by J. E. Taylor
“Was Dan your first?” he asked.
“No, he wasn’t. I didn’t say yes until I was twenty-two and the only reason I did was he had the courtesy to ask instead of just assuming it was his right. I started dating Danny the day after he dumped me. So Danny was sort of a rebound guy.”
“So you married on the rebound?” He raised his eyebrows at her.
“No, I loved Danny.” She tilted her head a little. “But I did marry Tom on the rebound,” she said and the car swerved a little.
He looked over at her. “From Dan?”
Jessica shook her head and watched the change in his face. “I was rebounding from you when I married Tom.”
He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I can’t wait for Friday.”
“Neither can I.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence and eventually Jessica fell into a light sleep.
Chris rolled down the window as he pulled into the garage where his apartment was. The familiar valet walked over to the car, smiling.
“Hi, Mr. Ryan. It’s been a while,” he said looking at the monster Hummer with envy. “I like your new wheels.”
“Thanks, Jason. I still have the ‘vette, but with the two kids, you know.” He shrugged. “I have a ton of stuff in the back and a carload of sleeping people, so I’ll just bring her up if you don’t mind.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out a hundred dollar bill and handed it to Jason.
“I can’t take that, man, I haven’t done anything,” Jason said, putting his hands up in the air.
“By the way, has anyone been asking for me?” Chris asked. He still held the bill in his hand.
“No, no one’s ever come around asking about you. Why?”
“Good. If someone does, you haven’t seen me in years. Okay?” He reached into his wallet and pulled out four more bills. “And you will let me know after they leave.” He handed Jason $500.
“Are you in trouble?” Jason asked, eyeing the money.
Chris shook his head. “No, I’m not in trouble.” He smiled and gently pushed his influence on Jason. “You haven’t seen me in years, deal?” He put the money in Jason’s hand.
Jason looked at the money and back up at Chris. “Yeah man, deal.” He smiled and pocketed the money.
Chris drove up to the top floor of the garage and found his spot, the closest to the elevator, a perk of owning the penthouse. He slid out onto the cool concrete and stretched before he latched his door and crossed to the passenger side. He opened her door and leaned in, kissing her on the lips. “Wake up, babe, we’re here.”
Her eyes fluttered open. “We are here already?”
“Yes.” He helped her out of the car before opening the back door and shaking Eric awake. “Hey, sport. Time to wake up. You too, Emily.”
They rolled out of the car and stood with Jessica while he unhooked the boys. He handed CJ to Eric because he was closest and then he picked up Tommy, ducking carefully as he pulled him out of the car. He closed the door behind him and his gaze traveled over his shell-shocked family. Chris nodded toward the elevator and they moved together, letting him lead the way. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys as they rode the elevator up to the top floor, fumbling for the right key and trying not to wake Tommy. He held open the door to his apartment as they filed in.
“This way,” he whispered to Eric as they headed down the hall to one of the guest rooms. Chris pulled the covers back and lay Tommy on the far side of the bed, turned and took CJ from Eric, tucking him in next to his brother. He pulled the covers up and looked down at the two of them, taking a deep breath. He said a silent prayer to keep them safe and then headed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“I need to get the things out of the car, want to give me a hand?”
“Sure.” Eric followed Chris out of the apartment.
As the elevator doors closed, Chris leaned against the back wall and closed his eyes.
“You didn’t call when they came.” He opened his eyes.
“I was a little busy protecting my family. They wanted Mom’s address up in Maine.”
“Did your father give it to them?”
“No, he said he had no idea where she lived. They made him call the house. They put a gun to his head and when that didn’t work, they put the gun to LeAnn’s head as well. I couldn’t stop it either. Believe me, I tried but I wouldn’t have been able to stop a bullet. I hate feeling helpless like that,” he said. “Then you appeared. What the hell did you do with them?” he asked in awe.
Chris slowly grinned. “Vaporized the mother-fuckers.”
Eric’s eyes went wide.
“Ashes and dust, just like the ones out by the car. They never knew what hit them.” The elevator doors opened and they stepped out.
Chris lifted the back door of the car. “Looks like we are moving in. It’s funny what you’ll throw in a bag when you don’t have a hell of a lot of time, isn’t it?” He handed Eric his sister’s suitcase, the kids’ suitcase and his duffel bag then he grabbed Jessica’s and his bags as well as the garment bags containing the wedding clothes. He closed the hatchback with a thought and locked the car as well, smiling at Eric as he walked by. “Who needs keys?”
Eric was quiet on the ride up. “Do you regret it?” he asked as the elevators opened and they stepped out.
Chris stopped and looked at Eric. “Killing them?”
Eric nodded.
“No,” Chris said without hesitation, keeping eye contact with his soon-to-be stepson. “Does that bother you?”
“Oddly enough, it doesn’t,” Eric answered. “But why are they after her?”
“Sharon Whitman put a contract out on your mother.”
“Why?” Eric asked and Chris opened the door to the apartment.
“Tom left her,” Chris said and headed into the master suite where Chris laid the suitcases on the bed and took the kids’ bag from Eric. “I only have one other room, do you mind sleeping on the couch tonight? I’ll have the kids sleep on the floor for the rest of the stay but I don’t want to disturb them, they’ve had a rough night.”
“Wasn’t that a king size bed in the guest room?” Eric pointed over his shoulder.
Chris nodded.
“There’s enough room for me with the boys in there,” he said.
Chris laughed. “You obviously have never slept in a bed with them. They are small but man can they take up space.”
Eric smiled and nodded. “I’ll brave it with my little brothers.” He dropped his bag in the room and brought Emily’s into the room on the other side of the hall, depositing it onto the bed and then they headed into the living room where Emily and Jessica were talking.
“I still don’t get why she would do that?” Eric asked, resuming the conversation again as he plopped himself in the chair and looked around the apartment. They had never been here before.
Chris exchanged a look with Jessica.
“She’s been blackmailing him since we split,” Jessica said and both Emily and Eric looked over at her.
“How?” they asked in unison.
“With your mother’s life,” Chris said as he walked behind where Jessica was sitting and put his hands on her shoulders.
Darkness crept into Eric’s eyes. “You could kill her right now.”
“All in good time.” He smiled in return and Jessica stiffened under his hands.
Jessica flashed back to a place ten years ago when he had said those same words. All hell broke loose after that and she shivered. He almost died then and she didn’t ever want him that close to death again.
He bent down and whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry about that. Things have changed drastically since then.” He kissed her cheek and looked back at Eric and Emily, straightening his back. “I’m marrying your mother. Then I’ll deal with this situation. In my own way. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a long night.” He kissed Jessica’s cheek and headed to the master bathroom to wash the sweat and sm
ell of death from his skin.
The warm water cascaded over his aching body, loosening the knots that had set ever since the warning call. A cold draft grazed his skin when she opened the shower door and stepped in with him.
“Ty,” she whispered, and ran her hands over his back.
Heat spread from her touch, encompassing him and he turned his head, letting a playful smile surface. “Beg.”
“No.” She smiled and cocked her head. “You beg.”
He chuckled, their game turning, morphing into more fiery foreplay. “You want me to beg?”
“Yes.”
His lips trailed from her earlobe, down the line of her neck. “Please, Jess; please tell me you want me. Please tell me you love me. Please tell me what I need to hear.” Each word, each phrase punctuated with a swipe of his tongue on her skin. He lingered on her breasts, whispering please between each suckle; his hands caressed her skin, making their way between her legs, blazing the trail for his lips.
He licked her pussy and her hand threaded into his hair.
“Oh God,” she breathed and leaned against the tiled wall, wrapping a leg across his back.
“Please cum for me,” he said. “I want to taste you tonight.”
His words, his tone, the pleading in his voice, the sensuous revolutions of his tongue, all combined into the elixir she needed and she cried out with the power of the orgasm gripping her, his mouth slurping the slickness of her pussy mixed with the warm water raining down her body. Tremors flowed through her and she bit her lip, stifling the moan that welled in her chest. “Oh God, Ty!”
His gaze traveled up her body to hers and he smiled, his demeanor taking the dominant role again as he stood, kissing her stomach, chest and neck before his lips found hers. “Beg for me,” he commanded and covered her mouth with a powerful kiss.
She pushed him back against the far side of the shower, the need for him overriding every other emotion inside her. But the game still had to be played out and she panted against him, her tongue twirling with his, her heart pounding, fueled with desire. She stroked his hard cock with her hands and he groaned, squeezing her ass, pulling her closer. Breaking the kiss, she stared into his smoldering eyes and licked her lips. “Please Ty, please, I need you. I want you to make love to me.”
He crushed her mouth with his, squeezing her against him and turning the water off. His lips never once left hers and he picked her up, stepping out of the shower and laid her gently on the bathroom floor, sliding into her with a thrust of his hips.
He pulled away from her lips and shook his head, spraying water all across the room, smiling. “Smoldering yet?”
“Oh yeah.” She grinned up at him. “From the moment I said your name. I swear that’s your instant aphrodisiac.”
“You have absolutely no idea how powerful hearing you say that is.” He slowly arched into her, grinding his hips to hers, and her body responded, shuddering with the strength of another orgasm, her pussy gripping him, the muscles coaxing him closer to his own release. “And you are my aphrodisiac.” He continued his slow pace and leaned down, grazing his lips over hers and laughed softly as he moved his lips to her neckline, running his tongue from her collarbone to her earlobe. “I love you,” he whispered and gently bit her earlobe. “Do you love me?” he asked, grazing her lips and moving to her other earlobe.
“Yes,” she gasped.
“Say it.” He looked into her eyes, the heat level inside him almost unbearable.
“I love you!” The words accompanied another wave and she arched off the floor, her eyes rolling back in her head and her nails digging into his shoulders. “Oh God, I love you!”
He squeezed his eyes closed; coming with such force that Jessica came again on the heels of her dissipating orgasm. Collapsing on her, he whispered in her ear, “I’ll love you for all eternity.” He wrapped his arms around her and rolled so she wouldn’t have to lie on the hard floor any longer.
Jessica propped her chin on her fist and looked at him.
He laid with his head back, one arm wrapped around her and the other out wide on the floor and his eyes were closed. “I am so tired.”
“It’s been a long day,” she whispered and put her head on his chest. The slow strong beat of his heart nearly lulling her to sleep.
“Bed. Hang on,” he said and exercised a different kind of strength. His jaw tightened and eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated and after a moment, his body lifted off the ground with her on top. Her gasp brought a smile to his lips but he didn’t say a word until they safely set down on the bed. “I didn’t want to get up.”
He wrapped both arms around her and turned his head toward the bureau. The drawer opened and a pair of boxers floated to the bed. Chris reached out and took them in his hand. He winked at her and her suitcase opened and a nightgown floated over to her. She sat up on him, raising her arms and laughed as the silk slipped over her skin. She rolled onto her back and he pulled on the boxers without sitting up.
He blew her a kiss and passed out from exhaustion.
* * * *
Jessica curled up in the crook of his arm and did the same. Her last coherent thought was show off’ and then she drifted into the dark void of exhausted sleep.
Jessica woke up in the same position she had fallen asleep and glanced over at the clock. “Holy shit,” she said and sat up straight. It was close to 1:30 in the afternoon. Chris didn’t even stir, he was out cold.
The bedroom door remained closed, which meant the boys hadn’t come in to wake them like usual. She slipped out of bed and opened the closet looking for something in the way of a bathrobe. Finding nothing, she grabbed one of Chris’s chambray shirts and slipped it on over her nightgown, heading out of the bedroom.
Quiet blanketed the apartment, eerie and silent and she opened the guest room where the boys slept. Empty and so was Emily’s room. She crossed through the undisturbed living room and pushed the door to the kitchen open, expecting to find the kids around the table eating lunch. Again, empty and a she turned around, scanning the room again.
Fear snuck under her skin and her heart reacted, throbbing in her throat as she made her way back to the bedroom.
She stopped in the doorway. The neatly made bed and absence of luggage set her heart into overdrive. Chris wasn’t there. No one was.
Panic bit at her heels, she turned, running at that sluggish speed that accompanies nightmares, the entry way elongated to a seeming impossible distance, and she ran, barreling through the front door and stumbling to the elevator.
“Come on, come on, come on.” She shifted from toe to toe impatiently and when the doors whooshed open, she shot inside, stabbing the button for the top garage level.
The doors slid open revealing an empty spot where the Hummer had been and Chris laying face down on the pavement with a knife in his back and his legs crushed to a pulp.
“Ty!” Jessica screamed.
* * * *
Hands shook her. “Jessie!” His voice broke through the veil of sleep and she blinked. Her eyes fluttering open to the dark room.
“You were having a nightmare,” he whispered and she threw her arms around him, still shaking from her dream. “Frank again?”
“No. I woke up and everyone was gone and you, you, you. . .” She couldn’t say it.
“I was what?”
She clung to him like a frightened child. “You were dead.”
“I don’t plan on dying any time soon babe.” He stroked her hair, whispering “Shh,” and rocking her until her tremors subsided.
Jessica glanced at the clock; it was two in the morning. She had only been asleep for two hours and she closed her eyes, snuggling into him and sniffling, wiping the tears away.
“Love you,” he whispered and drifted back to sleep.
The morning came sooner than Jessica wanted and she woke as Tommy climbed into the bed next to her.
“Hi, Mommy,” he whispered.
Chris snored lightly in her ear and he still h
ad his arms wrapped around her.
“Hi, baby.” She smiled at Tommy, the nightmare a distant memory.
“CJ snores like Daddy,” Tommy said and crawled under the covers. He immediately closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep in the protective grasp of his mother.
Jessica glanced over at the clock and it read a little after eight. “Chris?”
“Hmmm?” he mumbled without opening his eyes.
“Do you mind if I go for a jog?”
Chris opened his eyes and glanced at Jessica and Tommy beyond her. “I think it’s safe, especially if you’re all bundled up,” he whispered with a voice scratchy from sleep.
Jessica slid her arm from underneath her son and slipped out of Chris’s grip, giving him a little peck on the cheek. She rummaged through her suitcase, hoping she hadn’t forgotten exercise clothes in the mayhem of packing last night and was pleased to see that her brain had been functioning after all. She slid on a pair of silk long johns and a matching top and then pulled on a pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt and headed into the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back in a ponytail. As she went back into the bedroom, she debated on a winter hat and decided in the interest of security to put one on as well as pair of light gloves. She slid her jogging shoes on and walked over to the side of the bed, looking down at Chris and Tommy who were now both sound asleep. She leaned over and kissed his lips anyway and quietly left the apartment.
Chapter 21
Jessica slid her sunglasses on and slipped her earphones in as she walked out of the lobby and crossed the road to enter Central Park. She switched her music player on and began running slowly through the jogging paths thinking about everything that had happened last night. She didn’t notice the shadow jogging behind her until his hand landed on her shoulder. Jessica reacted quickly and violently, knocking him down with a spin kick that Chris taught her.
“Jess!”
His familiar voice stopped her in her tracks and she spun around, watching as Tom stood, holding his ribs and staring warily at her. He picked up his baseball cap and slid it back on backward, like he always did when they were married. “Hell of a spin kick you got there.”
