They reached her house a few minutes later. Jake got off the bike first, removing his helmet. Something had changed. As they rode toward her house the playfulness breezed away, and a quiet electricity had started humming between them. She knew he felt it. It was in his eyes, in his face, in the way he moved. Claire took off her helmet and handed it to him, and when her eyes locked with his, a spark ignited and a slow burn started. He held her hand and helped her off the bike.
She didn’t know what to say, and didn’t really want to say anything as they walked up to the house in silence, Jake’s fingers still intertwined with hers. With every step closer they took to her house, she felt it was a step closer to letting Jake in. She felt a nervous, excited energy propel her forward. She caught the faint tremble in her fingers as she unlocked her front door, feeling the heat emanating from Jake, feeling the presence of his body deliciously close to hers.
They stepped into the quiet house, dusk settling in, making everything seem more mysterious, more forbidden. She turned around to look at him. His eyes shone with the desire that reminded her of their night together, the lines of his face hard, his lips sensual as he stared at her. Claire walked toward him, dropping her purse on the tiled entry with a thud that seemed to echo in the quiet house. She closed the door with the palm of her hand, her arm brushing against his arm. He caught her hand in his before she could lower it. She gasped as he brought her hand up to his mouth, turning it so his lips met the palm of her hand.
Her hand went to her stomach as a fluttery feeling gripped her. And the moment she touched her stomach, everything stopped. In that split second, everything changed. Jake’s eyes went from hers to her stomach. She felt her heart begin to pound with a throbbing, deafening ache as she watched emotions play across his face. Every line in his powerful frame was tense, rigid. His face was unmoving, his jaw clenched. And then his gaze went from her stomach to her eyes, and she felt as though her entire soul had just been lit to life for the first time.
And in his face, in the sheen in his eyes, the lines beside his firm mouth, she saw who he really was, and what this baby meant for him. And if he asked her to marry him again, right now, she wouldn’t be able to refuse. Because right now, Jake Manning was the man she always dreamed he was, deep down, beneath his playboy facade. This was the Jake she thought existed.
“May I?”
She never imagined that a man so tough could sound so heartbreakingly tender. Numbly, she nodded, and watched as his large, warm hand covered hers on her stomach, and then he looked up at her. His gentle touch reached her down to her soul. Her mouth opened but she still couldn’t say anything. He held her gaze, his blue eyes sparkling with emotion.
“We made a baby together,” he whispered, his voice sounding as though it came from somewhere deep inside, revealing a part of him that was new to her. His hand stayed still, its warmth permeating her womb.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Claire had a hard time breathing; the air felt heavy, thick, hot. Her hands prickled with the need to reach out and touch the stubble of his five o’clock shadow.
“For what?” she asked softly.
“I’m sorry for leaving you that night at the hotel,” he said and his voice was filled with such regret, Claire felt the memory of him leaving slowly disintegrate. All she saw was him now—gentle, caring, loving.
“Then why did you?”
His eyes glittered with an emotion she’d never seen, his body unmoving, his hand still on her.
“I was scared because that was the best night of my life, because when I made love to you I felt like I knew you and you knew me. Like we connected.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second before looking at her again. She didn’t breathe or move.
“I felt like I was coming home,” he finally said roughly. “And then I think about how your first time was with your back pressed up against a wall. You deserved so much better than that, better than me. If I had known…”
Claire swallowed. Her mouth was dry and her heart was rattling against her chest. “If I had known you were a virgin I—”
“You never would have gone into that room with me?”
He shook his head. “I could never have said no to you, but I would have done things completely differently.”
Each word came out sounding like a caress, as his eyes went back and forth from her lips to her eyes.
“If I had known it was your first time I would have started like this.” Jake bent his head, his voice low and gruff, and captured her mouth in the slowest, sweetest kiss. He was an amazing kisser, gentle, but his lips were firm as they pressed against hers. She relished the feel of his mouth, and his words were poetry to her ears. She moved her hands slowly up his chest, then down, feeling his muscles twitch beneath her touch, and then she wrapped them around his waist, feeling his chest against her breasts. When she melted into him, sweet turned erotic, and mouths opened wider and their tongues began a whirlwind of a dance that would only lead them one place.
His hand plunged into her hair and his other hand grasped her hip, tugging her closer, so she was pressed intimately against his hard arousal. She needed to touch him. Claire felt his muscles tense as her hands roamed up his body. He lifted his head for a moment to look at her, and when she tugged at his neck a low moan escaped his lips before he angled his head and claimed what was the last of her control. She learned who he was without words as she tasted him, knew him as his lips ground over hers. She learned who Jake the man was, not Jake the fantasy of her youth.
His hands moved restlessly up and down her spine and then roamed her sides, finally resting at the undersides of her breasts. Her breath caught and she pulled her mouth away from him, looking up and seeing his blue eyes dark with passion.
“I want you, Claire, God, I want you,” he said harshly and then claimed her mouth fiercely, possessively, and she felt his hands move up to cup her breasts. She heard herself whimper against his lips as her nipples pressed against the palms of his hands. Suddenly his hands were gone and then they were at her waist, and his lips were pressing hot, moist kisses against her bare skin. She knew she was slowly drowning in the essence of Jake. She had to lean against the door for support, and he braced her with his body as he deftly unbuttoned her blouse, each graze of his knuckles against her breasts almost causing her to cry out with the sweet agony. He pulled away slightly and she felt his searing gaze as his eyes wandered over her body in her lacy bra. She forced herself not to let any doubt or self-consciousness ruin this moment for her.
She needed to feel him, to touch his bare skin. She held his gaze, her intentions, desires, spoken silently as she flicked open each button of his shirt. And with a courage she wished she’d had that first night, she bent her head and kissed every inch of skin she exposed. His chest was rock-hard and his flesh sizzling beneath her lips. When she arrived at the defined, flat planes of his stomach, he groaned harshly and took her head in his hands, raising her up to take her mouth in his, crushing her against him.
“No way are we doing this here. This time we make it to a bed.” He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms circling his neck and holding him to her as he unclasped her bra, walking toward her bedroom.
She pressed her cheek against his strong chest, hearing the pounding of his heart, and knew her defenses were slowly crumbling. When he laid her gently on the bed Claire knew something was different. She felt it in his touch, in the restrained passion. She knew he was trying to take it slow. She felt his control slip as she tugged his jeans off, as he pressed her against the pillows. Her last coherent thought as Jake drove her over the edge was that this was where she belonged.
With Jake.
Chapter Eight
Claire felt Jake’s finger trail along her exposed arm. She smiled into the pillow. She had no idea how long they’d been asleep, or if Jake had slept at all. She curled her toes at the sight of his warm smile as she looked over at him. Her eyes wandered over his bare chest and she felt a tremble of desi
re hit her. He was a beautiful man. The faint lines beside his eyes crinkled as he smiled at her and leaned forward to give her a soft kiss.
“I thought women wanted to cuddle after, and it was the guy who fell asleep,” he said, with a laugh against her mouth.
“Sorry,” she said with a sheepish grin.
“Yeah, you just pushed me away and started snoring,” he said with barely restrained laughter.
“I did not—”
He nodded, giving her a sympathetic smile.
“I don’t snore.”
He leaned over and gave her another kiss. “Sure you don’t.”
“Have I been sleeping long?”
“Just three hours,” he said, his smile deepening when she bolted up in bed to look at her alarm clock. He was right. “And I’m dying of starvation,” he said, pulling her over to him. She managed to take the sheet along with her as she settled into his side, her head resting on his strong shoulder.
“Let’s order dinner in,” he said as his hand wandered over her body. She felt herself curling her body into his.
“What do you feel like?”
“Thai?”
Suddenly Claire felt her stomach roll. She shook her head. “Don’t say that.”
“What?”
“What you just said. I can’t even repeat it,” she croaked, her mouth turning dry.
“Thai?” She nodded against him, her stomach getting precariously close to spilling over. And then she pictured herself eating a bowl of pad thai and had to clench the sheet.
“Oh, I’m sorry, baby. It makes you sick, I get it now,” Jake said, kissing her bare shoulder, waves of nausea getting replaced with waves of…Jake.
“Figures you would use that word when I’m barely able to muster out a retort.”
“Really? You seem to be doing pretty good at vocalizing your opinion.”
She rolled onto her back and he gingerly braced one arm over her, leaning on his elbow. She looked into his eyes, the memory of what they’d just shared reflected in his smile, in his eyes.
“How about Greek food?”
Claire laughed. “You have a one-track mind.”
“No, two-track, but I thought we should refuel before we attempt that again.”
She reached up and kissed him without giving it a second thought.
“Okay, so Greek it is,” he said, quickly rolling over and hopping off the bed. He had to walk across the room to get his jeans. Claire watched him, her breath in her throat at the sight of his sheer male beauty. Her brow furrowed though as he quickly called the restaurant and shrugged into his jeans at the same time. After telling them to just deliver the last order on file, he walked back to the bed. He looked bothered by something.
“Do you want something to eat before the food gets here?” he asked, shirt still off, sitting beside her. And then it hit her. The preoccupation with ordering food right away.
She tilted her head to the side, not peeling her eyes from his face. “You think I’m not eating?” For the first time in her life, Claire watched Jake blush.
“Claire—”
Did he actually think she was purposely not eating? That she wouldn’t eat because she was afraid of gaining weight while she was pregnant?
“You don’t have to worry about me not eating, Jake. I would never do anything to hurt our baby. All that was a long time ago.”
“I’m worried about you.”
She felt a warmth seep through her veins as he climbed onto the bed beside her, his hands cupping her face. His thumb stroked her cheekbone and she tried to stay focused. “You don’t have to worry about me. The girl Dr. Hopkins was talking about doesn’t exist anymore.”
He stared at her, his expression neutral.
She gave him a somber smile and scooted away from him, needing a little distance. He settled on the edge of the bed, not taking his eyes off her.
“I told you I was going to explain everything,” Claire said, drawing her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. “When I was growing up I was never skinny like those kids who are just naturally super-skinny. And it didn’t really ever bother me. When I was small I didn’t know that a lot of the things my mother did were abnormal. I’d catch the occasional whispered ‘fat,’ but I never associated it with myself. Then when I went through puberty, everything came crashing down around me. My parents started arguing constantly, and my mother became obsessed with my weight. Everything that passed my lips was measured for portion size, calories, and fat. Then she would start making comments about my body shape.” She paused for a moment, clearing her throat from the embarrassment that was starting to creep in.
“Things got worse at home. My dad hated the pressure she was putting on me. He found that her focus on the superficial went against all his beliefs. And then I’d feel guilty for causing their problems, so I kept gaining weight. My mother couldn’t figure it out. I started getting made fun of at school and had no friends. I had always been on the shy side, but once I became overweight I retreated into my shell completely. Then Holly moved to Red River, and thank God for her. If it weren’t for her, I don’t know where I’d be. High school was the worst time of my life.”
…
Jake watched quietly as Claire tucked the sheet around herself and grasped the edges until they were up to her chin. He fought the impulse to rip the sheet away and make love to her until the memories of the past were gone. He wanted to take her memories and wipe the slate clean and start over again. He didn’t take his eyes off her as she stared straight ahead, her flawless complexion pale. He waited for her to continue, not sure if there was more.
“High school went from bad to worse. You could never imagine all the names that rhyme with Claire,” she said, her mouth turning up into a half smile that made him feel sick.
“Oh, but the one that stuck, that was priceless, was Éclair,” she said with a laugh that sounded so damn sad he wanted to go back to high school and pulverize the bastard who had come up with that name.
“The worst part was I didn’t even like éclairs. But I had a best friend, and I just tried to survive. Then one day, when I was sixteen, I was in the girls’ locker room, gym class had just ended and…” She cleared her throat, frowned, and stared intently at the wall ahead. “Since the fall dance was that night, and my mother insisted I try to look thinner, I had been wearing this really frumpy, really embarrassing girdle-type thing. I had taken it off for gym class and when I got back to my locker it was gone. I started panicking. I knew someone had taken it. And sure enough, when Holly and I left the locker room, there it was in the hallway, being tossed around by some of the jocks and the popular girls in my class.”
“I need names,” Jake said harshly. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer. She stopped speaking. He pushed himself off the edge of the bed and paced up and down the room, flexing his hands, hoping the movement would help him burn off some of his anger.
“What?”
“Names,” Jake repeated, more to himself than to her. “I need names and addresses.”
Claire’s soft laughter interrupted him. He looked over his shoulder at her, the sheet still tucked around her, but she was smiling.
“Your sister-in-law beat you to it, I’m afraid,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“Holly?”
Claire nodded. “She marched to Aman—” She stopped for a second. “This girl’s locker—”
Jake’s heart came to a grinding halt. “What was her name?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Claire whispered, shaking her head, her dark eyes confirming what he already knew.
“You said Amanda. The Amanda at the barbecue?”
Claire shrugged and looked away. He really didn’t think her story could get worse, but it had, and he realized now he had hurt her even more than even he was prepared for.
“It doesn’t matter. That was a long time ago. Anyway, Holly, in front of everyone, whips open this girl’s locker and takes out a bra and then s
tarts pulling out all this padding. Long story short, the principal came along and the three of us got detention for three weeks. She couldn’t stand me. I was the focus of all her extracurricular efforts. I would have éclairs put in my locker or smashed on the front of it. Of course I couldn’t eat them,” she said with a choked laugh. Jake tried to find the humor in it, but he couldn’t. And then he thought of her the night of the barbecue, knowing she was pregnant, thinking he didn’t care about her at all, watching him with Amanda.
“So anyway, that day after gym class was kind of the last straw for me. I started experimenting with losing weight and it became obsessive. I saw a teen psychologist specializing in eating disorders, but it was an ongoing issue for me for a few years. I know this sounds silly and trivial—”
Jake shook his head, trying to find his voice. “Not at all.” He was trying to come to terms with everything she was telling him, and he felt guilty for his own part in making things harder for her.
“I know it’s something someone like you could never understand,” Claire said with a little smile.
“Someone like me?”
“Oh, come on, Jake, look at you. You have always been the image of male perfection.”
“Claire—”
“I would look at you…” She took a deep breath. “I would look at you and wish I were your girlfriend. I kept track of every single girl I ever saw you out with, and I compared myself to them, and I always thought I was never as pretty or as thin, and that you’d never go out with someone like me.”
Jake swallowed hard. His throat ached with emotion for her, and his throat burned with words he wished he could speak because she was wrong. He knew what it was like to be an outcast, to be on the outside looking in for his entire life.
Claire was infiltrating all the parts of him he had closed off. She was still sitting there on the bed, the sheet wrapped around her body like armor. He saw the pride etched in every inch of her beautiful face, and he saw the vulnerability, and it made him ache with a pain he didn’t know he could feel for someone else. He saw her as she’d been when she was young, the shyness, the embarrassment, the sadness. He wanted to erase it. He wanted to go back to when she was in high school and save her from it all. He wanted to go back and save both of them.
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