching for that damned duck.
Where are you? she screamed silently, staring through the murky depths desperately. Oh God. Let me find him. Let me find him.
Fighting to push deeper, searching desperately, she could feel the pressure in her chest growing tighter, the need for oxygen consuming her when she caught the faintest glimmer of pale flesh. Reaching out mindlessly, her fingers finally tangled in soft silky hair and pulled as she began kicking for the surface. Securing the child in her arms, she struggled now to save them both. Hard hands grabbed her waist and propelled her through the life-taking depths, causing her to burst to the surface faster than she could have herself.
She broke through the water, gulping in air, the lax little body in her arms terrifying her as she saw Jazz’s pale face reaching for the body. She lifted the boy to him as Slade scrambled to the floating deck, an enraged howl tearing from his throat.
“Cody!” His resounding cry had her turning shocked eyes to where Jazz and Zack were working to expel the water from the baby’s lungs, begging him to breathe.
“Oh God! Cody. Baby! Breathe for Daddy, Cody. Breathe.” Slade bent, blew into the mouth and nostrils, rising as Jazz massaged the tiny chest and Zack checked the pulse in the skinny little arm.
Slade’s face was wet and not just from the plunge he had taken into the water after her. Tears rained from his eyes, filled his voice as he prayed.
As though in slow motion, Jessie watched, her heart bursting in her chest as sobs fought to tear free.
“Oh God! Cody, please…” Slade bent, breathing into the child’s mouth again as Jazz and Zack cursed, screamed.
Suddenly, the little body jerked, convulsed and water streamed from his nose and mouth. A whimpering cry turned into a terror-filled wail for his daddy as Slade jerked him into his arms. Rocking him, his arms surrounded the child as he buried his face in his wet hair.
Slade’s face was white, his body shuddering. Not that she blamed him, the child was a stranger to her and she was shaking, shock and confusion ripping through her mind. She couldn’t believe it. She told herself there was no way she could have suspected it. And yet, the proof was there.
“Daddy has you, Son.” He rubbed at the little boy’s fragile back, his big hands appearing large against such a tiny body. “It’s okay, Son. Daddy has you.”
“Jessie.” Jazz knelt beside her, pushing back at her hair as she stared at Slade and his child. “Are you okay, Jessie? Your cheek is bleeding.”
She reached up, touched her cheek absently. She barely remembered the duck that had been unfortunate enough to be in her way as she dove in after the little boy. But it didn’t hurt. Nothing could hurt enough to still the pain raging in her soul.
Slade’s child.
He was rocking the baby, a tiny scrap of skinny arms and legs that gasped and gripped at the broad shoulders of the man holding him. His daddy.
He whimpered, “Daddy…I just wanted the duckie…” He coughed, strangling on water before his air pipes cleared again. “The duckie, Daddy…” Sobs were muted, the terror fading as his daddy rocked him, clutched him to him, whispering senseless, comforting “daddy” things into his ear.
“Jessie?” Jazz turned her face to him, his deep blue eyes compassionate. “Are you okay, sweet pea?”
She rose shakily to her feet, stumbling away from him, pushing at his hands as he tried to right her.
Slade’s child, and he hadn’t told her. He hadn’t told her when he ran away with Amy, leaving Jessie to grieve, to ache, to pray for a miracle and a child that would ease her pain. He had given that child to Amy instead.
“Jessie.” Jazz’s voice was soft, brimming with understanding. “Come here, girl. Let me make sure you’re okay.”
Let him hold her there until Slade could breathe, could realize what had happened. Let him do as he had done in another fashion, save her for Slade. She shook her head, slapping at his hands as she moved away from him. She jerked her wrap from the deck, pulling it on, feeling the keys that rattled in the pocket.
She held her hand out in denial to Jazz as he reached for her again.
“No.” Her voice was raspy, the tears she held inside smothering her as she moved quickly past them all. “Just…no.”
She had to get away. She had to escape Slade and his buddies, the men who watched out for each other, no matter what. What was the pact? Jazz had told her once. The Three Musketeers thing? She couldn’t remember, but as she raced for her car she didn’t care.
He hadn’t told her. He had left, letting her believe he loved another woman, that she wasn’t mature enough, wasn’t woman enough to hold him. And he had returned, hiding the truth from her, hiding the child from her. Why? Because he didn’t trust her. Because he still saw her as that useless, immature child he obviously thought she was. A good fuck, but not good enough to trust. Not good enough to have his baby, despite his proclamation before.
She jabbed the key into the lock, her hands shaking so hard now it was all she could do to unlock the door. The interior was stifling, almost as smothering as the agony twisted inside her.
The sobs tore from her chest as she locked the door behind her, letting the heated recesses of the vehicle enclose her. She couldn’t… Sob’s ripped through as her vision became cloudy with her tears. What had she done?
Chapter Nineteen
Too stupid to live.
Jessie drove the car without a thought to where she was heading, her heart and her mind a morass of emotions, a shattered cauldron of the past and the present, dreams both broken and barely formed. She couldn’t erase the memory from her mind of Slade’s face as he held that child. Stark white, his eyes so dark they looked smoke-black, tears filling them, the whites bloodshot from the water and his horror.
His two hands had covered the child’s back, it was so small. His chest heaving, strangled breaths filled with tears tearing from his chest as he continued to run his hands over his child’s body, assuring himself he was okay. That no bones were broken. That he was breathing. That he was indeed safe. He was indeed alive.
The love she had glimpsed in Slade’s face had been like a bolt of lightning ripping through her mind, ripping away the excuses she consoled herself with, and making her admit to her own failures, her own immaturity.
“It’s okay, baby, Daddy has you. Daddy will take care of you…Daddy’s got you, baby…”
Daddy. The love Slade felt for that child was clear in his voice, on his face. It twisted his expression into lines of horror and rage as he fought to force the water from the small lungs, begging God, praying for his life.
She didn’t know what to do. Where to go. What to think or to feel.
She couldn’t go to Jazz. The boys’ club was intact, she had learned that the moment she realized Slade had returned. The son of a bitch had given her to Jazz, left another man to watch over her, to protect her as though she were a witless child.
Jazz and Zack were out of the question. Where did that leave her?
Her sisters lived states away and her mother was sunning on the beach in Florida. Where she should be, Jessie thought. She could be lying on the beach, soaking up the rays with no little men’s club in sight. She could have had lovers, real lovers. Men who wanted her because she deserved to be wanted, not because they were a pseudo standin determined to save her nonexistent virtue for the bastard who left her for another woman.
No, not another woman. She knew better. Now.
He had left her for the child. Amy must have been pregnant when he married her, there was no other explanation. Slade would have never left a child of his to be raised by others, no matter what he had to give up for it. He would have sacrificed anything for that baby. And Jessie knew Amy. The other woman had been calculating, manipulative. A true bitch with a mean streak a mile long. Hell, she was just like her cousin, Clarissa, the principal from hell.
Another woman had borne the child Jessie had prayed for. It rip
ped through her, ripped inside her. The baby she had prayed to be carrying five years before, and Amy had borne it instead.
She wiped at the tears falling down her face, hating herself for crying, for hurting. For being so damned shocked. He had loved her. She had known then, just as she knew now. She hadn’t been wrong about the emotion she had seen in Slade’s eyes, in his face. Not then and not now. It was the reason she had given into him so easily when he returned to claim her. It was also the reason she had fought asking him why. Why had he left her? Why hadn’t he explained how he could have loved her and walked away? Because she had known only one thing would force Slade to make such a decision.
He had been raised without a family, without security. Shuttled from one foster home to another nearly all his life, Slade had never known permanence, he had never known security. Zack had told her once that Slade had sworn he would never allow a child of his to live such a life. That he would not let his baby go without his name, or his protection. She had pushed aside the obvious message in what he was saying. She had ignored the lifeline he had thrown to her soul.
Just as she had ignored what her soul had tried to tell her from that first night. Slade wasn’t like most men. His own personal desires or hungers would never dictate to his sense of responsibility or what he knew was right or wrong.
Take my heart with you, baby girl. It follows you…always…
It hadn’t been a dream. That night in Jazz’s RV, she had been certain she was dreaming that Slade touched her, that his voice had flowed around her, broken, filled with regret and love. She hadn’t been dreaming, he had been there, his hands brushing back her hair, his lips caressing the tattoo, then the shell of her ear.
Take care of her, Jazz… His voice had been ragged when he whispered those words.
The scattered words that had made no sense for the past five years now fell into place. She hadn’t been able to make sense of the dream because it hadn’t been a dream. Just as she hadn’t been able to understand why she hadn’t tried to love anyone else. For years she had drifted in this little pocket, staying in the center of Slade’s friends, feeding from the smallest bit of information she heard about him. Her heart leaping when she heard he was coming home, her soul rousing in joy when she saw him again the first time. And through it all, she had refused to understand why he had left.
