by Jami Alden
“I haven’t had one this bad in a while,” he said. “You were bleeding, so much blood, and you kept telling me I couldn’t save you. And she—” He snapped his mouth closed. “You were dying.”
Her heart twisted at the sound of his voice, like the words were being ripped from his chest.
He turned to her, his eyes blazing in the shadows cast by the small lamp. “I know you don’t want me to think of you that way—”
She shook her head and her hand stilled on his back. “I was upset. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you—”
“But I can’t help it,” he continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “I failed, and you almost died. And I don’t want to remember but it fucking haunts me. What if I can’t save you next time?”
She wanted to say there wouldn’t be a next time, but after what Detective Nolan had revealed tonight, Talia knew she’d have to be a fool to believe that. So she sat silently, stroking the sweat-slick skin of Jack’s back until his heart slowed enough that it didn’t feel like it was going to jump into her hand and his breathing slowed to something approaching normal.
It was a subtle shift, but Talia could feel it the second the last dregs of the nightmare slipped away. Jack turned to her, his gaze raking her up and down, taking in her thin tank top that left her arms, shoulders, and a wide expanse of her chest bare. Glowing with heat so intense she felt it sizzle on her bare skin.
The air in the guest room was charged with electricity. She snatched her hand from his back as though it burned her, suddenly intensely aware that he was wearing nothing but boxers. His muscles coiled with tension, his fingers curling into fists as though it took a physical effort not to touch her.
A battle he lost. Talia’s mouth went dry as he reached up with one big hand, slowly, carefully, as though she were a wild animal he didn’t want to scare. The brush of his calloused fingers against her cheek sent a wicked shiver down her spine. She sat there, frozen, as his thumb traced across her bottom lip.
“What I wouldn’t do for you…” he whispered, his eyes dark and stormy. He slid his hand into her hair and leaned close enough for her to feel the heat of his breath across her cheek.
Blood roared in her ears, and her heart pounded against her ribs as her lips tingled in anticipation.
To her shock, he dropped his hand and leaned back. “You better go, because I’m about two seconds away from doing something I know you don’t want me to do.”
Talia was motionless for several seconds, her fingers clutching the edge of the mattress as every muscle in her body coiled tight. What exactly would he do? What if she did want it?
The images flashed in her brain, naked skin against skin, tangled limbs, mouths and hands and fingers exploring.
The jolt of heat that shot through her was so powerful, beyond anything she’d ever experienced, stunning in its intensity.
Terrifying.
She leaped from the bed and bolted from the room, not stopping until she was up the stairs and safely behind the locked door of her bedroom.
And spent the rest of her sleepless night cursing herself for being such a coward.
God, what a goatfuck, Jack thought the next morning as he pounded away at the heavy bag at Gus’s gym, trying his damnedest not to stare at Talia with his tongue hanging out while a trainer ran her through speed drills.
She’d bolted from his room like a terrified rabbit, so fast she practically left skid marks on the hardwood floor.
Really, what had he expected? He’d as good as told her he was about to throw her across the bed. He hit the bag hard enough to feel the jolt all the way up to his shoulder. Like she was going to turn to him, throw herself into his arms, and beg him to do all of the things he’d been dying to do to her from the second he’d walked into Suzette’s two weeks ago?
Only in his dreams. And he’d had several of them last night after she left. Of her, naked, over him, under him, clutching him to her as he sank into her wet heat. Dreams so vivid that when he woke up, he swore he could taste her mouth on his, smell the sweet musk of her need.
Except when he opened his eyes, it wasn’t her naked skin brushing his but a cotton sheet, and the hand wrapped around his cock was his own, stroking himself to a depressing climax just to ease some of the tension building inside him.
He hit the bag again and dropped to the mat for a series of push-ups, sit-ups, then several minutes of high-speed jump roping. Anything to take the edge off, to stave off the edgy, restless feeling that had him aching with frustrated need, walking around in skin that was two sizes too small.
He knew the signs, knew himself well enough to recognize he was nearing the breaking point. In the past, when he got like this over anything—a woman, a mission—if he didn’t get a handle on it, quick, an explosion would be imminent.
But there was nothing he could do to quench the raging need he had for Talia. God, he was so focused on protecting her, who would have ever thought he’d have to worry about protecting her from himself?
He couldn’t have her, and he couldn’t find any relief elsewhere. Not only was it impossible for him to leave her side long enough, the idea of using another woman as a substitute for the one he really wanted was even more depressing than the idea of jacking off alone for the next decade.
He had to make do with punishing workout sessions and his own right hand and hope that he could keep the wolves at bay.
They worked out for nearly two hours, Talia keeping her distance while Jack got himself to the point where the blood was too busy rushing to the muscles he’d worked to near exhaustion to pool in his groin.
They went back to her place to clean up and she met him in the kitchen, a tight smile pasted on her freshly scrubbed face, her eyes fixed firmly on his face in a way that said she was trying not to remember how close to him she’d been in his near-naked state less than twenty-four hours ago.
She didn’t have a lick of makeup on and was dressed in a long-sleeved navy shirt with a blue and gray scarf around her neck and close-fitting jeans, yet one look at her undid any progress made from the workout and the cold shower that followed.
“We should get going,” she said, trying to keep any trace of tension out of her voice. “I told Rosie we’d pick her up in fifteen minutes to go to the shopping center.”
As if the day could get worse, now he had to go sit in a froufrou department store, imagining Talia getting undressed and dressed over and over again while she looked for the perfect outfit for the upcoming engagement party.
Jack made a mental note to give Danny a punch in the nuts for forcing the issue.
Talia could practically see the waves of tension emanating from Jack as they drove over to Stanford to meet up with Rosie. The last thing she was in the mood for was shopping. She was exhausted. After she’d left—no, fled—the guest room, she’d spent the night tossing and turning in her bed, feeling like the world’s biggest coward even as she told herself she wasn’t even close to being able to give Jack what he wanted.
He wanted her to want him. She didn’t even know what that meant. Other than a few passionate make-out sessions with boys from her high school days—and those she attributed more to her own hormonally charged body than any great attraction to the boys in question—Talia couldn’t remember ever feeling anything approaching what she’d seen in Jack’s eyes last night.
Need. Lust. So hot and all-consuming it drove him to the very edge of control.
So intense it called up something in her, strong enough it had its own gravitational pull. As if, regardless of the demons of her past, her body couldn’t help but respond to him, even if it was only a mere echo of what Jack was feeling.
But even that mere echo was enough to send a rush of heat through her. She shifted in the passenger seat, felt a tingle low in her belly as she remembered the hot silk of his skin under her finger. And now, his huge, solid presence in the car, the scent of him filling her brain in a heady rush, was enough to kick up her heart rate by a couple dozen beat
s per minute.
Still, she feared it wasn’t enough. There had been a time when sex was fine, even fun. Back at the very beginning of her “relationship” with David, she’d had no complaints. She’d been starry-eyed, stupidly in love with the man. Or at least the idea of him.
David had proven himself a rather selfish lover, but Talia had put up with it because for her, the sex wasn’t the big deal in the relationship. For her, it was all about the fact that David loved her, cherished her, and for once she finally had someone in her life who would take care of and protect her instead of her always trying to take care of everyone else. For a brief time, at the very beginning of their affair, she had finally felt safe.
Right. She’d been about as safe as a rabbit in a cobra’s cage. By the time she realized that, it was too late. And sex with David went from tolerable to revolting in the blink of an eye. What she’d once given willingly was taken from her on a regular basis, and he made sure she knew exactly what would happen to her and Rosario if she ever tried to leave him. Worse, she had to pretend to like it. Pretend that letting him use her body whenever and however he wanted wasn’t consuming her soul from the inside out.
She swallowed back a wave of nausea as the memory obliterated any spark of arousal Jack had elicited.
And that was the crux of her problem right there, she thought gloomily as she studied Jack’s grim profile. She was afraid that whatever chemistry she felt with Jack, whatever answering lust he conjured up in her, it wouldn’t be enough to keep the demons at bay. What if in the heat of the moment, the familiar revulsion of a man’s hands on her resurfaced? What if, God forbid, she panicked?
What if he looked at her and remembered what she’d been? Remembered what she’d let herself become?
That was the greatest fear. The deepest, darkest stone she kept secret in her heart. That no matter how much he wanted her, Jack would always see her as David Maxwell’s woman.
His mistress.
His whore.
When has Jack ever given any sign he sees you like that? Talia recognized that voice. It was the same stupid voice her then-twenty-two-year-old self had listened to when it told her David Maxwell was the answer to all of her romantic dreams and was going to love her and give her the life she always wanted.
She shoved it aside. So what if Jack never brought up David’s name? The reminders were everywhere. They were the reason he was even in her life.
Lust only went so far.
But look at all he’s done for you—is doing for you, that little stupid voice piped up. Would a guy like Jack go to all this trouble if he didn’t actually care for you? If all he wanted was to get in your pants?
God, she wanted to cling to that idea and run with it. If she could trust that, she could take the risk. She could stop being such a coward.
But that would take a leap of faith she wasn’t capable of. Not anymore. She needed to squelch whatever stirrings Jack might cause and keep her distance. Any other course was too dangerous.
She pulled herself out of her reverie and realized Jack had turned onto Campus Drive. He moved into the right lane. “No, take a left up here.”
“Her dorm is that way.”
“We’re not meeting her at her dorm,” she replied. “We’re meeting her at the coffeehouse. She had a meeting there with her physics TA.”
Jack’s only reply was grunt, a sound that sent a shooting pain through her head, intensifying the headache that had been building. A result not only of her sleepless night, but also of the stress of spending the morning with a smile pasted on her face as she exhausted every small-talk topic on the planet in an effort to engage him in conversation and defuse the tension between them.
All she’d gotten were grunts. It was his damn fault she was tied up in knots, and he couldn’t even trouble himself to be courteous.
She was officially done trying.
Jack did a quick lane change, almost taking out a biker in the process, and made a left toward the center of campus. He parked in the pay lot behind the student union. When Talia took out her wallet and headed for the pay station, Jack cut her off without a word and slid in his ATM card. Apparently chivalry wasn’t dead, even in the face of his sour mood.
They walked into the coffeehouse and it took Talia’s eyes a few moments to adjust to the dim interior. The tables were crowded with students and a handful of older professors. Some were quietly poring over books or working on laptops. Others were deep in conversation, and there were even a couple of groups crowded around pitchers of beer, getting the weekend started early on a Thursday afternoon.
Talia looked at them all with a mingling of jealousy and wonder. Did these kids—most of them the products of some of the most privileged families in the world—have any idea how lucky they were?
“God, I used to love afternoons like that,” Jack said, an unfamiliar tone of nostalgia in his voice. “Finish up classes early, take an afternoon to goof off with my buddies.”
Though Talia could understand the appeal, her usually subdued contrarian streak decided to rear its head. “I wouldn’t know. We were too poor for me to do more than a semester of community college.”
“You could still go.”
“Right. After I pay for Rosie and the rest of what I owe you, I should be able to afford it sometime in the middle of this century. I’ll have to use a walker to accept my diploma.”
Jack opened his mouth but Talia cut him off when she spotted Rosie across the room. “There’s Rosie,” she said, and started toward the table Rosie was sharing with a young man with dark hair.
Talia stopped beside the table and Rosie looked up with a smile. “Hey, Talia, we’re just finishing up.” She turned to the man who was sitting across from her. He was staring up at Talia. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were pale green, studying her with such curiosity Talia felt a bit like a bug under a microscope. “Eugene, this is my sister, Talia. Talia, this is Eugene Kuusik, my physics TA.”
“Nice to meet you.” Talia held out her hand, and there were several awkward seconds as Eugene just stared, unmoving. Talia was about to pull her hand away, wondering if she’d somehow offended him, when he seemed to jerk awake.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a sheepish smile as he held out his hand. “It’s stunning, how much like your sister you look.” His grip was surprisingly strong, and as she looked closer, she saw that while she’d initially categorized him as thin, the arms sticking out of the short sleeves of his T-shirt were corded with muscle.
He wasn’t massively built like Jack—few were—but he was lean and fit, in a compact, sinewy sort of way.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Talia replied, although she found his comment a little strange. Sure, she and Rosie resembled each other enough—no one was ever shocked to find out they were siblings—but with the differences in features, height, and build, they’d never be mistaken for twins.
“Oh, you absolutely should,” Eugene said, his face breaking into an almost sweet smile. He shot a quick look at Rosie, whose cheeks were flushed.
“I’m Jack,” Jack’s gruff voice broke in, and the offer of his hand forced Eugene to drop Talia’s. “So you’re her physics tutor?”
“Her TA, actually, for Physics Forty-Three class. In my spare time I’m working on my PhD in biophysics.”
“Jack was a physics major at West Point,” Rosie chimed in.
“Small potatoes compared to a PhD candidate,” Jack said, for the first time today sounding almost pleasant.
“And that’s why you’re a bodyguard instead of a PhD,” Talia said peevishly.
“Are you really a bodyguard?” Eugene asked, sounding almost impressed.
“I’m a security specialist,” Jack said, shooting Talia a glare.
“That sounds a lot cooler than physics geek,” Eugene said with a chuckle.
“Talia’s been getting some strange gifts,” Rosie said, leaning forward as though she was about to disclose a juicy secret. “We think she has a s
talker.”
Eugene grimaced sympathetically. “That sounds scary.”
“It’s totally freaky,” Rosie said. “It started with just a necklace and some flowers, but then—”
Talia glanced at Jack, who was shaking his head at a totally oblivious Rosie.
“Rosario,” he snapped, causing Rosie to look up with a startled, slightly hurt look. “We’re trying to keep the details on the down low—no offense, Eugene.”
Eugene nodded with a look of concern. “Of course, I understand.”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize,” Rosie said, then gave Eugene a pleading look. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
Eugene gave Rosie a gentle smile and patted her hand. “Of course not. And who would I tell anyway? The only people I know are geeks like me.” He closed his laptop and slid it into his bag. “It was nice meeting you,” he said to Talia and Jack as he rose. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get ready for my next class. Rosario, I’ll see you tomorrow in study section.”
Talia slid into the chair Eugene vacated.
“I thought we were leaving too,” Jack snapped.
Talia glared up at him. A headache throbbed in her temples. “I need to brace myself before we hit the mall.” She flashed Jack a smile that was more a baring of teeth. “Get me a coffee?”
“Sure.” Jack practically spat out the word and started to turn and walk away.
“I want a half caf light foam nonfat latte with one pump vanilla syrup and make sure it’s extra hot. Got all that?”
“Got it.”
“You guys are doing it, aren’t you?”
Talia was glad she didn’t have her coffee yet because Rosie’s question would have made her spew it all over the table. “What on earth are you talking about? Of course not. Why would you say that?”
Rosie sat back in her chair, arms folded, regarding her with a knowing look that made her look thirty-five instead of eighteen. “You’re totally acting like people who hooked up but then got in a fight and neither of you wants to apologize.” She cocked her head. “But now that you say it, I think the problem is that you haven’t done it yet.”
