‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘Come on over here…’
Jack lifted his arms away from his bare, scarred body, welcoming me in closer to his toned torso. He wanted me in his arms, and suddenly I realised that that was exactly where I wanted to be.
I shifted closer to him, moving towards his warm, uncovered torso until I felt his arms wrap around my petite, slender body without hesitation. I rested my head on his warm chest, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath my hands as I relaxed myself against him.
‘Jack?’ I said, without looking up at him.
‘Yeah?’
‘… I’m so sorry.’
He didn’t say anything back; but he held me tighter and more securely, my mind calming to the sensation of his chest rising and falling with each of his deep breaths.
And then I was lost to sleep.
Chapter Nine
Falling asleep in Jack’s arms, my mind was cast only on being there with him and nothing else… So I didn’t anticipate being awoken in the same way I usually woke up, with the intruding memory, the one that I hated most…
It was stifling, a crushing weight coming down on me. I felt unable to breathe, unable to pull myself out of it. I tossed and turned, my head thrashing from side to side until I sat up quickly, my body jerking as I gasped for breath. I tore away from Jack’s arms, still wrapped around me in the way we had fallen asleep last night.
I breathed deeply, hearing Jack do the same as he shifted behind me, sitting up next to me.
‘Emma? Are you okay?’
He placed his hands on my shoulders, my body suddenly feeling calmer at his touch as I rested against him, leaning back into his arms. We relaxed back into the bed, lying by each other.
‘I’m fine,’ I lied, blinking up at the ceiling before directing my eyes to him. We had fallen asleep in our clothes, and my hair was likely all over the place – but it didn’t bother me.
‘Okay… So do you want to really tell me what’s up or just leave it?’
‘How do you do that?’ I smirked.
‘Do what?’
‘Read people that easily.’
‘I guess I have a knack for it. Often gave me the edge when it came to meetings with the company.’
I sighed deeply.
‘It doesn’t matter… After everything you told me last night I don’t feel like I should speak about myself right now…’
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘Look… I know I told you some things that might have been a little tough… But that doesn’t mean you can’t talk about something if you want to.’
I looked up at Jack, cradled in his arms, embroiled in the notion of voicing my nightmares to him… The one’s both in real life and in my dreams.
I paused for a moment, dwelling on it…
‘I didn’t grow up in New York. I live there now, but when originally, when I was a kid, I grew up in North Dakota. Me, my mom and dad, my brother, Robbie, who works in Europe… And my sister, Maria. We moved when I was 13 because I… Well, I had some opportunities, and my parents wanted me to have them.
‘I don’t remember a whole lot from back then, but one thing I always think back to were the winter’s. They were cold, and I mean really cold. And where we lived there wasn’t a whole lot to do aside from walk around and explore.
‘One day Robbie was sick, so Maria and I went out by ourselves. There was a dock behind our house and it gave onto a lake, smaller than the one here but… It could still take you under. I’ve thought about that day a lot and I feel like I remember it a hundred different ways… But there are some details that I remember distinctly. My dad was stood by the back porch, shovelling snow. He told us to keep away from the edge of the dock, but we didn’t really know how dangerous it was…
‘We were just playing, and then… Whatever we were doing before, I can’t remember. Just the rush of cold water as we both went under. We were holding hands, and we fell into the water together. It was freezing, maybe even colder than that. It felt like my body was shutting down the moment I went under. I don’t know how long I was under, and I knew Maria was by my side… She was struggling like crazy, I kept feeling her hands lunging out for me…
‘And then suddenly I was out of the water, on the dock, the cold air hitting me hard. My dad had grabbed me, I was the first thing that he got a hold of… But he never got Maria.’
Jack stared at me in disbelief, looking my face up and down as he held me.
‘They found her eventually… The months and years after that were terrible. Now they seem like a single memory, all rolled into one. Things that happened a long way back often feel like they were rushed.
‘Ever since then… I feel like I’m living as myself, and as somebody else. Like I’m living for her, too. I guess that’s why I work so hard, so I can make up for everything Maria never got to do…’
***
‘It was nice seeing you again,’ I said, standing on the front porch of Jack’s house as he stood in the doorway.
‘It was nice seeing you too,’ he said, ‘You sure you don’t need walking back?’
‘No, it’s okay…’
We stared at each other for a moment, like we had done countless time over the past few days… But this time was different.
Jack looked back and forth between my eyes, a captivated look on his face, before taking a step out of his door, his chiselled body barefoot, dressed in nothing but a pair of jeans. He wrapped his arms around me, sliding a hand up to my cheek before looking at me once more with utter intensity. My heart raced, not a hint of reluctance in my mind as he brought his lips to mine, the warm, soft press of him against me sending jolts of pleasure through my nerves.
And I just let myself go completely in his arms, the cold morning air around me and the rest of the world disappearing completely. I couldn’t even begin to feel how safe, how warm I felt in his strong, reassuring arms, his lips pressed against mine and his stubble lightly scratching my skin in the most pleasing of ways.
Jack slowly dragged his lips away from mine, I remaining with my eyes shut, finding myself lusting after another kiss, to be back there with him until I opened my eyes again.
‘I’ve gotta get going,’ he smiled, pulling his arms away from now, his voice seeming deeper and more domineering than ever.
‘Oh… Okay,’ I nodded, stepping away from the porch. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Bye,’ he smiled once more, keeping his eyes on mine as he shut the door and disappeared out of view.
***
I shut the front door behind me, leaning against it, feeling like sinking down against it like some clichéd character on a rom-com. I heard hysterical laughter from upstairs abruptly coming to a halt – no way did Casey have Rory back here again… That girl, seriously.
A few moments later she came downstairs wrapped up in a bedsheet.
‘Again?’ She asked.
‘Don’t again me,’ I laughed, ‘What about you?’
‘Yeah, but-’
Whatever Casey’s excuse was, she didn’t have time to explain it. A knock came at the door, causing me to look from the door back to her. Both of us were as confused as the other.
I passed over to the door, opened it – and it was none other than Jack.
‘Hey,’ he smiled, ‘hi…’
‘Hi,’ I said sceptically, ‘Did you forget something?’
‘No, I just, uhh…’ He said, running a hand through his dark hair before running his palm across his jawline. ‘Well, sort of… I was just wondering if you wanted to come out on the lake with me, if you wanted to go rowing?’
‘Oh…’ I said, looking him up and down, ‘Yeah, sure. When?’
‘Like…’ Jack looked at his watch, and then back at me, ‘Fifteen minutes?’
I opened my eyes wide, looking him up and down again, trying to figure if he was kidding… But he wasn’t.
I looked over my shoulder at Casey who was out of sight of the door. She winked at me and nodded frantically, either to get me ou
t of the house so she could go back upstairs with Rory or because she actually wanted me to. Or both.
Either way, my answer was going to be the same.
Chapter Ten
Half an hour later and I was stood at the end of the dock, watching Jack approach quickly in one of the long rowing boats that had been tied to the end of his dock out the back of his house. My heart was fluttering at the prospect, his muscular back working tirelessly as he worked the oars back and forth in each hand, finally reaching the dock. He slowed himself to a stop, leaning out his hand to slow himself by gripping the wooden panels I stood on.
‘Don’t you have to be at work?’ I smiled.
‘Well, it kind of works out when you own the company.’
I laughed at his tongue in cheek comment.
‘Yeah, yeah…’ I replied, ‘So how do I get in this thing without it tipping both of us out and making me look like a complete moron?’
‘Just watch your step,’ Jack laughed, ‘And you’ll be fine.’
I took his word for it, kneeling down and stepping sheepishly into the wooden flooring of the boat, feeling it shake a little as my heart skipped a beat and I finally decided to just go for it, stepping in with the other foot too and sitting down, feeling pretty safe.
‘That wasn’t too bad,’ I smiled.
‘Good, I’m glad.’
Jack winked at me and pushed us from the dock with a single, hard push, his ridiculous strength sending us coiling around and towards the open lake. I sat at one end, embracing the day, facing forward as we moved further and further into the calm cool water. Jack continued to row, breaking into a smooth, paced rhythm as he worked his arms back and forth, crossing the surface of the water.
It was a bright morning, the sky clear and the day perfect… And here I was with Jack.
‘Little bit of an impromptu invitation, wasn’t it?’ I smiled over at Jack, tilting my head at him.
‘Well,’ he said, slowing his rhythm, ‘If I hadn’t invited you it would’ve just been me out here by myself.’
‘You would’ve come anyway?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, his dark eyes pulling away from mine as he looked about the lake, ‘I guess it’s the same idea as the fighting… ‘Clears my head, let’s me think about other things.’
‘You mean…’ I started, not knowing if I should have gone along this route, ‘What we talked about last night…?’
Jack paused, nodding and beginning to work his arms a little harder. ‘Yeah. Basically.’
I looked away from him, my mind fleeting back to everything we had spoken about last night, everything we had discussed this morning.
‘I’ve always liked lakes,’ I said. ‘I know after what I told you this morning… I know that that doesn’t make sense. That I should hate them. But I guess it reminds me of the better times we had together. With the family.’
‘That makes perfect sense,’ Jack said, nodding at me.
I looked over at him and he at me, my heart suddenly open with sympathy for him. There was a foreign closeness that I couldn’t pin down, something so unfamiliar… And then I couldn’t keep it from him any longer.
Not all of it, anyway.
‘Jack… Look, there’s something I have to tell you.’
***
‘So now I’m out here for… For a little peace and quiet, I guess.’
We had stopped in the middle of the lake, Jack having dropped the oars in their holsters the moment I had dropped the news on him about who I was. And now we were floating here in the middle of the lake, sat back in the rowing boat on either side, facing each other.
‘I… Uhh…’ Jack said quietly, taking a breath and looking about the lake. ‘You’re playing a prank on me, aren’t you?’
‘No,’ I said bluntly, ‘It’s the truth, I swear to you.’
‘Well… I didn’t expect you to tell me that,’ he laughed, running a hand through his dark hair. ‘I thought what I told you last night about my work before I came here would have been a shock, but… It looks like you’ve outdone me completely.’
‘I just…’ I laughed, ‘I just wanted to be honest with you about who I am… It doesn’t really make sense for me to be so general about it. But in a way I’m glad that I didn’t say anything from the offset, if you’ll forgive me for not telling you?’
‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ Jack said, ‘But why wouldn’t you tell me?’
‘I don’t know…’ I said, ‘I guess… I guess it was kind of nice to be able to speak to somebody like a normal person, rather than having them treat me like I’m some sort of concept, or an idea or something. This way I could be a person… It just so happened that the one person I hung out with in that way turned out to be somebody who I’ve connected with faster and better than anybody I’ve ever met…’
I don’t know what made me say that… Maybe because it was just me and him out here in the lake in a little boat on this beautiful day, with hundreds of yards of water separating us from the rest of the world… But the moment I had finished speaking our eyes met again, and Jack looked across at me and smiled.
‘Well… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the same way,’ he said. ‘I’ve never actually told anybody about… About what I said last night. Not since I got here.’
I didn’t know what to say back to him… All I wanted was to rest in that moment, as we revelled in the quiet serenity of our surroundings, focused on nothing but each other. And we did, for minutes on end, neither of us speaking, both of us shifting our gazes from each other to the scenes around us and then back to each other. Until Jack finally said-
‘D’you wanna head back to the house?’
I smiled over at him.
‘I’d like that,’ I said, nodding.
***
We made our way through the back door of the house, rain clouds having begun to form just as the boat pulled into the dock.
‘Good timing,’ I said.
‘Definitely.’
I followed Jack as he made his way across the room, before he went up the stairs. I stopped at the bottom for a moment before following him up, knowing what I had in mind but knowing if that was on his mind.
When I reached the corridor on the upper floor of the house, Jack stood outside his bedroom door, waiting for me. I crossed to him, stopping before him as he turned to face me.
‘Emma, can I ask you something?’
I looked over at him sceptically, wondering what would possibly warrant such an introduction.
‘Sure.’
‘Why are you here? Like… I know that you came to Watertown to get away from the craziness of your life, but why are you here? I mean… In this house, with me?’
I looked Jack up and down, before my eyes returned to his.
‘D’you want the honest answer?’ I asked, feeling my breathing flutter.
‘Yeah.’
‘There…’ I started, my heart racing as I felt myself about to say the words. ‘Because there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be right now.’
That moment seemed to slow down as we stood there, I looking up at his endearingly handsome face, the top buttons of his lumberjack shirt undone, exposing his toned, dark chest as it rose and fell with anticipation. I returned my eyes to his, and the look of desire he gave me struck me harder and more passionately than I felt I ever had been.
And then… We just let ourselves go completely.
Jack moved towards me more quickly than he had before, wrapping his arms around me and bringing his lips to mine. He kissed more passionately than I ever had been, his lips pressing against mine as I rested my hands against his warm, muscular body, feeling him tense and relax beneath my touch.
My heart fluttered wildly as he moved his hands over my body, caressing my curves, his touch alone sending my wild as he ran his hands up to my shoulders, pulling away my jacket and letting it fall to the floor around my ankles.
I didn’t care; he was the only thing that I wanted right now.
I could have made a move into the bedroom, but Jack was in charge and besides, he was already way ahead of me.
As our tongues found each other, teasing and lashing against each other with warm wetness, he manoeuvred us effortlessly into the bedroom, opening the door and shuffling us into the room as we continued to kiss with relentless passion. I ran my hands up to the top of his shirt, finding the top button and undoing it before my hands descended to the next, desperate to pull that shirt away from him as his hands glided across my body...
But I didn’t get the chance to do it myself – just as I undid the final button, my hands seconds away from gripping the edges of his shirt and dragging it away from his body, he took my wrists in his hands and pulled me from him.
I smiled uncontrollably between our kisses as he pulled my close to him again, my body pushing against his as he ran his hands to the bottom of my shirt and took the edges tightly in his fingers, pulling it up over my body expertly as I raised my arms and let him pull it away from me, throwing it aside.
He brought his hands behind my back, the slight roughness of them against my skin sending waves of pleasure through me as I wrapped my arms around his neck, pushing my lips against his. He found the strap of my bra, with a single deft movement nipping the material and releasing it. I shrugged out of it quickly, letting it fall away as I shrugged out of it.
Effortlessly and without warning, Jack ran his hands down to my behind, grasping my cheeks tightly and lifting me from the floor as I gripped his body tightly, holding onto him. My breathing accentuated as I felt my naked chest push against his, feeling how truly in control he was in the craziness of all of this – and how turned I was getting because of it.
Jack stepped to the edge of the bed, steadily lowering me down onto the sheets with his incredible strength. From the bed I looked up at his figure towering above me, his eyes gazing at mine as he slowly removed his unbuttoned shirt, throwing it aside and revealing his toned, irresistible body once again – something I never tired of.
My heart raced, my chest heaving with exasperated, lustrous breaths as Jack moved atop me, running his fingers into the waist of my jeans before dragging them down across my legs, pulling them away from my feet, taking my socks with them…
Runaway Page 7
