by Skye Jordan
But she found herself wishing it looked that way from having her hands fisting and combing and twisting the strands while they made love—something he’d deliberately avoided during their last two full days and nights together.
She scraped her lower lip between her teeth and scanned his body again. The dull ache that lived low in her pelvis sank between her legs and throbbed. God, she hoped he planned on getting in that tub with her and rocking her hard enough to spill water over the sides. Hope he came so hard the sound of his excitement echoed off all the marble and stone.
“El?”
“Huh?” her gaze snapped up to his, and she found him wearing an adorable little smirk.
“You didn’t answer, so I added bubbles.” He shrugged. “You used to love bubbles.”
A languid, sweet pleasure spread through her, one that had become familiar again over the last forty-eight hours. The best forty-eight hours she could remember in years. He’d made her feel so utterly treasured during their time together. So totally wanted, absolutely adored, completely cherished. She’d forgotten the comfort and joy of being so well loved and cared for. Of spending time with someone who understood her better than she understood herself.
But she still didn’t remember what it felt like to have him make love to her because he’d avoided any sexual contact with her since they’d arrived, and the encounters they’d had before had been about lust, not love. And Lord, how she longed to be reminded of how he could make love to her.
“I still love bubbles.” She strolled through the door and paused behind him to run her hands through his hair. It was thick and soft, and she loved the way it curved around her fingers.
He moved the water around with his hand. “It’s hot, but the steam will do your throat good.”
She’d forgotten until these last two days with Troy how much she used to depend on him as her sounding board, her barometer for everything from help with the lyrics in a song to the best business decision. Now, with all her experience in the business and the consultants surrounding her—her agent, her manager, her accountant, her sponsors—she didn’t feel like she needed that gauge anymore, but knowing he cared still felt good.
She reached for the oil on the bathroom counter, the one infused with lavender that she’d been using on his hands to help with healing, and poured some into her palm, then spread it over the skin of his neck and upper back exposed in the scoop of his tank. “And this will do your sore muscles good.”
While he played with the water temperature, Giselle sank her thumbs into the supple muscle of his neck and upper back, slowly kneading the tension away.
He groaned, and she smiled, happy he was letting her do something for him for a change. He’d been determinedly focused on her every need since they’d arrived at the house—her every need barring any sexual need.
She massaged the tension from his neck, starting at the base of his skull and continuing down until he lowered his forehead to his arm where it lay on the edge of the tub.
“God, you are good with your hands.”
She liked the want dripping from his words, and took a break from the massage to pull his tank toward his head.
“No.” He glanced over his shoulder. “This is your time. Get in the bath.”
“It’s not even half-filled yet, and if this is my time, I want to spend it with my hands on you.”
He relented with a groan, lifting his arms enough to let her pull the shirt off. She settled in behind him on her knees, poured more oil on his skin, and relished the warm, smooth, supple feel of him beneath her hands.
“It’s still hard for me to believe I’m touching you.” It was more of a thought than a comment.
He exhaled heavily, and his voice was thick and languid when he said, “Believe me, baby, I’m still waiting for someone to slap me awake from this dream.”
Her heart filled like a balloon and blossomed like a flower at the same time—a sensation she’d had a lot since seeing Troy again. And as she worked her way down his spine, avoiding the bruises he’d gotten during the cave collapse, his groans of pleasure gave her as much gratification as a cheering crowd.
“Your bruises look better,” she said. “All your cuts are healed over.”
He hummed in acknowledgment of the news.
“What do you want to do tonight?” she asked, hoping his answer held the words naked and under the covers and together.
Their first forty-eight hours alone together again after seven years apart had been spent very quietly. They hadn’t left the house other than to walk on the beach. Troy had regulated her talking time to make sure she rested her voice. And in between talks, they’d spent a lot of time kissing, cuddling, feeding each other, listening to music, or watching the waves. But one of Giselle’s favorite pastimes had become watching films Troy had worked on and hearing all his behind-the-scenes tales from his stunt work.
He exhaled a groan. “I can’t think when you’re doing that.”
“I can decide for us, if you want.”
“Why am I sure that will get me into trouble?”
She leaned close and kissed his temple. “Because you know me so well?”
He chuckled. But when he didn’t take the bait, she rolled her eyes and turned back to other topics to keep him talking. “Tell me something else I don’t know about the new Troy Jacobs.”
He groaned as she rubbed out a knot at the base of his neck. “I found my dad a few years ago.”
Surprise snapped in her gut, spreading tingles. Neither of them had known their fathers growing up or ever thought they’d meet them.
She leaned around to look at him. “Seriously?”
He grinned. “Seriously.”
She sat back on her heels and continued rubbing his muscles. “Wow. What’s that like? Is it as cool as we always dreamed it would be?”
The bubbles almost reached his nose, and Troy reached up to turn off the tap. “If you mean the way we always hoped they’d swoop in and fix everything, no, it’s not like that. But, it’s still pretty cool. He’s a good guy. Says he didn’t know about me, that my mom didn’t tell him.”
“Do you believe him?”
“He’s divorced with three other kids, and he goes out of his way to see them, pays child support, remembers their birthdays and all that, even remembers mine now. So, yeah, I think he would have made an effort with me if he’d known.”
Her heart filled with all sorts of giddy feelings. “Oh my God.” She slid her arms around his torso and pressed her chin to his shoulder. “You’ve got siblings?”
He turned his head toward her and covered her hands with one of his. “A brother and two sisters.”
“Holy shit.” She swung around and sat on the floor, her back against the tub, grinning at him. “Troy,” she said, her hands gripping his arm. “You’ve got a family. You’ve got a real family.”
He laughed and cupped her cheek. “Christ, you’re so fucking adorable.”
“I’m so happy for you. It’s what we always dreamed of having.”
“No, honey,” he said softly. “I mean, they’re great people, and yes, they add a lot to my life. But you were what I always dreamed of having. You were always my family.”
Her heart overflowed. She pressed her forehead to his and closed her eyes on the intense pleasure. He tilted his head and kissed her, firmly and sweetly. But instead of taking it further, he pulled her to her feet, took the hem of her tank top in his fingers, and drew it up and off over her head, then reached for the bra clasp between her breasts.
She lifted her gaze to his and held it purposely. Surely this would lead to sex. How long could they stay together alone without it? He wanted it. She felt his erection against her lower body every time he pulled her close, every time she leaned into him, as he’d held her until they’d fallen asleep. But he hadn’t made any move to get it, which left Giselle feeling…awkward and oddly unsure about making the first move.
Her bra fell open, and his gaze lowered to scan
her breasts. The sigh that passed through his lips transitioned into a growl of hunger. Her nipples tightened at the sound, at the way his eyes stroked her skin. But instead of touching her, instead of taking handfuls of her breasts or pulling the sensitive flesh into his mouth, he just tugged on the tie to her shorts and bent to lower them over her hips. Then dropped to his knees to pull her panties down. And as the silk slid down her thighs, desire flooded her sex until she bit her lip to keep from moaning.
“Fuuuuuck.” He drew out the word filled with awe and desire. “You are so ridiculously gorgeous.”
His hands slid up the sides of her thighs, slowly over her hips, pausing at her waist, where his fingers dug into her flesh firmly and drew her forward until his face was buried low in her belly.
Yes, yes, yes. Her eyes fell closed, and a moan ebbed from her throat. He pulled back and pressed kisses from her belly button toward her sex. Her breath caught, fingers tightened in his hair.
But he eased away and pushed to his feet far too soon, leaving Giselle dizzy and confused. Before, he hadn’t been able to do her hard enough, fast enough, or long enough. Now…
This sense of rejection was stupid. Logically, she knew that. Emotionally…
He turned her to face the mountain of bubbles and she huffed a laugh. “I might get lost in there.”
“I’ll find you.” He pushed a mound of fluffy white suds away from the head of the tub and took her hand as she stepped into the giant bath, then sighed as warm water and fragrant bubbles enveloped her.
“Oh my God.” She settled back against the sloped end and stretched out, closing her eyes on a long, pleasure-filled groan. “I didn’t realize how much I needed this.”
The clink of metal brought her eyes open to Troy pulling the handheld showerhead from its holder and flipping a lever on the handle to turn on the water. He used one hand to cover the stitches on her forehead and the other to wield the spray. Giselle closed her eyes and relaxed as he gently massaged shampoo into her hair. Her mind drifted over the things they’d talked about over the last two days, the things they’d avoided talking about—like what would happen when real life hit again—and the tattoo on his shoulder came to mind. The one that flowed across the right side of his chest and onto his shoulder, depicting a ship at sea, and the one he hadn’t wanted to talk about when she’d first seen it last night when he’d taken his shirt off in bed.
“Will you tell me about the tattoo on your chest now?” she asked.
He hesitated, but his voice was soft and open when he said, “What would you like to know?”
“Why a ship?” He’d never shown any interest in boating or the ocean when they’d been together.
“I worked on a fishing vessel for several years,” he said. “It’s sort of commemorative of that time.”
Giselle’s eyes jerked open, and she cut a look at him over her shoulder. Out of everything she’d learned about him over the last forty-eight hours, this was by far the most shocking. “Fishing vessel?” She searched her mind for some sort of reference. “Like that show, what’s it called? Deadliest…something?”
“Deadliest Catch. Sort of.” He pushed on her shoulder. “Relax.” When she sank back into the water, he said, “Most days it felt more like a mix of Deadliest Catch and The Perfect Storm, but that’s a good reference.”
She was having a really hard time picturing him in slickers, working like a slave in torrential rain. “When did you do that?”
“After you left, it took me a while, but I realized there was no reason to stay put.”
With sudden clarity, Giselle realized why he’d been putting off this talk. This was the painful stuff. This was what his life had been like after she and Ryker had gone off to live their dreams, leaving Troy alone to fend for himself.
“One of the guys at work had a brother on a boat in Alaska,” he said, “and he hooked me up.”
When he didn’t go on, she asked, “What’s that like? I mean, is it a day-trip thing? Or a few days at a time?”
“It depends—what you’re fishing for, what season you’re in, who you’re working for, how big the operation is. I needed to stay busy, so I took everything anyone threw my way, no matter how little it paid. Swore there was one year I didn’t touch dry land for more than an hour in nine months.”
Her heart felt heavy. Her eyes burned. He’d needed to stay busy to forget about her. To drown the pain. She knew, because she’d done the same. “Sounds…lonely.”
“It was good for me. Changed my body. Changed my mind. Gave me a work ethic, drive, stamina, business sense, a brotherhood. Honestly,” he sighed, his voice growing soft, “I think it saved my life.”
Giselle’s breath whooshed out like she’d been hit, and an ache developed at the center of her belly.
He picked up the shower nozzle and rinsed the shampoo from her hair. “Those were some dark years. There are periods I don’t even remember. I must have blocked them out. It’s strange to think back on them. I don’t recognize the person I was then—someone different from who I’d been before, different than I am now, almost…I don’t really know how to explain it.”
“Empty,” she said. “Like a shell. Going through the motions of life, meeting your obligations, but numb, because if you felt, the pain might take you under.”
He shut off the spray and fell silent for a moment. She knew he understood she was talking about her own experience, one that mirrored his. He must also have heard the guilt in her voice, because he said, “It’s not your fault, El. You may have walked away, but I pushed you to the door. And I’m a better man for the years between then and now. It wasn’t fun, I’d rather not do it again, but they were pivotal years I wouldn’t give back. That’s why I had the tattoo done, to remember the lessons I learned on those ships. Those were important for you too. Years that you devoted completely to your craft, to your career. And look how far you’ve come.”
But at what cost? What level of success was worth your happiness? Your health? Your sanity? Those were questions that she asked herself with increasing frequency over the last year. Questions she hadn’t been able to answer.
As he massaged conditioner into her hair, she asked about his other tattoo. “And the one on your hip, extending down your thigh?”
“The Terminator tat? That’s just for my love of machinery, gears, how things work.”
“Is that why you got into stunts?” she asked. He’d talked a lot about his work over the last two days, but never about how he’d gotten started.
“No. Stunts came as a fluke. I was deep into my fourth year of fishing, trolling the Pacific for Chinook salmon, when we had engine trouble and had to dock in Los Angeles for repairs. Jax was shooting a stunt at the harbor and needed help rigging a fall. Word spread, and they came to me. Asked if I wanted to give it a shot. I said, sure, what the hell else did I have to do?”
He rinsed the conditioner from her hair. “I spent a couple of days rigging various stages of different stunts for him, and he offered me a job with Renegades. I took it. That’s another one of those meant-to-be stories. Right place at the right time. If I had said no to rigging the stunt because I’d never done it before, I would have missed that opportunity. If I had gone back to what I knew, what was familiar and safe and gotten back on the boat instead of taking a chance on the job with Renegades, I’d still be gutting fish and breaking my back on the open ocean.”
He dropped a kiss to her shoulder and stood. “I’m going to start dinner.”
By the time her mouth dropped open to protest, he was at the door, then gone. And Giselle sat there, staring at the door with frustration mounting as she wondered just what the hell was—or was not—happening between them.
Troy chopped off the tops of three baby carrots, then flipped them around, but had to wipe sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand before he could cut the tips. He set the knife down and tossed the carrots into the bowl along with the snow peas, peppers, watercress, and ginger.
Troy w
iped his hands on a kitchen towel, then reached down and repositioned his erection.
“God damn,” he growled, turning toward the fridge for the steak. He didn’t know how in the hell he was going to sleep holding Giselle again tonight. “Stupid. You’re not going to sleep.” He unrolled the meat from pink butcher paper and dropped it on the cutting block, then grabbed a different knife. He was going to owe Rubi forever. She’d delivered on every promise—the house, the car, the food, the clothes, and the complete privacy. That woman was a magician, a spy, and a confidante all rolled into one fabulous human being.
The buzz of a phone drew his attention to the kitchen island. He moved some grocery bags around and found Giselle’s cell vibrating against the granite with the name Chad lighting up the screen.
Troy clenched his teeth and picked up the phone. Giselle had misplaced it early on, but they’d been so caught up in each other since, she hadn’t been looking for it. And the fact that Chad just couldn’t stop hounding Giselle even after the doctor had told him she needed this time off to heal pissed Troy off.
The phone quieted, but Troy’s temper still burned.
Just as he set the phone down, it chirped with a new text message.
“Fucking A.” He tapped the face and pulled up Chad’s message.
GET. BACK. HERE. NOW.
“What the…?” Troy set the knife down and scrolled through Chad’s previous messages, all unanswered by Giselle. He also found a handful from Brook. His gaze darted to the lower bar showing missed calls and waiting messages, and he swore, then returned his attention to the texts, which started about the time Giselle was in the emergency room.
He skimmed through Chad’s rants over Troy keeping him out of her room and skipped to the ones that had come in later, all of them designed to lure Giselle back to work.
