“Jack…have sex with me.”
Holy fuck. He was so screwed.
From her seat on the couch, Lia watched as Jack absorbed what she’d said. He’d dropped eye contact with her and stared instead at the box of matches on the coffee table in front of them. Lips pressed into a firm line, eyes narrowed, Jack looked the epitome of grim. Had she pushed him past the boundaries of friendship? Did he despise her now? Had he lost all respect for her because of her request?
She’d been counting on him being a typical red-blooded American male, more than willing to get laid. But instead of seeming eager, he showed a resistance she hadn’t anticipated.
It wasn’t as if she was offering him something terrific and wonderful, she reminded herself. She was asking him for the equivalent of pity sex, like the pity date he’d taken her on her freshman year.
Wow. Some attractive offer, she berated herself. No wonder Jack didn’t look pleased.
But when she’d thought of her plan—to find a man she trusted to help her mind and body not only want but enjoy being intimate—Jack had been the only one who came to mind. He might have a major temper, but there was no way he would ever hurt her. And since he wasn’t dating anyone—
Oh crap. What if he was seeing someone? She hadn’t even thought of that possibility when she’d come up with her Grand Plan. “Um, are you dating someone right now?”
Jack frowned. “Dating someone?”
“Or—or sleeping with someone? I’m sorry, I didn’t think to ask. I’d never ask you to do this favor for me if you’re involved with another woman.”
His frown turned to a scowl.
She held her breath, waiting.
Finally, he muttered, “I’m not seeing anyone.”
She let out a relieved breath and smiled at him, but he refused to look up. “Jack, say something. Anything. Just not that you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Lia. I’m trying to make sense of all this.” He blew out a long breath. “Let me get this straight: You want me to have sex with you so you can learn how to not be afraid to have sex with someone else?”
She swallowed and nodded. “Basically.”
He swiped a hand over his head. “That’s asinine.”
Maybe. But she couldn’t stay stuck her entire life. It was time to move on. And she needed Jack’s help. “Think of it as cognitive behavioral therapy.”
A snort came from him. “I’m no therapist.”
“No,” she said simply. “But you are my friend. And you have the correct plumbing.”
At that, he brought his gaze back to her. Anger flashed in his eyes. Better, she supposed, that he were angry rather than disgusted. Was he angry that she’d maybe put their friendship on the line?
“I’m not giving you an answer right now.”
“That’s okay,” she said quickly. “But will you at least promise to think about it?”
He flicked his gaze away from her, blew out a sharp breath, then stood and walked to the door.
Chest aching, she realized he was going to walk out without even saying goodbye. She hadn’t just completely messed up their friendship, right? The sharp prick of tears formed behind her eyelids, but she refused to let them spill. She had her pride.
Jack pulled open the door to the loft’s elevator and stood still, staring into the empty space of the elevator for a moment, then turned and looked her full in the face. “Yeah, I’ll think about it,” he said. “That’s all I can promise. And Lia? I haven’t lost respect for you. In fact, I think that was one hell of a brave thing you asked.” He stepped inside the elevator and punched the button. The elevator door closed, cutting him off from her sight.
She hitched a breath and pulled her sweater tighter around her, twisted her fists in the sleeves. Although Jack did say he would think about her request, he sure as heck hadn’t seemed happy about the prospect.
At least he’d reassured her she hadn’t lost any of his respect. Which meant they were still friends.
She had that.
The wind picked up outside and blew harsh against the windowpanes. She shivered and closed her eyes, inadvertently remembering when Jack had given her that first kiss all those years ago, savoring the feel of his lips on hers, the way his mouth had tasted like soda and mint. A shuddering sigh filled her, and then found release. With it came a deeper tingle, one initiating deep down in the very root of her.
As long as her theory held true—that her body would behave and not freak out on her as long as she was with Jack—making love with him would work. She’d train her body to stop freezing up when a man touched her. Held her. Kissed her.
That single kiss Jack had given her all those years ago remained burned in her memory. She’d been shocked witless by the simple kiss, left dizzy and confused.
After it had ended, she’d been too nervous to be alone with him and went to find her friends. Jack had been distant the rest of the evening. He’d taken her home, said goodnight, then a few days later had gone back to college as if nothing had ever happened between the two of them. Not that anything really had.
Two months after that dance, she’d met Vance, who swept her off her feet with his gorgeous looks and bad-boy attitude and the amount of attention he paid to her. From the moment he met her, Vance had shown an intense interest. He’d given her a cell phone and encouraged her to let him know where she was at all times—that way he could protect her if something happened, he’d explained. He’d been gentle in letting down her expectations of college, saying that she probably couldn’t afford it and that all college kids did was get drunk, do drugs, and have sex. He claimed he wanted the best for her and would protect her from all the bad things in life.
When he proposed to her during her junior year, she’d accepted, believing him when he said he’d provide for her and would protect her from getting the strap from her drunken father. Her brother, Ethan, was just about to graduate from college and wanted to move back to Meadowview to take care of her. He’d been willing to give up his dream of becoming a Broadway star, but Vance convinced her she’d be selfish if she allowed Ethan to let go of his dream. Marrying Vance had been the answer.
But marrying Vance had been the wrong answer. A week after receiving her high school diploma, Lia had become Vance’s wife. After that, nothing had ever been the same.
Vance had changed her.
And she wanted to change herself back.
Now it was all up to Jack.
She’d done all she knew how to do. For the rest, she needed Jack’s help.
* * *
The windshield of Jack’s truck had completely fogged over within five minutes of leaving Lia’s loft. Probably from him shouting “Fuck!” at the top of his lungs several times over, he figured. He switched the defrost button to “on” only to hear a fizzing sound, then nothing. He turned the knob from defrost to heat to air conditioning and back again, but still no air flow.
Damn. With the weather as cold as the Maidu River in January, the window wouldn’t clear itself. He’d have to stop the car and dry the condensation off the inside of the windshield. He wiped a small hole in the film of ghostly white in front of him and guided the truck to a wide shoulder adjacent to a grove of young cedar trees at the side of the road. Although his house was only about six miles out of town, the elevation rose by a good two thousand feet, and what had been lightly wooded rolling grasslands surrounding the town had already changed to a rugged forest. And the mercury level was most definitely lower at this elevation, he noted as he stepped out of the truck and shivered in the cold.
No light shone through the cloud layer. Except for the beams of his headlights, he was surrounded by darkness. He groped behind his seat, searching for a flashlight. He had a bucket of rags from an earlier construction job in the back of the pickup—rags he could use to wipe the windshield dry if he could only find them.
But first he needed the flashlight to find the bucket that was buried within a truck bed of construction debris. He was getting
a cramp in his arm from searching around behind the pickup seat and still the damned thing was nowhere to be found. He was going to explode if at least something didn’t go right tonight.
He was about to shout another foul word when his hand met cold steel—the flashlight handle. He pivoted and sunk his back against the bed of the truck, noticing that he was breathing hard. Not from the effort, he realized, but from suppressed anger.
Lia’s strange request hadn’t just thrown him for a loop—it had picked him up, tossed him head over heels, and spanked his ass. He was so helplessly in love with her, but she couldn’t get past seeing him as a trusted friend, someone so safe she could use him to teach her to get over her fear of men, of being intimate.
She didn’t want him—she wanted a fucking sex instructor.
He kicked a clod of frozen dirt, watched it spatter onto the roadway. Hell, he couldn’t blame Lia for being freaked out by men, and frankly, that’s what was eating at him the most. How the hell had the men in her life fucked her up so badly? Her father and her husband had both done a number on her. Her father had beaten her, which was fucking bad enough, but that bastard Vance had not only physically hurt her, he’d messed with her head, and if what she’d told him tonight about how Vance treated sex, he could only imagine how things had to be hellishly worse for Lia. Vance had probably done a bunch of shit to her that she’d never shared with even her friends.
It was no wonder she associated all men with fear. And no wonder she needed help overcoming that fear.
He leaned against the pickup bed, sweeping the light of the flashlight about, searching for the empty paint can that contained the rags. After a few moments of grubbing around among bits of lumber, boxes of nails, and bags of cement, he located the rags. He selected a few of the less dusty ones and headed for the driver’s seat. There, instead of drying the condensation as he’d planned, he simply sat.
He’d wanted to be with Lia for so long it felt as though the longing had become part of his being. But he didn’t want to do it this way—sleep with Lia only to have her turn around and use everything he taught her on some other man.
And yet, what did he have to lose? If she liked Peter so much, she’d find a way to go after the asshole, even if Jack refused her proposal. At least if he agreed, he’d have some control. And if he granted this favor, if he went to bed with her, maybe, just maybe, her body would take her places her mind never had. Maybe she’d enjoy sex with him so much she’d come to see him as a man, not just her friend. Maybe her body would end up wanting his as much as his lusted for hers.
Maybe she’d come to love him as he loved her.
He leaned forward to clear the window. As he wiped away the condensation, the road and forest before him became clear. For a moment, he felt his pent-up frustration begin to fade away. Suddenly, he could see what he had to do.
Lia had created a plan, hadn’t she? Why the hell couldn’t he create a plan of his own?
He’d say yes to her request, but he’d do it his way.
And in doing it his way, he’d damn well make sure she fell in love—and with him, not Peter or any other man out there. Just him. Jack Gibson.
The next morning, Jack parked his truck in the corner lot up the street from Lia’s loft. This early, the parking area was as silent and empty as it had been bustling and full the night before. The threatening snow clouds hung low and dark, allowing little light to eke through. The air, nippy during the night, now demanded his attention. When he stepped outside the pickup, his steps made tracks in the light frost, an indication of how low the temperature had dropped. The calendar hadn’t yet marked the first day of winter, but the weather appeared oblivious to human-imposed time constraints.
He buttoned his jean jacket, glad he’d pulled the one with the white fleece lining out of the hall closet this morning. He shot a glance toward Lia’s place, a mixture of dread and thrill rushing through his belly. Shoving his hands deep in his front pockets, he wished his idiot heart would freeze solid like the earth below his feet.
Miniature clouds puffed out of his mouth as he walked down the sloped sidewalk, careful not to slip on the icy wooden planks. He’d come to give Lia the answer to her request—and to set his plan in motion. At her building, he pulled a hand out of his jacket pocket, key to her elevator in hand. The cold slapped his skin like a whip as he inserted his own key into the lock.
On the way up, the temperature inside the elevator stung his nose like the air in a meat locker, but when he stepped out into the loft, heat wrapped around him like a warm blanket.
And then he saw Lia…and froze.
“Hi,” Lia said, standing stiffly in the kitchen area.
She’d dressed casually, in jeans, heavy wool socks, and a long-sleeved forest green Henley tee with a vaguely familiar and too-large unbuttoned flannel plaid shirt tossed over it. He peered at the flannel shirt more closely and was amused to realize that it was the same shirt he thought he’d lost last winter.
“You’re wearing my shirt.” He hung his heavy jacket on the rickety coat rack in the corner—another item he’d need to repair—then walked over to Lia’s couch to sink down in its soft comfort.
“Sorry. I’ll give it back.” Lia came up close and handed him a mug of steaming coffee, then sat down next to him. Close, but not quite touching, the way she had the night before.
“Don’t. It looks good on you.”
“Are you working today?”
“Nope. All the building contracts I have are done for the winter, and I’m on call at the fire department.”
“Did you eat?” Her eyes stayed focused on her cup of coffee she held.
Apparently, she wasn’t ready to talk about her request from the night before. That was fine. He’d give her space. He took a long draw of the steaming coffee, enjoying the tannic taste, the sensation of warmth spreading down into his belly, and the chance to get his thoughts in order. But they remained all jumbled up.
“I fried up three eggs and a slice of ham. Thank God I listened to Mom when she drilled cooking skills into me and Chessie throughout the years.” Christ almighty. Words were running out of his mouth like kids running out of class on the last day of school. He sounded like a blithering idiot.
“Lucky your mom taught you how to cook,” Lia said. “The only thing I know how to cook is coffee.”
Her comment brought to him a rush of compassion. Losing her mother to suicide at age eight must have contributed to Lia’s vulnerability, to her fear of life. It hadn’t helped that her father had been a drunken asshole and her husband a wife beater.
“I don’t think you actually cook coffee. I think you brew it.” He toed off his cowboy boots and stretched out his legs.
“Then I guess I don’t know how to cook anything.”
He shot a glance at her, but she kept her gaze averted. Since she wouldn’t look at him, he wondered for a moment if he’d offended her, but her face held the whisper of a smile.
How was he supposed to handle this? They could talk about farm-fresh eggs and the fine art of brewing coffee all morning long, but that wasn’t quite the point of him coming over.
“I received an email this morning,” Lia said quickly. “Another woman is trying to escape an abusive marriage, and she’d like to stay at Meadowview Sanctuary until her kids can rent a house for her.”
Puzzled by her statement, he asked, “Kids? Don’t you mean her parents?”
Lia bit her lower lip. “Not all abused women are young, Jack. This woman is in her late sixties, early seventies. Her husband beat on her for years. Still does.”
“Fuck!” How could anyone beat an older woman? Any woman, for that matter. Who the hell did that sort of thing?
Suddenly he realized he’d shouted. And that Lia had flinched. Damn. The word had come out too angry. Too loud. Too violent. He’d scared her. “Sorry. I’m so sorry I yelled.”
“It’s fine.”
“No,” he said harshly. “It’s not fine. I scared you.”
<
br /> “There’s a difference between scaring someone and startling them. Yes, I reacted to you swearing, but I was startled. Not scared.”
He swiped a hand over his face. “This isn’t going to work, Lia. This thing you’re asking of me. I’m the wrong person. You shouldn’t have sex with someone who yells the minute they get pissed off.”
“You don’t, though.”
“Don’t what?”
“Yell the minute you get pissed off. Usually you’re pretty low-key about stuff. Certain things get under your skin, is all.” Lia’s voice had gone soft and quiet, but the words had come out with determination.
“Doesn’t matter. When something does get to me, I turn into a raging dickhead. My history proves it,” he said bitterly. “You said all that to make me feel better about myself, but don’t. I know who I am. What I am.”
Lia shot him a sidelong glance. “Whatever, Jack. The question is, would you ever hurt me?”
“Hell, no!” The words came out fast, without him even thinking of how to respond.
“My point, exactly. So will you do it?”
It. They were back to that again. Her request.
“Lia…” he said, drawing out her name. He couldn’t see her face, shielded now by a wave of long, black hair. She wouldn’t raise her head, wouldn’t look at him. He hoped to God she was rethinking her request. But he knew her too well. Stubborn woman.
Intelligent woman.
Beautiful woman.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
She jerked a nod. “I’ve given it a lot of thought. I’m miserable living this way and I need it to change. I’m ready to change. My mind knows not all men are as horrible as Vance and my father, but my body keeps shutting down. I need a man I trust to train my body to relax, enjoy, and stop being so terrified.”
“Sex lessons, then.”
“Yes, sex lessons, I suppose.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself this was a risk he’d decided to take. Go forward, not back.
Trusting The One (Meadowview Heat 2; The Meadowview Series 2) Page 6
