by Maisey Yates
Unfortunately, his ability to justify had run out.
Mainly, it was because of the way she’d looked when he’d come out of the bathroom. That gut punch of reality that had hit him square and hard.
No matter what she said, he was going to hurt her. He probably already had, probably would even leaving it at this once. But continuing on wouldn’t make it any better.
He’d made it his mission to protect Kate from some of the uglier things in life when she had been younger and surrounded by ugly things. Surrounded by empty booze bottles, the smell of alcohol and her father’s disconnected, slurring speech.
He’d been there when her father had died. And had comforted her when Connor’s first wife, Jessie, had been killed. And after all that, knowing everything she’d been through, knowing how battered her heart was, he’d done this. But he was going to fix it.
He was going to protect her, as he always had.
He’d let himself lose sight of that, mired in his own shit. But he wouldn’t forget again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS POKER NIGHT. Somehow Kate had forgotten last night when she’d decided it would be a good idea to go to Jack’s to comfort him and see if he would make good on that dirty promise he’d issued over the phone. Somehow she’d forgotten that he and her entire family would be getting together to play cards only twenty-four hours later.
She’d been dreading it for most of the day. At least, once she’d stopped turning over and over the events of the night before. And once she’d stopped dealing with the very real desire to curl up into a ball and lick her wounds. Wounds left behind by what had followed the most incredible sex anyone had ever had.
Not that she knew about all the sex that had been had, but there was no way in hell it could top what had happened between Jack and her.
The sex had been perfect. It had been the unspoken weirdness that had occurred after. In many ways, she wished he had freaked out. Wished he had yelled and said he was never touching her again. Wished he had thrown things and shouted and said it was a terrible idea and they should never touch each other again. But he hadn’t. He had left, saying nothing. Promising he would be back. He hadn’t come back. She had lain in bed awake for hours after he had gone downstairs, waiting for him. She hadn’t been able to move. Glued to the mattress as though he’d stuck her there. She didn’t wait. Never. Not for anything.
But last night she had.
Had lain there with her eyes open, gritty, until the sky outside had started to lighten. Finally, she had drifted off, only to wake up two hours later. The bed was still empty of anyone but her, cold except for where she was nestled beneath the quilt.
When she had finally gotten up, she had dressed. Except she had kept his T-shirt on in protest of his abandonment. And then she had gone downstairs looking for him, but he hadn’t been there.
She’d thought about calling him. Thought about looking around the property.
Then she’d realized that this was probably what he did with every woman he slept with. And they probably all felt needy and desperate after, searching high and low to see if they could find him, to see if they could talk him into touching them one more time.
She had a case of the Jacks. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t get those.
She had promised she would be cool and sophisticated. Because she didn’t want a relationship anyway, so there was no reason to let him hurt her feelings. Though she did want more of what they’d done. There was so much left for her to experience. And right now she couldn’t fathom being with anyone else. Not when he was still her primary obsession.
It wasn’t just that, though. He’d hurt her feelings. She didn’t want him to have that kind of power, but he did.
Still, she was balanced. So she had spent only half the day fetal over all of that. She’d spent the rest of it panicking about the poker game. About whether or not he would be there. If he was there, it would be incredibly awkward. If he wasn’t there...
Knowing he was avoiding the house because of her would hurt. Seeing him for the first time since they had been naked together, with Connor, Eli, Sadie and Liss looking on, would be terrible.
Of course, she could always skip the game. But it would be suspicious because she never had other plans. Which was why she was tromping over to Connor’s house, her hands stuffed in her pockets, her boots crunching on the gravel.
Jack’s F-150 wasn’t in the driveway. Her heart slammed against her breastbone, then slid all the way down into her stomach. She gritted her teeth and stomped up the stairs, the noise created by her feet hitting the solid wood doing a little bit to satisfy the irritation that was rioting through her.
She opened the door to her brother’s house without knocking and shut it firmly behind her. Not even the smell of pizza in the air offered her any comfort.
She walked into the dining area and saw that everything was all set and ready to go, the green-and-yellow Oregon Ducks bucket sitting in the center of the table filled with beer and soda. She was not messing around with soda tonight. “Beer,” she said.
“Did you get kicked by Roo?” Eli asked.
“No,” she said, sitting down at the table and scowling at her older brother. “Why?”
“Because that was a strange little one-word greeting. I thought maybe you were having trouble stringing thoughts and sentences together.”
“Just had a bad day,” she said without thinking. She shouldn’t have said anything, because now they would ask for an explanation. Well, Connor and Eli probably wouldn’t. But Sadie and Liss...
“Oh,” Sadie said, the sympathetic sound grating across Kate’s nerves, “what happened?”
“Work stuff,” Kate lied. Because it had been her day off. But sometimes her schedule got shuffled around, so it was feasible that they might not realize.
“Drama with a flat of pansies?” Connor asked, his mouth curving upward into a crooked smile.
Kate nodded, her expression mock serious. “Yes, pansies are the most dramatic of all flowers.”
“Azaleas are the most apologetic,” Sadie said, laughing at her own joke. A wide grin spread over Eli’s face, too. Kate remembered the apology azalea that Sadie had purchased from her more than a year ago in an effort to engender some of Eli’s goodwill.
Obviously, it had worked. Or if not the azalea, maybe something else.
Maybe she should buy Jack an azalea.
“What about petunias?” Liss asked. “What are their dominant emotional characteristics?”
“I hear petunias are the hardened criminals of the plant world,” Eli said.
“I’m sure you would know,” Sadie said, kissing Eli on the cheek.
Kate heard the sound of the front door opening and her heart scampered up to her throat, resting there, fluttering madly like a nervous animal. Because there was only one person it could be. Only one person who would show up on poker night and not knock.
She looked down at the center of the table, determined not to watch the doorway.
Her pulse was pounding in her ears, and if there was conversation going on around her, she couldn’t distinguish it from the roar of blood that had taken over all the space in her head.
She heard shoes on the hard floor and knew that she couldn’t keep not looking, because not looking would eventually appear a lot more suspicious than looking. She lifted her head slowly, trying to prepare herself to face Jack for the first time.
Preparation had been futile.
It was Jack, Jack, whom she had known for almost her entire life. He was familiar, from his dark hair, nearly black, to his blue eyes, always glittering with humor. Broad shoulders, muscular frame. The very same Jack she had always known. But more. So much more.
There was an intimacy to having been with someone that she’d never realized existed. The
source of the special looks that passed between her brothers and their respective lovers.
Like different kinds of nakedness, this was another new discovery. She had known Jack before, but now she knew Jack. Had learned things about him she could never unlearn. Knew what his skin tasted like, felt like, looked like all over.
Knew how he shook when she traced her tongue along the line of his jaw. Knew how his whole body shuddered as he found his release. Had heard that feral growl as he thrust deep inside of her.
She hadn’t just been skin to skin with him; he had been inside of her, as close as two people could possibly be.
Wow, so much for trying to act casual about all of this. She was not feeling casual.
And now she had passed from normal looking at Jack in greeting to staring.
But...she realized that Jack was staring, too. He was frozen in the doorway, his lips parted slightly, his eyes trained on her.
“Hi,” she said, knowing she sounded subdued. But she felt subdued, so all things considered, it was fair enough.
“Hi, Katie,” he said.
She didn’t correct him.
He walked into the dining area and sat down in the only available chair, which was—thank God—between Eli and Liss and not next to her.
“So are you all ready to lose your money?” he asked.
There, that was slightly normal. She was struggling with normal. She was struggling with anything beyond guppy dry-drowning on land.
“I don’t know,” Eli said. “I’m feeling lucky tonight. I’m getting married in two weeks to the most beautiful woman in the world. Frankly, I’m untouchable.”
“Your wallet is very touchable. And I’ll prove it,” Jack retorted.
“I think you’re all forgetting that last time I cleaned up,” Kate said.
Jack turned his electric-blue gaze to her. “I suppose you did.”
“No suppose about it. If we had kept going, you would have left wearing a barrel, because I would’ve stolen the pants right off you.”
She regretted her words, but not until it was too late to do anything about it. Not until she had spoken them, not until they were hanging awkwardly in the air like dazed fruit bats.
“I bet you would have, Katie bear,” he said, his jaw tensing.
The group seemed oblivious to the tension between them. Which was insane, as far as Kate was concerned, because it felt so thick, so real. A physical presence in the room rather than a simple feeling. She felt as if the tension was sitting there drinking a beer, holding a sign that said They Totally Had Sex Last Night.
“Deal. Somebody deal,” she said, hoping that no one took note of the edge of desperation in her tone.
“Kate’s in a hurry to lose,” Connor said, grabbing the deck and setting them up for a little bit of five-card draw.
“More like your face is in a hurry to lose,” she said. Admittedly, it was not her finest comeback. But she was not on top of her game. Since most of her brainpower was devoted to not looking at Jack to see if he was looking at her.
“His face lost at birth,” Eli said.
“Nice.” Liss smiled with approval.
“Can you believe that? My own wife.” Connor shook his head, but he didn’t look irritated in the least. Instead he just looked pleased to be able to say the word wife.
“Wives are the worst,” Sadie said. “I can’t wait until I’m one.”
“Soon.” Eli looked at Sadie and smiled. That secret smile that Kate suddenly understood. They looked as though they had secrets because they did. Because there was a wealth of knowledge they each held about the other that no one else would ever have.
And she’d gone and given herself all that knowledge about Jack. She hadn’t realized. Hadn’t realized how much it would change. It was as if she’d spent her entire life thinking that Old Yeller had ended before the final chapter and had been suddenly introduced to the actual ending years later.
Because then a heartwarming story about a boy and his dog became something else entirely. All of the previous story was there, but that last bit changed everything. Changed all of what it was.
That was what sex with Jack had done.
He wasn’t a hideous dead-dog book. In fairness, the sex they’d had was hardly a tragic final chapter. It was just...different. He was different.
Everything that came before this new chapter had taken on an extra facet. Given her new understanding. It was so much more than she’d expected. So much more than she’d wanted.
Unsurprisingly, she lost miserably. Her poker face was off because she was putting all her energy toward applying it to keeping Jack feelings off her face.
Jack didn’t win any rounds, either. It was Eli, in keeping with his bold prediction, who won the night.
“You suck, Eli,” Liss said, eyeballing her diminished pile of change. “Stealing money from a pregnant lady.”
“Unless pregnancy hormones interfered with your bluffing abilities, I don’t see what it has to do with anything,” Eli responded.
“If you make her mad, it’s on you,” Connor said.
The banter continued for a few more moments, but Kate and Jack sat it out. She stole a glance across the table at him, the first time all night that she’d chanced anything more than looking in his direction but looking through him.
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, and she felt the impact of that small gesture down deep. She couldn’t think of anything to say, couldn’t think of anything to do, so she just stared at him.
Thankfully, no one else noticed. She took a sharp breath, noticed his eyes lowering to look at her breasts. She felt a flush creep up her neck and over her face.
It reminded her of the expression on his face last night. Reminded her of that sharp need in his eyes as he’d thrust inside of her.
She felt like she’d stuck her head in a barrel of bees.
“You look tired, Kate.” This comment came from Connor. “Were you out late last night?”
“What? No.”
“I saw you pull out around eight. You got back after I was in bed.”
Horrified heat punctuated by pinpricks of ice flooded her face. “I just... I mean, it wasn’t late to me. I guess to an old guy like you, maybe ten or eleven or whatever is kind of late.”
“An old guy,” Connor said drily. “Do you hear that?” He addressed the group. “We are old.”
“Maybe you all are,” Sadie said, “but I’m not.”
“Where were you?” And the interrogation started with Eli.
“Am I supposed to give you an accounting of my whereabouts now?” She knew that she was sounding guilty now, which was stupid. She should have just played it off. The defensiveness was making it worse. But she hadn’t been able to hold it back. Because she wasn’t good with subterfuge. She had never engaged in it.
If only she had realized that being a straight arrow for so many years would come back to bite her in the butt one day.
She might have worked harder at cultivating a little rebellion earlier.
“I just went over to Ace’s for a drink.” She couldn’t look at him, because she was lying, and she was a terrible liar. She’d been told by more than one customer at the Farm and Garden that she had an honest face. Honest faces tended to do strange things when dishonest words were being spoken.
Sadie and Liss exchanged glances, and Kate knew that more questions were imminent. “I met girlfriends,” she said, heading them off at the pass. “Sierra West and some of the other women who barrel race.” Neither of them would probably ever talk to Sierra about it. Her alibi was most likely never going to get checked.
“Hope you had fun,” Sadie said.
Kate had a feeling Sadie didn’t believe her. Which hurt her feelings, really. Silly, since she was lying. But she wasn�
��t exactly rational at the moment.
“I did. But now that you mention it, I am tired. I think I’ll head to bed. I have to be at work early.” She stood, the chair sliding inelegantly behind her, causing her to stumble. “See? Tired.”
She waved halfheartedly and walked out of the dining room. Once she put some distance between herself and the dining room, her breath left her body in a gust, and she realized she had been taking in only shallow bits of air and releasing it very slowly ever since Jack had walked into the room.
She heard another chair scrape against the floor, and instinctively, she knew it was Jack’s. She wanted it to be Jack. She wanted to talk to him. She also wanted to avoid him.
Her feelings made exactly zero sense at the moment.
She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she could feel the rumble of his deep voice, feel it moving through her, making her all soft again. Wet again.
The man was made entirely of wicked magic.
She heard his heavy footsteps and froze, waiting for him. Of course she was waiting for him. She was predictable. She would love to walk out and scurry back to her house as quickly as possible. But she wouldn’t. Because no matter how upset she was for the way things had gone earlier, she wanted to be near him again. She wanted to hear what he had to say.
Anyway, she saw him all the time. They had to work it out. She couldn’t avoid him forever, so she might as well not ever start.
He appeared in the doorway of the dining room, and their eyes clashed. She nodded once and turned, heading out the front door and into the chilly, wet night air. There was a breeze blowing in off the sea, the sharp, briny smell mixing with the smell of earth and pine.
Kate folded her arms, shivering but not from the cold.
A moment later Jack appeared on the porch, casting a quick glance back at the house before walking toward her.
“Did you drive?” he asked.
“No.”
“I’ll walk you back.”
“You sure I won’t try to jump you again?” she asked, knowing that she sounded pissy and not really caring.
