“Then make love to me,” she whispers.
A memory, vivid and intense, slams back. The words, the meaning, hit hard as a sledgehammer. Her dad’s warning not to get her pregnant.
In the darkness of my mind, my first thought is, hell yes, do it. Lock her down. Tell her to get that IUD out. She’ll have to marry me. That’s what I want.
I think.
Except, it isn’t. It feels like I’m trapping her in a miserable life she doesn’t realize she’s already in. I guess money would fix all these problems. I just don’t know if I could live with myself being her peasant.
I snap from my thoughts, tired of worrying. This gorgeous woman wants to fuck, I’ll deliver. Because she’s the only thing that quiets my mind.
I grab her arm firmly and have her straddle my hips. Her naked body looms over me like a holy thing, glowing in the dark. I’m hard in seconds. She does that to me so well. She laces her delicate fingers around my shaft and leads it to her entrance.
Her warmth envelops my length, and I groan in pleasure.
Damn, she feels good.
She rides me at her own pace, figuring it out, looking both sexy and adorable. She winces and shifts her weight as she adjusts to the new position. My fingers clutch her thighs as I watch, but despite this dream unfolding — her in my bed — I suddenly become dazed out of my mind. I’m half present, half somewhere else.
Her hand touches my face.
“Jack. You okay?”
It is not breathless or needy. It’s questioning.
I can’t hide from her. She knows me too well. She always seems to know me too well. Shame hits. I am failing her in the one place we’ve been strongest. So I lie. For her.
“Just can’t believe you’re here, baby.”
She smiles wide and lowers her chest, her warm body resting against mine. Gently, she kisses my neck and sucks my earlobe, then purrs, “Good. I love you... say it back.”
Shit. I guess I haven’t been.
I say it, but it doesn’t sound like my voice.
I love her. I do. I don’t know what’s wrong, and that irritates me the most.
When the moment ends, she snuggles close, as if she still can’t get enough. I got her off. Somehow.
She falls asleep thinking we found each other again. I lie there beside her with my eyes open —angry.
After I can’t stand it anymore, I slip out of the bed and into the bathroom. I sink to the floor, and just stay there, begging my heart to stop beating this fast. For the anger to leave. I try to breathe. Try not to sweat.
And it lasts long into the night.
Chapter 49
Morgan
“How are things going with Jack?” asks Daddy.
“Great!”
Lie.
I wish I would quit doing that, but something is very wrong with Jack. It’s been two weeks, and Jack is slipping through my fingers. He hardly talks. His jeans fit looser. He never reaches for me first anymore. When I crowd him, he goes stiff. When I back off, he looks shattered. Then angry.
I lie awake beside him every night wondering what I broke.
