She traced a slow line down the bridge of his nose with her fingertip, over the bow of his upper lip, along the stubbled ridge of his jaw. He turned his face into her palm and pressed a kiss there, right at the center, where her lifeline carved its deepest groove.
“I love you,” he whispered against her skin.
She settled back on his chest, nestling into him. “I love you too.”
The morning settled around them. Curtains billowed in the rising humidity as a songbird sang its territorial claim.
Jack eased her into the crook of his arm, her cheek against his chest, fingers resting lightly on the scar above his heart. That was where he felt her most. In the hollowed cavity of his chest that had only ever known injustice and pain. Somehow, she pushed it all aside and spread something light where darkness had always been.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Above the Clouds
Jasmine…
The scent reached her before consciousness did, threading through the gauze of dreamless sleep like a gentle hand coaxing her toward the surface. Daisy opened her eyes to a room washed in pale gold, where ivory curtains swayed against tall windows and light pooled on the walnut floor.
She had slept. Not the fractured, haunted sleep that left her exhausted for weeks, but the deep, boneless surrender of a body that had finally stopped fighting.
Steam billowed from the bathroom in a fragrant cloud as Jack emerged, dark hair slicked back from his face and beads of water clinging to his shoulders. A white towel clung to his tapered hips, drawing her eye to the carved lines of muscle that shaped from his abdomen.
His gaze found her in the tangle of cream sheets and pillows. “You’re awake.”
He made no effort to angle his body or shield his scars.
“I don’t even remember falling asleep,” she murmured, voice husky.
His grey eyes darkened as they slowly traced the slope of her bare shoulders, predatory and tender. He crossed the room without a word and lowered himself onto the bed, capturing her legs with his own.
“I like having you in my bed.” He lowered the sheet with deliberate, unhurried tugs, exposing her bare breasts.
“Lucky for you, I like being in your bed.”
A masculine growl rumbled from his throat as he moved up her body, caging her in. His mouth found her neck. Not a kiss but a claiming, his lips dragging along the sensitive cord of muscle below her ear with a pressure that sent heat flooding to the surface of her skin.
Her breath stuttered when his teeth grazed her pulse point, her body responding to him with an immediacy that should have embarrassed her. Her nipples tightened, flushing pink, and his gaze dropped to them with naked hunger.
He drew one stiffened peak into his mouth, his lips closing around her with a slow, wet suction that made her spine lift off the mattress and a moan spill from her throat.
He released her with a soft, obscene sound that sent a pulse of arousal straight to her core, and his hand trailed down her stomach, over the gentle curve of her hip, slipping between her thighs with a featherlight touch.
He cupped her sex gently. “Sore?”
“A little.”
He glided his palm with a tenderness that made her chest ache, his broad hand cradling her with warmth rather than pressure, as though holding something bruised.
“A bath will help.”
“I think what you were just doing might help more.” She rocked her hips against his palm, testing the soreness, finding it tolerable and overshadowed by her desire to have him again.
His breath caught against her collarbone. “Daisy.”
“Please.”
When he lifted his head to look at her, his eyes had darkened to the color of a winter sea, and the muscle in his jaw twitched with the effort of restraint. She arched her back, pressing her breasts toward him in deliberate invitation, and his resolve fractured.
He descended on her, his mouth capturing her neglected nipple as he sucked deeply, his tongue swirling the sensitive bud in tight, wet circles that made her gasp and dig her fingers into the damp hair at his nape.
