Dawn of Forever (Jack & Jill #3) (15 page)

After ringing the
doorbell several times and knocking on both the storm door and side window, Ryn sulked back to her car. She needed the security of Jackson’s arms. Instead, she climbed back in her car and let the tears fall. In between sobs she laughed.

“He’s just not home. Why are you crying?” she asked herself, resting her forehead on her hands gripped around the top of the steering wheel. Not once in her adult life had she allowed herself to need a man—until Jackson. After dealing with Preston, she
needed
Jackson so badly her chest felt painfully hollow.

Bang bang bang!

Ryn jerked her head up and there he stood in a gray hoodie and jogging pants, face flushed, rapid puffs of air condensing between his lips and her window. He frowned, brow drawn tight.

She smiled, blinking her teary eyes. He opened her door.

“What’s wrong?”

Ryn leaped into his arms.

“Hey now … what’s going on?” He hugged her to him.

“You weren’t home.” Her words muffled into the neck of his hoodie. “Oh God. I didn’t mean it like that.” She pulled back, keeping her hands cupped to the back of his head. “It’s been a shit day … and I … I just really needed to see you. I know that sounds crazy but—”

He kissed her. Tasted her. Claimed her in the deepest recesses of her heart, places no man had ever been before. Ryn wanted to kiss him for eternity, or at least until he filled every inch of her mind, leaving no room for the pain of her past.

“It’s not crazy.” The whisper of his words over her lips chased away the events of her day, at least for that moment.

He moved to shut her car door.

“Don’t!” She gripped him tighter. “If you move then this moment will end.”

Jackson chuckled. “And what is this moment?”

Searching his eyes, she smiled. “It’s perfection.”

He laughed again. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Not in your arms.”

“Well, I did run nearly ten miles. I feel like a furnace—a sweaty, smelly furnace. I need a shower.”

She pinched her lips together, concealing her grin as she shrugged. “I like showers.”

His eyes grew wide. “Do you now?”

“I do.” She played with the strings to his hoodie.

“As I recall, you don’t take showers with men.”

“I’ve recently made an exception.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded, biting her lip. “Younger guy. Tattoos. Geeky glasses. Fairly nice body.”

Jackson puckered his lips. A stern look appraised her with an unnerving intensity. “Fairly nice?”

“Yes. He could use some fat on his body. Women like little love handles.”

“Well if you need something to hold on to, I can offer you something rather large and quite firm.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

“I suppose I could see whatcha got.”

Jackson smirked. “Follow me.” He took her hand and led her inside.

She sat on his bed, enthralled with every move he made, from something as mundane as untying his shoes to the more erotic show of him undressing. Every moment with Jackson was a pinch-me moment.

“Tell me about the tears.”

She looked at his eyes, having drunk in every other part of his body. “Maddie has a professor offering extra credit in exchange for sexual favors and her father condones that behavior. Apparently the job that successful women have to master before making it to the top is the blowjob.”

“Don’t let my sister hear that. She’d hunt down that professor and castrate him, then she’d do the same thing to your ex-husband.”

“So I should definitely say something to her?”

Jackson chuckled, but his smile faded within seconds. “I’ve had a shit day as well. We should have stayed in bed.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“I want you to take off your clothes.”

“I talk better with my clothes on.”

“I fuck you better with your clothes off.”

Ryn opened her mouth to reply. Nothing.

“It was your idea.” He crossed inked arms over his chest, completely comfortable standing naked in front of her.

“Yeah, I was emotional yet oddly more confident in the driveway.”

Jackson cocked his head to the side. Every look felt like an assessment. “We can fuck in the driveway, but it’s going to be cold and I have a hunch there might be something in the association’s code of conduct that prohibits it.”

Ryn laughed. “Ya think?”

“Yes. I think the first law is no speeding and the second is no fucking in the driveway. Now strip.”

Using borrowed courage from some unknown place, she stood. It was a start.

“You’re mine for eternity, so you might as well get used to these eyes looking at your naked body—
only
these eyes.”

Her heart drummed against her chest in a terrifying yet exhilarating rhythm. In an unexplainable way, she both hated and loved how far out of her skin she felt when he looked at her.

“Let’s start with this … What part of your body have I not seen?”

The hint of a smile played with the corners of her mouth.

“Better yet, what part of your body have my lips not touched?”

Tugging off her shirt, she smiled. Gone were the compression bras; she didn’t burn them, but they were hauled off with the trash shortly after the infamous refrigerator sex. Lace, satin, and underwire took their place.

“What you’re doing right now feels more intimate than anything you’ve ever done to me with your mouth.”

“We’ll see about that.” He wet his lips, eyeing her white lace bra. Approval glimmered in his eyes.

She removed the rest of her clothes, eager to be in his arms. He took a step back as she moved toward him.

“Stop.”

She froze. Her hands searched for a place to be: hanging idle at her sides, covering her breasts, shielding her neatly-shaven pussy?

“Repeat after me.”

“What?” Her voice squeaked with disbelief.

He grinned as his ego gobbled up her confidence. “I’m beautiful.”

Ryn squinted.

“Say it.”

She sighed. “I’m beautiful.”

“I’m taking back every bit of confidence that bastard took from me.”

It would never happen like that, but someone who hadn’t been in her shoes could never understand. However, she loved the naked man standing before her for saying it.

“I’m taking back every bit of confidence that bastard took from me.”

“I’m worthy of happiness.”

That one hit harder than it should have. She’d never given happiness much thought.

“Say it.”

“I’m … I’m worthy of happiness.”

“I’m going to marry Jackson Knight and love him in spite of his multiple fucked-up personalities.”

“Jackson—”

“Say it.” His voice carried a rare pain and vulnerability.

“I’m going to marry Jackson Knight…” she stepped closer and rested her hands on his chest “…and I’m going to
love
Every. Single. One. Of his fucked-up personalities.”

“I’ve had a shit day,” he whispered, brushing his thumb along her cheek. “Until now.”

She nodded slowly, then looked up at him. “I’ve had a shit life … until now.”

“Touch me,” he said.

“Where?”

“Everywhere. Make me feel
human
again.”

She could do that. She could make him feel human. After all, he made her feel alive.

Jackson looked at her with complete surrender as they stepped into the steamy abyss. His breath caught when she touched him. He closed his eyes and let her move her soapy hands over the firm planes of his body. The pain in his face crushed her. What had happened to him? Could one human take the life of another and still feel whole? Or did he give away a piece of himself with every life he took?

The water washed over her like guilt. What if he needed to tell her? Ryn didn’t want to know everything. She loved Jackson Knight now and just like her past, she didn’t want to let yesterday taint today and steal tomorrow.

Water clung to his eyelashes as he blinked them open when she shut off the water. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he lifted her up and carried her to the bed, not stopping for towels.

“We’re drenched,” she shrieked as he threw back his comforter and tossed her onto the cold sheets.

Before she could protest with another word, he crawled up her body while covering them completely with the comforter. Ryn liked their private cocoon. She also liked how he wasted no time warming up her body with his.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered over her skin.

She closed her eyes as his tongue parted her folds, his lips soft on her sensitive flesh. Ryn grabbed his hair and let her legs fall open for him. Everything he did meant something so much greater than physical desire. The woman who survived years of abuse had learned to trust again, but more than that, he’d taught her to believe. When Jackson touched her she
believed
in herself and she
felt
truly beautiful.

“Jackson …” she writhed beneath him as he kissed his way back up her body, sinking into her as his lips claimed hers again.

Ryn turned her head to the side, relishing the feel of his teeth teasing along her neck.

“Tell me.”

“What?” he murmured over her skin.

“Tell me we’re not just fucking.”

He stopped. Ryn clenched her muscles around him buried inside of her. The fullness stole her breath as much as the intensity in his eyes.

“We’re having intercourse.” A smile crept along his face.

Ryn dug her nails into his ass.

He teased his lips over hers. “Our genitals are having a play date.”

She bit his lower lip. He chuckled.

“I’m holing up for the winter.”

Snaking a hand between them, she squeezed a testicle.

“Okay … okay.” He flinched.

“Tell me what this is.”

Jackson planted soft kisses on her entire face then hovered over her lips. “I’m making love to you, Ryn. You’re the only woman I’ve made love to. And this? You? It’s my whole fucking world.”

S
ome things in
life were too overwhelming—too big—to see from Earth. Jillian opened her eyes, feeling a world away from reality. Maybe it was the view from the other side. Her captor’s words broke the unbreakable.

Jessica had a long list of innocent victims, but only one man had she left with
a broken nose, two missing teeth, three fractured ribs, and a punctured lung.
And he wasn’t an innocent victim.

“I’m sorry.”

She jerked her head up, eyes wide. Across from her, bound and propped up against the opposing wall, was
him
.

“Fuck you.” She shook her head. It just couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be her reality.

“I loved her. I’ve loved her my whole life.”

Jillian coughed past the sandpaper feeling in her throat. “You’d better be referring to that psycho bitch, because if you’re talking about—”

“Sunny. I loved your mother.”

“Don’t you fucking say that!” She fought against her restraints, but they didn’t budge. Her heart tried to bust through her chest. Could a heart kill someone? Jillian felt certain hers could.

“I loved her before she met your father.”

“Stop! Just … stop.” Tears stung her eyes. They were filled with anger. She couldn’t imagine how many times her world could be shattered and pieced back together, just to have it blown up all over again.

“She loved me too.”

“She would
never
love you.” Her words sliced through the air. She wanted them to slice through his throat, gouge out his eyes, and rip his fucking heart from his soulless body.

“We met in kindergarten.” He stared at the floor, a smug smile curling his lips.

Jillian squeezed her eyes shut, silently begging for icy water, sauna heat, or even another arrow, preferably to her heart—anything would have been better than the torture his words put her through.

“We lived a block away from each other and became inseparable. She was the first girl I kissed. She was my best friend … the best of everything. Soul mates.”

“Are you two lovebirds playing catch up?” Psycho Bitch descended the stairs, trying to regain some dignity by throwing her shoulders back, as if it could distract from her fucked-up face.

“Let her go, Vic. This has nothing to do with her.”

Her polite smile did nothing to enhance her mangled facial features. “It has plenty to do with her,
Special Agent McGraw
. Isn’t that what you liked me to call you when you fucked me like a dog, refusing to actually look at my face when we made love? Oh wait … except on our wedding night. You surrendered to the missionary position, but kept your eyes shut the whole time.”

Knox gave Jillian a fleeting glance. She glared at him. How did she not know he had a wife?

“Vicki?”

“Vic.” He looked at his ex-wife while speaking to Jillian. “Virtual Intelligence Command. Edgar gave her that code name. Everyone assumed the eyes and ears of G.A.I.L. was a man named Victor. Instead, it was his orphaned stepdaughter who happened to know her way around a computer. He took pity on her and gave her a job to let her be part of G.A.I.L. because her asthma prevented her from being in the field. Then I took pity on her and married her.”

“Pity my ass. You married me to get your greedy little hands deeper into the inner workings of G.A.I.L. You married me for money and power. You and all your other unscrupulous comrades took something good, something positive that came from my mother’s death, and you turned it into a corrupt business.”

“Money equals power, sweetheart. You don’t protect innocent lives without a helluva lot of power. An army needs deep pockets. Corruption is a fact of life.”

“It was never about protecting innocent lives. For you it was always about revenge.”

Jillian watched her two enemies sling their words.

“Jesus, Irene! What the fuck do you think
this
is? Revenge! You’re out for revenge and everyone is collateral damage.”

“Irene” narrowed her eyes, flitting them between Jillian and Knox. “Don’t ever call me that again.” She gritted out each word then took a puff from her inhaler.

“It’s your name.”

“It’s not my goddamn name!” Her fist slammed the table, knocking over a can of Mountain Dew and her bow that had been propped up against the leg. “Irene died the day she became Vic. You never knew Irene. She was Gail’s daughter—innocent and full of hope. Vic fed G.A.I.L’s corruption. She married a cheater—a cheater who drove her to the edge of insanity and then shoved her off it. Five years, asshole. I spent five years in that godforsaken place all because of you and your mistresses.”