Can't Get Enough (18 page)

Because what on earth happened to a man when all the grief he'd stuffed down deep inside threatened to escape?

She grabbed Linda's arm, imperative. "I need Jack's home address, pronto."

HE LIVED IN A HOUSE. Another surprise. A big old rambling house with a
yard and trees and a white picket fence. Parking her car in front, she
felt a moment of shame for all the clichés she'd ascribed to Jack.
She'd always imagined him in a penthouse apartment, with lots of
gleaming chrome and black leather furniture and mood lighting.

Girding
her loins, she made her way up the path to the front door and leaned on
the doorbell. Nothing. She waited, then tried again. Still nothing. She
tried knocking next, and when this was still ineffective, she stepped
back and surveyed the house. It was possible he wasn't here at all, of
course. Lord, he could be anywhere. But his car gleamed redly at the
end of the drive, and she had a gut instinct about this—Jack was very
private, and she doubted he'd take his grief to a public place. She
tried the front door, but it was solidly locked, so she headed boldly
up the drive, emerging into a beautifully landscaped backyard. Fruit
trees and roses, climbing jasmine on the fence and a rustic outdoor
setting created a little oasis of calm and tranquility. She smiled at
the laughing Buddha statue half-hidden in amongst some irises, then
frowned as she saw the back door open and swinging in the breeze.

Well, at least she wasn't breaking and entering….

Feeling a little more tentative now, she stuck her head in the darkened
doorway and glanced up and down the hallway. In front of her, old
floorboards gleamed all the way down the central hallway to the front
door.

"Jack? Jack, are you here?" she called out.

Nothing. Sighing, she stepped properly into the house. The kitchen was
on her right. It was old but serviceable, and Jack was obviously in the
process of renovating it, with half the tiles removed and the wallpaper
stripped down to bare plaster.

Two empty tequila bottles lay on their sides on the kitchen table.
Oh, goody.
Nothing like a tequila hangover.

She found him in the living room, slumped on the couch, his posture
defeated and closed. At first she thought he was asleep, but he lifted
his head when she put her hand on his shoulder, giving her a minor
heart attack.

"Jack!" she said, startled, and he blinked up at her owlishly.

"What are you doing here?" he slurred, and she pulled back from the truly impressive haze of alcohol he was exuding.

Amazingly, he still managed to look dangerously attractive, despite his bleary-eyed, bestubbled , incoherent state.

"I was worried about you," she said, not bothering to edit herself. She'd be stunned if he remembered any of this.

"Were you? That's nice."

His head sank back down, and she allowed herself a small moment to
simply rest her hand on his head, feeling for him. He held too much to
himself, blocked himself off too much….

"Jack, I think we should make you some coffee. And some food. You feel
like some food?" she suggested, forcing herself to take her hand off
his silky, springy hair.

"Don't want anything," he said, childishly.

"I'm sure you don't. But I promise you'll feel better if you eat some food."

"Don't want to feel better."

I bet you don't.She stared down at his still-bowed head, then made a decision. "Why don't we get you in the shower?"

He didn't respond to this, and she crouched down to peer up into his face. "Jack? Jack?" Slowly he opened his eyes again.

"Don't want shower."

She nodded as though she was agreeing with him. "Sure. But you trust
me, don't you? And I think you should have a shower," she said.

He just stared at her, and she leaned forward and slid her arm around
his shoulders, bracing herself and ensuring a strong grip on his
well-muscled side.

"Come on, now. Let's stand."

It took a few more minutes of coaxing and some serious counterweight
balancing to get him to his feet. She cursed herself immediately for
not having done a bit of recon and worked out where the shower was
before she got him standing, but he was swaying on his feet so much
that there was no way she could trust him to stay upright if she went
for a quick scout.

So they staggered up the hallway, and she found the bathroom behind the
second door she tried. She tried to make him understand she wanted him
to sit on the edge of the tub while she took off his boots, but he just
stared at her blankly.

"Jack, how much have you had to drink?" she asked suddenly, beginning
to wonder if he'd had the whole two bottles of tequila. How much did it
take before a person got alcohol poisoning? She didn't have a head for
drink herself, and the thought of so much strong spirit made her wince.
He shrugged, clearly disinterested, and she was forced to get down on
her knees and lift his feet up one at a time to drag off his
expensive-looking boots. The rest of him could go in the shower as is,
but the boots just looked too good to ruin, and she knew he wouldn't
thank her if she destroyed them. Hell, he was unlikely to thank her
anyway, but she was here now….

She'd just tugged his last boot off when Jack swayed alarmingly and
staggered backward. There wasn't far for him to go in the small space;
his legs kicked forward, catching the heel of the boot she held and
flicking it toward her face, and he slammed against the tiled wall and
slid down until his butt was in the tub and his legs were dangling over
the edge.

White light exploded behind her eyes as the boot connected with her
right cheekbone, and she reeled backward from her crouching position,
connecting with the wall behind her. Claire just breathed through the
pain for a moment, then pressed a hand to her face, probing her
cheekbone tentatively. Nothing felt broken or wrong, and she guessed
she'd be looking at a bruise and nothing more. Still, it hurt like
hell, and she took a couple more deep breaths.
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"Claire? You okay?"

She looked up quickly to find Jack staring at her, his eyes more lucid
now; perhaps the impact had knocked a bit of sense into him, sent some
adrenaline into his system to counteract all that alcohol.

"I'm fine."

She pushed off the wall behind her and stood up.

"Come on, let's get you into the shower," she said.

She had to brace herself to help drag him up out of the tub, but he
seemed much more aware of things as he sank down onto the edge of the
bath and cradled his head in his hands.

"Did you knock your head?" she asked him, worried about concussion now.
She leaned over him, reaching behind his head to probe the back of his
skull for any bumps or blood. Suddenly Jack's hand shot out and grabbed
hers, and she found herself being pulled down so that she was kneeling
in front of him.

"Let me see," he was murmuring. "I hurt you." He was determined and way
too heavy for her to move around without his cooperation, so she let
him have his way when he tilted her face up to examine the throbbing
mark left by his boot. She tried not to look into his intent but bleary
eyes, focusing instead on the tiled wall behind him.

"I hurt you," he repeated, one large hand cradling her chin as the
other brushed delicately at her cheek. She had to swallow against the
rush of feeling and memory his tender touch evoked, and she took
herself to task firmly—the man was five parts drunk, incoherent and
morose, and she was more hard up than she'd ever imagined if this was
all it took to move her these days.

"It's okay, Jack. It's just a bruise. You didn't mean it. It was an
accident," she reassured him, trying to turn her face away from his
probing scrutiny.

"I still hurt you. I'm sorry, Claire, I'm so sorry," Jack said, his
voice very low and gruff now. She froze as both Jack's hands cupped her
face and held it steady as he stared intently into her eyes, his own
face just a foot away.

"I'm really, really sorry," he said, and she watched as tears welled up
in his amazing eyes and spilled over his stubbly cheeks.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he repeated, the tears still falling.

"Jack, it's okay," she said, tears welling in her own eyes at his
misery. His hands slipped from her face and dropped lifelessly into his
lap. His shoulders shuddered, and then he seemed to crumple in on
himself and she caught him in her arms as he leaned forward. A cry of
anguish that seemed to seep out of his very bones echoed through him,
and then he was gripping her back with a
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terrifying strength as he cried and cried and cried.

His weight pulled him forward off the edge of the tub and onto his
knees on the floor, and she knelt with him, her heart aching for him as
he wept in her arms.

She soothed a hand down his back and up again, making encouraging
noises and wincing a little because he was holding her so tightly.

They stayed like that a while, until well past what her knees were
happy with, but she waited until his sobbing had tapered off before
soothing a hand down his back one last time and pushing him back from
her.

"How about that shower now, Jack?" she suggested.

His eyes were swollen, and he needed to blow his nose, and she had to look away from the raw vulnerability in his face.
This is why men don't let women see them cry,
she realized. Suddenly Jack seemed infinitely fragile.

She got him to his feet and into the shower, and was about to turn on the taps when he caught her hand again.

"Hang on."

With one shoulder wedged against the wall, Jack reached for the
waistband on his jeans and she found herself following the movements of
his hands with an unnatural fascination as he slipped the stud from its
buttonhole and unzipped his fly. He hooked his thumbs into the
waistband of his jeans next, and with a smooth motion he shucked them
down. She gulped as she realized he'd taken his underwear with the
jeans, hastily averting her eyes.

Because to do anything else would be an invasion of privacy, right? But
Jack was really, really out of it, and the odds of him remembering any
of this with great clarity were pretty damn slim. Almost against her
will, her eyes lifted above his ankles where he was even now stepping
clumsily out of his jeans and boxers, past his knees, up his
well-muscled, nicely haired thighs, until she hit the money shot and
swallowed a sudden lump in her throat.

Whoa!

The sight of him was enough to make her thighs tighten instinctively.
It had been so hot and intense in the elevator, a lot of the details
sort of blurred into one blood-stirring memory. But the sight of him
made her remember what it had felt like to be completely, achingly
filled by a man. She swallowed, aware that her breathing was a little
shallow.

But even though she knew it was rude to stare, and that she shouldn't
be indulging these sorts of fantasies, especially with Jack Brook, she
couldn't seem to stop her eyes traveling back down to where all the
action was, even as she accepted the T-shirt he'd shucked, and pulled
his jeans out from around his feet.

Of its own accord, heat pooled low in her belly, and her heart thrummed
against her ribs. She really wanted to touch him. She really wanted to
get her hands on the solid, thick length of him, to feel him against
her body,
in
her body.

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It would be so easy just to step into the shower beside him. To peel
off her clothes off and press herself against him and let herself have
more of what she'd tasted.

She gave herself a shake at this last salacious thought. The man was
not in his right mind. And they had been down this road before, and
that way lay rejection and embarrassment.

"Right," she said, more for herself than for Jack, who was leaning against the tiled wall, his eyes closed.

"It's going to be cold, okay?" she warned him, shooting one last
wistful look downstairs—not even Jack Brook, with all his apparent
talents, could withstand the rigors of an ice-cold shower. She twisted
the cold tap on full and leaped back as Jack reacted like a scalded cat
despite his drunkenness.

"What the hell?" he demanded, suddenly standing tall and angry and naked, glaring belligerently at her.

"It's for your own good," she squeaked, shutting the shower door
between them with a slam and pressing her palms against the glass. "You
really need to sober up." Jack seemed to take in what she said, but she
noted that he reached for the hot tap just the same. The wary glance he
shot her made her realize the cold had shocked him far closer to
sobriety than she'd imagined, and she suddenly felt very uncomfortable.

"Um, I'm going to make you some food," she mumbled.

He just stared at her through the water-beaded glass, then turned his back on her and reached for the soap.

9

SHE MADE HER WAYback into the kitchen and pulled out a chair, sinking
into it gratefully. Maybe she shouldn't have come. But then she touched
her shoulder where not even half an hour ago he'd been clinging
desperately as his grief poured out, and she couldn't regret a thing.
In her opinion, that crying jag had been a long time coming, and if
she'd helped him open up some of his pain, then it didn't matter that
he was probably going to hate her for it once he sobered up. Because
while she might not be the most amazingly perspicacious reader of men,
she knew enough to know that Jack would rather throw her off a cliff
than bump into her every day in the office knowing that she'd seen him
so vulnerable.

Well, tough. He'd seen her passed out from some stupid, babyish fear of small spaces. If she could hack it, he could, too.

Now that she'd bolstered her own courage somewhat, she felt free to
register the throbbing ache of her cheekbone. Before she did anything
else, she needed ice.