Still The One (Family Stone #4 Jack) (Family Stone Romantic Suspense)

by Lisa Hughey

  An adventure her dad had called it.

  The fun never ends. She suppressed the need to shed tears. It was a long time ago. She was over it. And even if she wasn’t, crying about it wouldn’t change anything.

  As if he couldn’t help himself, Jack threw himself down next to her and curled his arm around her shoulders, pulling her tight into his embrace. “God damn, I’d like a few minutes alone in a room with the bureaucrat who decided it was expedient to keep you apart.”

  Bliss held herself stiffly in his arms afraid to relax. Afraid to let down her guard. So when he realized he was embracing her, and he moved away she would still be composed. Hold it together just a few more minutes.

  She’d forgotten that need to grasp onto every day with purpose. To make each experience one to remember. Lost in the daily grind of life and just surviving one day at a time.

  “So that’s why you do what you do?” Jack said against her hair, “Help other people the way you wished you’d been helped?”

  “Adams-Larsen makes regular people disappear,” Bliss confessed. It wasn’t exactly against policy. Jill had given Bliss leeway to explain to Jack what they do. Her stomach curdled. Jill had actually wanted Bliss to talk up the agency.

  She thought Jill might be setting the groundwork for Adams-Larsen to do some joint work with Jack’s company but Jill hadn’t given her the specifics of what she had in mind.

  “That’s your job?” He asked as if he needed to clarify one more time.

  “Yes.” She nodded against his shoulder. The heat from his body sent tendrils of warmth curling through her. “Obviously there has to be some sort of extenuating circumstance. A whistleblower, avoiding an abusive ex or not so ex, even civilians who testify against criminals sometimes.”

  “Damn, Bliss.”

  “It’s a good thing.”

  “You would know better than most.” Jack continued to pet her, stroking her back through the thin boring white cotton shirt, rubbing her shoulders as if he could soothe away the hurts of her past.

  But she could tell he was processing too, when he asked suddenly, “What made you send me away?”

  That empty place inside that had been growing within Bliss since she saw him again widened. She really didn’t want to get into this. Didn’t want him to know how messed up she’d really been. But, after his confession earlier today, she owed him.

  “It would be nice to hear the truth.” His request was issued softly, as if he didn’t want to jar her, but there was grit layered beneath his easy tone and gentle hands.

  “I was terrified,” she told his collarbone, her cheek pressed against his pecs and the soft material of his plain black t-shirt. And she decided that honesty couldn’t hurt either of them now.

  He stilled at her harsh words. “Of what?”

  “That you would die.”

  “So you shoved me out the door?” Jack’s hold loosened on her shoulders. “Frankly I’m not seeing the logic.”

  “It wasn’t logical. It was emotional. You were already leaving,” Bliss replied. “I couldn’t handle the fact that you’d be in danger. I lived with that fear for my family for four years. I couldn’t see any way out.” Her throat constricted.

  “God…damn.”

  “I’m sorry.” And a single tear slid down her cheek. She was sorry. But she’d suffered for the choice too. She didn’t know if that would make him happy or not.

  “Don’t cry.” Jack cupped her cheek in his palm and rubbed at the single trail with his rough thumb.

  The room seemed to heat as the air around them shrunk until Bliss only saw Jack. Only felt Jack. He seemed larger than life and so very solid. Here was the Jack who she’d fallen in love with the first time.

  His bicep was hard around her shoulders, and she was wrapped in safety. She looked up into his stippled hazel eyes, mesmerized by the tenderness and compassion shimmering in them.

  He asked softly, “What happened to living every day with bliss?”

  She’d been so stupidly idealistic. She blushed, licked her lips. Jack’s gaze zoomed to the swipe of her tongue and he groaned. “Bliss.”

  He tilted her chin up and met her mouth with his. The first brush of his lips was tender, fraught with apology and the need to give her some affection. The stubble from his ten o’clock shadow rasped against her softer skin.

  Bliss inhaled his hot scent. The hint of his shaving cream, evergreen from his deodorant, and the musk that was all Jack. He still smelled the same. Like Jack. Like love.

  She knew that was wrong, but she couldn’t help but respond to the memories.

  Bliss feathered light kisses across his jaw as he curved his arm around her waist, lifted her across his lap, and held her tight against his solid mass. His erection prodded her hip as he bowed over and captured her mouth with his.

  That quickly, tenderness was replaced by a burning passion.

  Jack skimmed his hands along the curve of her waist. She was more woman than girl now, curvy in all the right places. He scooped her ass in his hands and lifted her so she straddled his lap and his raging erection.

  They had always been like this. Combustible.

  Jack forced himself to slow down. This time he was taking it slow. And yeah, sex with Bliss was probably a mistake. But in this moment, he didn’t care.

  Bliss’s arms clung to his neck and she held on as if she’d never let go.

  Jack slid his fingers beneath another bland, manly cotton button up shirt and explored the familiar softness of her skin. She was supple and smooth beneath his rougher fingertips. He brushed his thumbs back and forth along her ribs, easing the material up in slow motion, each swipe brought his fingers that much closer to her breasts.

  Jack lifted her up onto her knees and pressed a hot kiss against her belly button. Bliss’s stomach contracted at the intimate swirl of his tongue. He dragged his tongue up the center of her body even as his palms finally cupped her perfect globes. He nipped at each rib, following the path of his hands, while he lazily rubbed her hardened nipples.

  A scented heat wafted from her skin, jasmine mingled with the musk of her arousal.

  His cock throbbed as she surrendered to his sensual raid. Her fingers threaded through his hair and rubbed his scalp and neck as she anchored him closer to her.

  “God, Jack,” she whimpered as he suckled one hard lace-covered nipple into his mouth. Even her underwear had been washed of color, the nude lace was feminine but lacked the vibrancy that had once been Bliss’s trademark.

  Her knees dipped as he continued to suck and lick her nipples. Jack turned and pushed her back onto the seat of the sofa, and she sank down into the cushions.

  Bliss was busy trying to rip his t-shirt over his head. He released her breasts long enough to grab the shirt from behind his neck in one fist and yank it off.

  Bliss ran her hands over his bunched biceps and down his arms until she could pull him further over her body. Jack was on his knees between her spread thighs. She pulled him closer until their mouths connected again.

  Bliss rubbed her tongue into his mouth. And fuck him, but all the blood rushed to his cock. Slow, slow. He repeated the words like a mantra, even as his hands were busy unbuttoning her shirt.

  Jack opened to her kiss as she wrapped her legs around his waist and rubbed the heat of her sex against his bare abs. Damn, she was like an inferno. And the temptation to rip off her pants and pound into her was like a fever in his blood.

  He eased his mouth away from hers, even as she curled her legs tighter and rocked into him.

  He needed to savor. He needed to tell her with his body what he couldn’t say with words. Jack spread the shirt open, baring her lace-covered breasts, and stomach to his gaze. Jack pressed a line of kisses across her collarbone like a necklace and then suckled the hollow in her neck.

  “Dammit, I missed you,” she groaned out as he slowly unbuttoned her black suit pants. The sleek material showed off her high, tight ass to perfection. The zipper was loud over the l
abored sound of their breathing.

  Jack rubbed his thumbs in the crease between her thigh and hip, each lazy swipe took him closer to the ridge of her pubis and she lifted her hips seeking his touch. Instead he ran his hands over her legs and behind his back to her ankles, gently unhooking them from his body.

  Bliss let her legs fall apart, the hint of nude lace panties was revealed in the open v of her pants, and her body was splayed in wanton surrender. Jack took a moment to admire her, lips puffy from their kisses, skin slightly pink from the scrape of his beard across her chest and belly, the tips of her nipples poking through the delicate lace of her bra. She was undone.

  All for him.

  With one smooth move, he slid her pants and panties down her legs and off, tossing them onto the coffee table next to him.

  Paradise waited between her thighs and before she could object, Jack dove into her. He lifted her legs until her thighs were over his shoulders, ran his hands down her legs then pressed his palms against the tender curve of her belly. She was completely exposed to him and in his control. The move lifted her ass slightly, and finally Jack bent to her sex.

  He rubbed his nose against her clit and then smiled at her little ‘oh’ of surprise. Jack kissed the swollen button pushing out of the nest of auburn curls. Then with little fanfare he began to eat at her in earnest. He flattened his tongue and licked her opening from the bottom of her lips to her clit, over and over again. With each lick he curled just a little more into her until his mouth was pressed tight against her sex, his tongue was fucking her and his stubble abraded her clit. She was rocking her hips and sex against his mouth so hard, he knew she was close. Jack pressed on her belly and gobbled her up.

  Bliss’s fingers tightened in his hair. Little whimpers escaped as she bowed up jamming her sex against his mouth even as her womb contracted against the press of his palms and she flew apart. With every moan and sigh, his cock pulsed against the constraint of his zipper.

  How could he have let this go? He should have pushed harder. Demanded answers when they’d been younger. Instead he’d dragged his wounded, destroyed heart to Basic and wallowed in misery.

  But he was here now and she was opening to him. He’d be a fool if he didn’t seize this opportunity.

  Bliss was blind, deaf, dumb, her entire body engaged in the intense pleasure that caromed throughout her. Jack was pressing sweet soft kisses against her inner thighs, his fingers stroking the sensitive skin of her belly, trying to bring her down from the mind blowing high of release.

  A shiver worked over her body as she rubbed her foot against the hot hard length of him. His erection was trapped in the confines of his cargo pants. Bliss wasn’t about to let that erection go to waste.

  She reached between their bodies and tugged on the waist of Jack’s pants. “Off. Now.”

  Jack smiled against her belly. He kissed the same path up her body, taking his time, suckling each breast with slow lazy draws. Jack’s heart bulleted in his chest, thrilled with the urgency of her actions as she shoved his pants to his knees.

  He managed to maintain a leisurely exploration of her skin and body until she curled her palm around his erection.

  His hips surged into her hand as she squeezed with the perfect amount of pressure then rubbed her thumb over the weeping tip. Jack groaned. “Jesus, Bliss.”

  She was everywhere. Her feet were pushing his pants down his legs, even as her hand guided him to her slick core. His bare cock rubbed against her swollen aroused flesh. Bliss’s breath caught as he nudged her entrance. The proof of her completion coated the tip of his cock and he slipped inside her.

  And oh, my God, he slid inside her like he’d never left. Her sex swallowed him up and enveloped him in a sheath of love and perfection.

  He was full to bursting. Full of urgency to claim her. Full of the need to be with her again. Full of an emotion he refused to name. To have her take him in and accept him in without reservation.

  Jack shuddered at the slick velvet clasp that surrounded his cock. Each slow foray in, his head rubbed over the swollen ridge of her g-spot. He wanted to get lost in the sensation of her body. The soft pillow of her breasts, the sharp points of her nipples against his pecs, the sweet cradle of her hips, and the sweet dig of her heels into his ass.

  He re-learned her body with this slow exploration, his balls snugged up against her swollen sex, as he pulsed in small movements, filling her up, and her sex welcomed him with a heated embrace.

  Jack was propped up on his elbows, their lower bodies pressed together. He brushed a lock of hair from her damp cheek and stared into her dazed honey eyes.

  She was lost in the grip of her pleasure.

  A feeling of extreme triumph roared through him. He had done that to her. Jack pressed a kiss against her lips, and increased his pace, pulling out until only the tip of his cock brushed her clit and then powering back inside. Bliss’s hips rose to meet each thrust, her body responding again to his intimate foray, until each time Jack was buried to the hilt. Her sex tightened around his cock until she arched and groaned.

  Her orgasm milked his cock and shot him over the edge. Jack surged inside her, his cock gripped by the rhythmic pulse of her contractions. Each sexual squeeze caressed him, and his orgasm began at the base of his spine and then burst through him in a kaleidoscope of pleasure.

  Nothing had ever been sweeter than sex with Bliss and it seemed that in thirteen years, that hadn’t changed.

  He ached for all the things they’d lost, for all the time they’d lost. But he was smart enough to understand that if he shared that with her, she would close up, close off. Instead he would give her pleasure, and take his own. They had to get through this situation with Maria and then they could see where this might lead.

  Eight

  She and Jack were ignoring the fact that they’d had sex, again, last night.

  It had been amazing and made her long for the chance to deepen the connection that had had seemed to tentatively grow between them, like a tiny sliver of light that with time could strengthen into a true, strong beam.

  But when they’d woken up this morning, the walls were back in place and right now the last thing they needed to focus on was their relationship. Or whatever it was.

  Jack and Shane were in the front seat of the Charger with Bliss in the back, and they were on their way to the place where Maria had been held for eight long years.

  Bliss knew the house would be difficult for her to see. Emotionally she related to Maria’s situation. The girl had been torn away from everything she’d known in a heartbeat and thrust into a situation where she had no control and no way out. Instead of giving up and resigning herself to the fate of a victim and a captive, Maria had spent painstaking years digging her way out of her prison.

  In a lot of ways, Bliss had been lucky. Once she turned eighteen, she’d had options. She’d been able to make her own choices. And she had chosen her life. Chosen her path and thrown off the mantle of suppression of the witness protection program. They may have cut her loose but she owned it, and she embraced the fact that she was free. Even if she hadn’t been able to ever see her father and sister again. And felt that lack still. She’d been able to make her own choices, unlike Maria.

  Her heart thudded in her chest. The boom-boom echoed in her ears made it hard to hear the murmured conversation in the front seat. The powerful V8 engine rumbled beneath her as Shane punched the gas and they headed toward the house where Maria was held captive.

  Bliss swallowed down bile. She’d seen the crime scene pictures. The marshal’s office had sent in techs to document everything right away. The pictures had been overnighted to her as none of the information was in the marshal’s computer system.

  They had concluded immediately that all information about Maria needed to stay old school. Paper only. No cyber trail that could be followed and jeopardize Maria Torres’s safety.

  Twenty minutes or so after leaving their hotel, they were bumping along a cracked and
neglected route. The two lane road was lined with overgrown brambles and trees whose branches met in an arch over the road, trimmed to allow trucks and other vehicles through. The branches had grown together creating a tunnel that blocked out the sunrise. The high beams from the Charger cut through the dark warren-like atmosphere and illuminated the eerie road.

  “The entrance is coming up on the right,” Bliss said tensely from the backseat.

  “We should go past the drive and continue on,” Jack directed.

  “There isn’t much else out here.” Bliss gripped the back of the headrest. She’d reviewed the topography maps thoroughly. “And nothing past this entrance. The last ‘property’ on the road literally fell down about twenty years ago. Maria traveled through two canyons to get to Marshal Garrett’s property.” More of her luck. It really was incredible.

  “What are the odds that Fernandez has it under surveillance?”

  “None.” Bliss’s anxiety ramped up to a new level. “He and whoever was bringing Maria supplies need to stay as far away from this property as possible.”

  “There could be cameras,” Jack argued, while Shane navigated the increasingly bumpy drive.

  “There was no evidence of cameras when the crime scene techs did their investigation of the property.”

  A dip in the landscape led down to a creek that ran alongside the barren road.

  “Jesus, she escaped through this?” Jack muttered as they drove into a small clearing. The tiny house, little more than a living room, kitchen, bath and bedroom, backed up to the creek. It was barely a thousand square feet and had clearly been built over a hundred years ago. A porch ran the width of the house and two rickety steps lead to the front door.

  Once upon a time this had been a homestead. Overgrown roses bordered the porch, some blooms clung desperately to their petals. There was rusted tilling equipment off to the side and tattered curtains hung in the cracked and rippled glass of the windows.

  “Shane, keep watch while we check it out,” Jack commanded.