Can't Forget You

by Rachel Lacey

  “No.” She laughed softly. “But I’m the owner, and I also happen to know the cleaning crew will be here later tonight to scrub all these tubs out thoroughly so, if there were ever a time to break the rules, it’s right now.”

  He reached over and lifted her into his lap. She settled against him, her skin hot from the tub, her lips demanding as they met his. They kissed, touching and teasing as the tub swirled around them, steady and hot like the need pulsing in his veins.

  “I can’t seem to get enough of you,” she whispered against his lips.

  “That makes two of us.” He thrust his tongue against hers. It wasn’t enough. Never enough. He’d settled her sideways across his lap because of her knee, but their current position kept them from going any further.

  Jess shifted, swinging one leg around to straddle him, bringing their bodies into alignment just right, but…

  “Your knee,” he said, because right now she was basically kneeling on stone, and that wouldn’t do.

  “It’s fine.” She pressed her hips against his cock, reminding him that it would take only one thrust to be inside her.

  “Hang on. Let’s find a position that’s better for your knee.” He tested the water around them. The center of the tub was too shallow for him to stand with her in his arms, but too deep for him to sit or kneel without submerging Jess.

  “Mark,” she whimpered.

  “Don’t worry, babe. I can be creative when I need to be.”

  “Then be creative now.” She rocked her hips against his.

  “Working on it.” He spun them so that Jess was seated on the underwater ledge and knelt between her legs. Awkward, but fuck yeah, he could make this work. He reached behind her for his jeans, fishing out the condom he’d taken to carrying in his wallet.

  “Hurry.” She wiggled beneath him.

  He sat back and rolled on the condom and then positioned himself against her. The feel of Jess’s heat, combined with the heat of the tub…his dick was already pulsing so hard he could hardly hold himself back.

  He filled her with one long, slow stroke. Jess moaned, her body gripping him, urging him on. His feet slipped on the bottom of the tub, and then he was floating, anchored only by his dick, nestled balls-deep inside her. He placed his hands on the underwater ledge, one on either side of her. “This is me being creative,” he said through gritted teeth as he hovered above her.

  “You work well outside the box,” she murmured, lifting her hips to take him even deeper.

  Necessary trait in his line of work. He pumped his hips, thrusting inside her as the water buffered him, raising the temperature in his blood from hot to molten. Unable to find purchase against the smooth bottom of the pool, he balanced on his hands, kicking out with his feet with each thrust of his cock into her body.

  He felt like some kind of aquatic superhero because each stroke felt so fucking good. Jess moaned beneath him, the look on her face letting him know she was as far gone as he was.

  “No holding back,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around him to draw him in closer.

  Oh, he wasn’t holding anything back. Not anymore. He moved inside her, as hard and fast as the water around them would allow. Jess had freed him of his constraints, let him see the beauty of losing control. Now that he knew what it felt like to let himself go inside her, he could never hold back.

  He moved faster, deeper, harder, kissing her as the need inside him roared like a hungry beast, searing through his veins, burning deep inside him with a pleasure that bordered on pain. Jess gripped his ass, hauling him even deeper.

  “Now, Mark, oh!” Her body clamped down on him as she came.

  He kept moving, urging her on as he felt the tingling at the base of his spine that signaled the start of his own orgasm.

  “Yes,” Jess panted as she writhed beneath him.

  Release tore through him in a series of blazing hot waves. He ground himself against her as they both lost themselves in their pleasure, clinging to each other and moving frantically.

  Finally, she flung her head back, a blissed-out expression on her face. “Every time, I think it can’t possibly get better, and then it does.”

  “Yeah.” He dropped his head to hers, panting for breath as his dick still pulsed inside her.

  “Mark…” She tightened her arms around him. Tears streaked her cheeks.

  He froze as fear dropped like a bucket of ice water over him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She smiled through her tears. “Just the opposite, really. It’s so good, it’s almost too good. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah, it does.” He felt it too. This thing between them had grown so big so fast; it was fucking terrifying when he stopped to think about it.

  She looked straight into his eyes. “Promise me you won’t run this time, Mark. Whatever happens between us, we’ll face it together.”

  He braced himself above her, his dick still buried inside her, his heart bursting with all the emotions charging through him. “I promise.”

  “If something’s going on in your life, whatever it is, you need to talk to me about it. That’s what people do in relationships, Mark. I don’t care what it is or how hard it is to talk about. You can’t shut me out this time. Promise me you’ll never do that to me again.”

  Is that what he’d done? He pulled out and flipped them, settling her back in his lap. “I never meant to make you feel that way, Jess.”

  Fresh tears streaked her cheeks. “I know you didn’t. I know that.”

  “I’m sorry.” He bent his head, inhaling the scent of her hair. She smelled like some kind of flowery shampoo and incense.

  “Don’t be sorry. You were a kid. I was a kid. But we’re adults now, and I’m telling you, because I know you don’t have a lot of experience with relationships. This…you and me…we’re in a relationship now, Mark. And that means we’re part of each other’s lives. If something’s going wrong between us, you need to let me know. Talk to me so we can try to work it out. And if we can’t work it out, if it’s time to call it quits, we talk about that too. Okay?”

  He nodded as he wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I promise you, Jess.”

  “Good.” She kissed him again. “Because you mean a lot to me, and this thing between us is more than just sex. You know that, right?”

  “It was never just sex.” He tightened his arms around her. “Not for me. You’ve always been so much more important to me than that.”

  “I’m not naïve. I know we’re going to hit some bumps, maybe even huge bumps, but I don’t want to hide our relationship anymore. I want to make you a full-time part of my life, which means reintroducing you to my family, for one thing.”

  “Okay.”

  “Nicole and Bren are totally on board with this, by the way. And my parents will come around too.”

  “If you say so.” He couldn’t blame them if they didn’t. If he put himself in their shoes, he’d want to kick his own ass too.

  “They will.” She snuggled closer in his arms.

  His heart thumped against his ribs. This was a big deal, a huge step in their relationship. It was what he’d wanted, what he’d always wanted. A second chance with Jess. He still wasn’t sure he deserved it, and he was terrified he’d somehow manage to fuck it up anyway, but he was going to do his goddamn best not to.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I have the results of your blood work. Please give my office a call at your earliest possible convenience.”

  Jessica replayed the message from her doctor as fear ping-ponged around inside her. Was that a routine message or did it mean they’d found something? She’d already called and left a message, but as she was booked solid with clients all day, she and her doctor had been playing phone tag.

  Which left Jessica a nervous wreck. A headache grew behind her eyes, and her left knee was still swollen and sore, not to mention the fatigue that constantly pressed over her, slowly smothering her with its pressure.

  By five o’clo
ck, she was about to jump out of her skin as she dialed Dr. Rimmel’s line again. This time, the receptionist put her on hold, and a moment later the doctor’s voice came over the line.

  “Glad I finally caught you,” Dr. Rimmel said.

  “Yes.” Jessica blew out a breath as her heart pounded and sweat slicked her palms. “This feels like more than a call to let me know the blood work didn’t turn up anything new.”

  “You’re right,” Dr. Rimmel said. “I ran a few extra tests on a hunch, and one of them came back positive. You have Lyme disease, Jessica.”

  “Lyme disease,” she repeated, sagging back in her chair. “Is that…is that good news or bad news?”

  “Well, it’s hard to say. The good news is that we have a diagnosis, and we can begin treatment right away. I’ll need you to come into the office to go over all the details, and we’ll start you on a round of antibiotics to treat the infection. The bad news is that, as is often the case with Lyme disease because it’s so hard to diagnose, yours has gone untreated for several months. The infection has likely spread throughout your system, which means it won’t respond as well to treatment now as it would have if we’d begun antibiotics when you were first infected.”

  Jessica took a slow, deep breath and blew it out. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I want to run a few more tests when I get you back in here, try and see what we’re working with. Lyme disease is one of these Pandora’s box conditions. It can cause a wide variety of problems. You might be completely cured after your first round of antibiotics, or you may struggle with your current symptoms and even new, more serious symptoms for months or even years to come.”

  And that didn’t sound like good news to Jessica. Not at all.

  * * *

  “Lyme disease?” Mark pulled her into his arms and held her tight. Jess had showed up at Off-the-Grid a few minutes ago, her eyes wide and haunted.

  She nodded against his chest. “I did a little research on my laptop after I got off the phone with my doctor, and I don’t think I ever had the flu. I think that was the initial Lyme infection, which means I probably got bitten by a tick sometime in September, maybe even as far back as August. I never got a rash. You always think of the bull’s-eye rash with Lyme disease, but I guess it’s pretty common not to get the rash too. I didn’t know.”

  This was what had been nagging at him in the back of his mind since he’d made the connection with her knee last week. “And your knee. That was joint pain from the Lyme disease?”

  “Yes.”

  “God, Jess, I’m sorry.” He held her tight as emotions battled inside him. Relief that she had a diagnosis, a real diagnosis, and fear that she still had a long road ahead of her. “Whatever happens, we’ll face it together. I am right here with you, every step of the way.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  They stood like that for a long time, holding on to each other as if their lives depended on it. He felt a surge of protectiveness so strong it almost swallowed him whole. He’d do anything for Jess, absolutely anything.

  Finally, she pulled back and looked at him. “The antibiotics they’re going to put me on are supposed to be pretty brutal, and I don’t have any guarantee that I’ll feel better once they’re finished. I might be sick for a while. I might get even sicker than I am now.”

  What was she saying? “If you think any of that changes the way I feel about you or the promises I made to you last night in that hot tub—”

  “No, I know it doesn’t. And thank you for that.” She pressed her lips to his. “But the land…what if I’m in over my head taking on a spa expansion right now? Maybe I should just have you guys buy me out before things go any further.”

  He was already shaking his head before she’d even finished speaking. “No. Don’t give up on your dreams because life’s thrown you a curveball. We’ll help you, Jess. Whatever you need. Ethan and I are good with our hands. We can help out, keep your construction costs down. And if you need us to cover mortgage payments for a few months until you’re back on your feet, you can pay us back once your new spa’s up and running.”

  “I can’t ask you guys to do that,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek.

  “Jess, we’d do it for any business partner, but especially you.”

  She pulled away, shaking her head. “I just don’t know what to think right now.”

  “Which is why you shouldn’t make any rash decisions. You’ve been managing the expansion on top of your illness just fine up until now.”

  “It’s just…I watched my parents go into debt after a bad investment. They had to take out a second mortgage on the house and max out their credit cards to make ends meet. It took them years to dig their way back out of debt. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

  “It won’t.” He drew her in and held her close. “You can do this. And if you need a helping hand, you can count on us to back you up.”

  * * *

  Jessica chugged a glass of water laced with probiotics and then slumped back against the kitchen counter. She’d started treatment last week, and it was taking its toll. Now, on top of the aches, pains, and fatigue caused by the Lyme disease, she also felt nauseous from the antibiotics. And she was about to bring Mark over for Thanksgiving dinner at her parents’ house.

  Not quite “meet the parents,” but it would be the first time he’d seen her parents since Jessica and Mark were teenagers. And they might not welcome him with open arms. Her mom had been lukewarm at best when Jessica filled her in about her relationship with Mark. Her dad hadn’t had anything at all to say on the subject. He was a lot like Mark in some ways. They were both men of few words, both Army veterans.

  Surely Mark could win him over, and her mother too. Her parents were reasonable people. Once they’d spent some time with him, they would see what Jessica saw: a good, honorable man who screwed up when he was a teenager but had more than made up for it since.

  But what if they didn’t?

  There was a knock at the door. She put her empty glass in the sink and walked to answer it. Mark stood there in jeans and a blue Henley shirt, and if she didn’t know better, she could swear he actually looked nervous. She pulled him in for a kiss. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.” He wrapped his arms around her as he kissed her back.

  “You ready for this?” she asked.

  “I haven’t been to a family dinner since…well, since the last time your parents had me over for dinner.”

  “That’s a long time.” It made her unspeakably sad that he hadn’t sat around the dinner table with a family—any family—in over ten years. No wonder he had trouble sharing himself with her. He’d been on his own for so very long. She honestly couldn’t even imagine what that was like.

  The thought of going through life, especially all the crap she’d been through the last few months, without her family behind her, supporting her? It made her want to wrap her arms around Mark and never let him go.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  She walked to the kitchen for the apple pie she’d baked earlier and then grabbed her purse from the table beside the door.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked as they walked to his SUV.

  “Tired. Gross. Same old.” She scrunched up her nose. She was as tired of feeling this way as she was of answering questions about how she felt.

  “I read a few articles online. You know some people go years before they get diagnosed? Yours was only a few months. I think there’s a good chance that you’ll be feeling much better by the time you finish these antibiotics.”

  He’d researched Lyme disease online for her? She was so screwed where he was concerned. Yep, she was totally done for. “I hope so.”

  “And I still think you should get started on the spa expansion. We’ll back you up if you need it, and if you are still feeling lousy for a while, don’t you think it would be better to have this project to keep your mind off things? By the time the cabins are finished, you shoul
d be as good as new and ready to jump in full force.”

  “But Mark…I may not ever be as good as new,” she said quietly. Because she’d done her research too, and there was a lot that doctors still didn’t understand about treating and curing Lyme disease. Chronic Lyme disease was a thing, and it could affect people for the rest of their lives. There could be complications—serious complications—with her heart, her immune system…the possibilities were endless, and overwhelming.

  “I know that.” He reached over and took her hand. “And I’m here with you, no matter what.”

  “Thank you.” She tried not to read too much into his words, but still, it made everything less scary having him at her side. “It feels good to have a diagnosis though. No more wondering. The not knowing was driving me crazy.”

  He smiled. “It was driving me crazy too.”

  He turned into her parents’ driveway, pulling in behind Brennan’s car.

  Jessica sucked in a breath. Okay, even she was a little bit nervous about the evening ahead. “Let’s do this.”

  He nodded as he shut off the engine and stepped out of the SUV. She picked up her pie and followed him out. He walked around the front to meet her, taking her hand in his as they walked toward the front door together.

  Her mom pulled it open as they reached the front porch. “There you are! How are you feeling? Are the antibiotics making you sick? Let me get you inside and have a good look at you.”

  “Oh boy,” she muttered under her breath.

  Mark gave her hand a squeeze.

  “I’m okay, Mom. Taking lots of probiotics like you suggested. It’s not so bad.”

  “I know, it’s just…I worry.” Her mother gestured them inside. “Mark, it’s good to see you again.”

  “You too, ma’am. Thank you for the invitation.”

  Her mother gave him a startled look. While Mark had always been polite, and especially in her parents’ presence, he hadn’t picked up the “ma’am” and “sir” habit until he joined the military. In high school, he’d called her parents Mr. and Mrs. Flynn.

  “Please call me Paula,” her mom told him.