by Ann, Jewel E
Heavy eyelids blinked with lethargy. “No. It doesn’t.”
“So you don’t care who I am and what I know?”
The ugly bitch wasn’t worth the effort for Jillian to open her eyes again, so she rolled her head against the wall from side to side. “You’re a psycho bitch and you don’t know shit. Fucking hell!”
Ice water drenched her body, sending her heart into her throat and making it impossible to breathe.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
She had Jillian’s attention—a death glare to both her wretched face and the empty five-gallon bucket in her hands. Pure rage burned off the chilling effects of psycho bitch’s favorite form of torture.
“So what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you keep your husband from fucking other women? You have to take too many breaks during sex to suck on your inhaler? You don’t give good head? Or is it just that you’re ugly as fuck from the inside out and there’s just no cure for that?”
Taking a seat again, she looked over at her inhaler. Jillian grinned. She’d rattled her, but taking a puff of it would make her feel weak. Jillian sensed her conflict. Instead, she twisted the lid off her bottled water and took a long swig, buying time to calm her nerves before sharing what would surely be a revealing comeback.
“When Luke joins us, are you going to give him the play-by-play of how you fucked Sargent Monaghan?” She laughed, delighting in the illusion of the upper hand. “Of course you are … or I’m going to use him as target practice.” She tapped her foot against the bow propped up against the leg of the table.
Luke would always be her Achilles’ heel, and her captor knew it. Knox had his usual hissy fit when Jessica insisted Luke be “guarded.” They were an hour from being married, an hour from Luke earning the right to know everything about G.A.I.L., everything about Jessica. Like most men, Knox couldn’t keep his dick in his pants and the minute he forced it into the ass of his comrade’s daughter, he surrendered to a life of granting Jessica’s every wish or dying at the hands of her father or brother. Knox knew he was lucky to still be alive.
“You won’t hurt Luke.”
She rolled her eyes. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because you shot an arrow in my arm, but you refuse to look at it. I broke your nose and all I get in return is a bucket of cold water. But most disturbing is the claim that I fucked your husband and yet I’m still alive.” Jillian grinned. “Tell me … after I fucked him, what scars did I leave … because I always leave my mark.”
She stood so fast the chair flew backward. Jillian waited for the confession of a pierced lip, clawed back, or bite marks on a shoulder. But she never imagined the words that her captor spoke just seconds before grabbing her inhaler and fleeing for the stairs.
“A broken nose, two missing teeth, three fractured ribs, and a punctured lung.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ryn slept on her stomach, sheets kicked off, bare ass beckoning Jackson back to bed. The piano lesson gig got in the way of him following his compass that morning, which coincidently pointed north and had him adjusting himself several times while getting dressed. He made a mental note to remind her that sleeping naked on her stomach was forbidden … unless she lifted the anal sex ban.
“I have to go,” he whispered in her ear then pressed his lips to the back of her neck.
Her shoulders jerked up. “That tickles,” she said in a groggy voice.
“If you don’t hide this, it will be mine.” He palmed her ass.
Ryn flipped over, blond waves of hair matted to her face, and grabbed the sheet, pulling it up to her chest. “Hot flashes. I get them occasionally. Doesn’t help when I’m in bed with a guy whose body temperature is abnormally high all the time.”
Jackson smirked. “You think I’m hot. Nice.” He pulled his shirt on slower than necessary. For the first time in his life he wanted a woman to ogle his body. Seemed only fair since he worshiped hers in search of redemption, salvation, and eternity.
“You realize all those tattoos are going to look hideous when you get older and your skin starts to sag from losing its elasticity and muscle atrophy.”
Twisting his lips, he tilted his head to the side, hands shoved in his jean’s pockets. “Hmm … but you’ll still love me right?”
She shrugged. “Depends. I might have to trade you in for a newer model.”
“So basically someone young enough to be your grandchild?”
Her jaw dropped on a quick inhale a split second before she launched a pillow at his head. “I was going to offer to drive you home, but after that comment you can huff it through the snow, buddy.”
He tossed the pillow back to her then sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. “You shouldn’t be driving in this weather anyway.”
She giggled. “This weather? What? A couple inches of snow that’s been plowed from the streets? Not that I’ll need it but my Rav is 4-wheel drive. Well … I may need it to get out of my driveway through the solid foot of ice melt.”
He narrowed his eyes and grabbed her knee, squeezing it until she squealed and begged through a string of mercy apologies.
“Enough!” she squirmed out of his grip, breathless and beaming with a smile bright enough to melt all the snow in Omaha that day.
“Is this how it’s going to be? For the rest of our lives are you going to critique my domestic skills? Mocking them?”
Her smiled faded a fraction. Then she bit her lips together as if she needed to suppress her response.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Well, it’s just I like when you say that, and yet is scares me to death at the same time.”
He leaned over and buried his face in her neck, tasting the most addictive skin imaginable. She threaded her fingers through his hair. Her body arched into his, calling “come hither.”
“It’s you and me, babe. Deal with it,” he mumbled.
“I’d rather you deal with me.” She freed a leg from the confines of the sheets and wrapped it around his waist to pull him closer.
“I have to go.” He laughed, grabbing her leg to remove it from his waist.
“Mr. Knight, are you telling me no?” She yanked his hair until he looked at her.
He squinted, looking at her clock, then sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I’m afraid so.” After dropping a quick kiss on her lips and then one on the tip of her nose, he pulled away and sighed. “I’m going to quit my job after today. Then you can tie me to your bed for eternity. Deal?”
“It’s a mattress on a simple frame. There’s nothing to tie you to.”
He walked to the door and grabbed the handle. “I’ll buy you a new bed.”
“How are you going to do that if you quit your job?”
Jackson opened the door, lifting a single shoulder. “I’ll dig up a coffee can or something ingenious like that.” He winked and shut the door behind him.
“I love you!” Ryn yelled.
He paused at the top of the stairs. The distant echo of her words brought back the flash of a memory from his childhood—his mother yelling downstairs “I love you” to her twins before they left for school. He still hated what she did. He hated his father for living a lie. He hated his sister’s circumstances that prevented him from ever telling her.
The entire Day family had to die so the man, who fell for the woman on the other side of the bedroom door, could find the ability to love again. And he did … Jackson loved Ryn.
“I love you too, hot pants!”
*
Light flurries swirled in the breeze as Jackson made his way home. He inwardly grimaced at his overreaction to the first snow. He should have ventured out of San Francisco more in the winter months.
Stan waved from Greta’s driveway. He wore some sort of coveralls and expertly wielded a snow shovel. The guy was seventy and worked circles around men in their twenties.
“I thought our association dues covered snow removal,” Jackson called from his dri
veway.
“They do, but those idiots don’t know what they’re doing. If you don’t get all this snow cleared better and throw down some ice melt, it’s just going to get packed on the driveways slick as snot.”
“An ice melt guy.” Jackson grinned. “I hear ya. Lots of ice melt.”
He grabbed the small snow-covered box by the front door on his way inside then slipped off his boots.
It was a phone with a number on a small note. It had to be Jillian needing to contact him, but he had a phone, she didn’t. Why send him a burner phone?
Without hesitation, he called the number, eager to hear her voice.
“Where is she?”
Jackson closed his eyes with the immediate recognition of the voice on the other end of the line. “Do you really have such little regard for your life? Your family’s? Hang up. Destroy your phone. And forget about her.”
“Jude,” he whispered.
Jackson felt Luke’s pain, his desperation. Since meeting Ryn, he felt everything. Feelings had no discrimination. They were all or nothing. Humanity existed in the balance between the polarity of pain and pleasure.
“Where are you?”
“Home,” Luke answered.
“How did the phone get here?”
“A friend.”
“How did you get the address?”
“The hotel in Houston. Where is she?”
“Luke … you don’t—”
“So help me, if you try to tell me I don’t understand I’m going to fucking lose it. I know about Aric, I know he died, I know—”
“What? You know our parents were murdered? You know we faked our deaths? Bet you didn’t know she could have brought you too. She chose to leave you behind. It was her choice. Jess loved you, but she fell in love with another man and she’s mourning his loss. I don’t know where she’s at and that’s the truth. Her phone is sitting here on our table. She’s upset with me … she’s upset with life. I can’t bring her back until she’s ready. I respect you, Luke, I really do, but Jessica doesn’t want to be found. Not by you and not by me. If you love her, you’ll let her go.”
“I was an hour away from marrying her. I feel like my wife died. I feel like another man took my wife. I feel like my wife needs me now more than ever. I can’t let her go … I can’t fucking breathe. Let them kill me because I’m already dead.”
“I’m sure your parents and siblings would disagree.”
“Don’t make me feel like some selfish bastard for loving her. Long before the day of our wedding, I chose her—over everyone else.”
“But she didn’t choose you.”
Luke chuckled, it had a condescending tone. “You’re wrong. She left me because she didn’t choose herself. She’s never chosen herself because she’s never felt worthy of that kind of happiness. That was supposed to be my job. I was supposed to spend the rest of my life proving to my wife that she is worthy of every goddamn thing she could ever want.”
Jackson plopped down in the chair. Defeat crept into his conscience, a conscience that had been a sealed vault for over a decade. Ryn cracked that vault, infecting him with unwelcome feelings of empathy. With that empathy came accountability. He didn’t want to be accountable for Luke’s inability to breathe or his suicide mission to find Jessica.
“I’ll let her know you’re looking for her if she decides to come home.”
“Dammit! How can you be her fucking twin and not see that something’s wrong? She’s not like you, Jude. Holing up as a recluse has never been her thing. The strength on the outside masks the most fragile soul on the inside. She needs people, it’s why she clung to Kelly in college and had tea with your mom every weekend. It’s why she craved every minute in the garage working on cars with your dad and sparred with you. If she loved this Aric guy, then she has to be in so much pain, and whatever you did to piss her off has driven her away from the only person she has and now she’s alone. Jessica doesn’t do alone. We have to find her. Something’s wrong. I saw her that day in Houston, a hollow shell of the woman I knew. So whatever the hell you did, make it right and help me find her.”
Jackson, Jude, never saw the desperate, out-of-control side to Luke. The great Dr. Jones carried himself with control and authority. His analytical mind insisted he always think before speaking. Jessica got under his skin. She ran through his veins and infected his mind.
“I can’t make it right—ever.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you believe. You weren’t here. You didn’t see her dying right along with him. I had to put a stop to his pain. I had to save her.”
From one highly intelligent man to another, Jackson knew no further explanation would be necessary.
“I’ll find her.” Luke ended the call.
Jackson sent the phone flying across the room, crashing into the stone around the fireplace. “Goddammit!” Pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead, he gritted his teeth. “Fucking suicidal shrink.”
Luke’s total disregard for his own life would get him killed. Jillian would never ever take another breath if Luke died. Claire, their parents, and AJ seemed impossible to handle, but she did.
Luke? Never.
Jessica had what their parents never did. She had everything. If Luke died she would officially have nothing.
Chapter Fifteen
Day
Eyes of desire and complete adoration roved Jessica’s body.
“Never stop looking at me like that.” She lifted the floor-length skirt to her red strapless evening gown and crossed the bedroom to straighten the matching red tie of her handsome fiancé in his black suit and crisp white shirt.
He grabbed her hand. They both knew it was already straight. Messing with Luke’s tie had become the proverbial ruffling of his anal-retentive feathers.
“And how is it that I’m looking at you?”
Her eyes focused on his fingers adjusting her engagement ring. He did that a lot, as if he needed to reassure himself that she was still there—that she really said yes. It always made her smile.
“Like I’m a dream.”
“Are you?” His hand moved from her ring to her wrist, feathering up her arm until her skin prickled with goose bumps.
Twisting her red lips, she looked up through painted black lashes at the world’s most gorgeous face. “Hmm … maybe. But a wet dream? Yes.”
Luke smirked. “You strip me of all dignity and self-control with just one look. I’m pretty sure all that’s left is a walking erection in a suit.”
She laughed. “Let’s go. Rumor has it, this holiday party has an open bar. If you’re lucky I’ll get a little tipsy and you might score later.” Turning on silver, open-toed heels, she clacked down the hall to the front door.
“Ten bucks says you’ll be riding one of my legs on the ‘dance floor’ before you’ve finished your second glass of champagne.”
She narrowed her eyes, tossing her lipstick into her clutch purse. “Once. That happened once, and I’d had a lot to drink and nobody saw because the dance floor was so crowded.”
Luke opened the door as she kissed Jones on the head before sashaying to the elevator.
“It was an award ceremony and I was the guest of honor. There wasn’t a dance floor. You basically gave me a lap dance in front of my colleagues to background elevator music after downing an entire bottle of wine during my acceptance speech.”
The elevator door opened to the parking garage. Jessica held her head high as she made her way to the car.
“You were giving me bedroom eyes during the whole damn speech. It made me nervous like everyone could see what you were thinking, so I just kept drinking to numb my nerves.”
“I wasn’t giving you ‘bedroom eyes.’ I don’t love speaking in public and I was using you as a friendly face to calm my nerves.” He opened the car door for her, then walked to the driver’s side.
They drove to the party, exchanging flirty looks the whole way. Jessica loved
Luke’s playful side. Not too many people got to see it, and that made it even sexier.
“Behave,” he whispered in her ear as they stepped into the hotel lobby. His deep voice elicited all kinds of deviant thoughts, not one falling under the heading of “behave.”
As they approached the entrance to the Grand Ball Room, Jude stepped around the corner from the women’s restroom, straightening his jacket and tie.
“Don’t,” he warned his sister before she had a chance to say the words that matched her scowl. “Luke.” Jude smirked, giving him an easy nod.
“He’s not going to give you a high five or fist bump or any other approval of your terribly inappropriate actions, so don’t even smile at him.”
Jude’s brows peaked, his attention focused on Luke. “Man, are you really going to let her speak for you? That’s kind of emasculating, if you asked me.”
Luke’s eyes flitted between the Day twins, both daring him to take the other’s side. “Was she married?” He gestured toward the restroom.
“No.”
“Condom?”
“Yes.” Jude smirked.
Luke shrugged. “Well, I believe my job here is done.”
“Holy fucking hell! What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well … well … well … I thought I heard my daughter out here.” Grant opened the door to the ballroom and stepped aside to let his children and the traitor inside. “I don’t know too many women that use ‘holy,’ ‘fucking,’ and ‘hell’ in the same sentence.” He kissed Jessica on the cheek then pulled her in for a bear hug, as if to let Luke know she still belonged to him.
“Hi, Dad. Sorry. It was Jude’s fault…” she narrowed her eyes at Luke while still in her father’s arms “…and Luke’s.”
“And why are you boys getting my little girl all riled up?”
Jude snagged a glass of champagne from the waiter passing by. “She doesn’t approve of my extracurricular activities or Luke’s freedom of speech and his right to think for himself.”
Jessica wriggled out of her father’s arms and lunged for Jude, but not before Luke hooked his arm around her waist to prevent a scene.
