Eye of the Storms (Eye of the Storms #1) (22 page)

“I think I jumped to conclusions.”

“I know you did.”

P
ractically vaulting the arm of the couch in one of those stage moves, which I recognized from watching videos of Jackal, Jack crossed the room to the kitchen bar. He returned directly back with the envelope in question. Holding the note visible to both of us, he silently read my handwriting:

“Pretty sure right here I said ‘the best.’” Pointing at that particular part, he tipped a smile.

At last, he spoke again. “The important part is the last part.”

My nerves were so coiled that a loud buzz had begun in my ears like when pregnancy had caused spells of high blood pressure.

“I was trying to tell you that I’ve become greedy with this whole father thing.”

For a few silent seconds, his gaze rested on the paper and then it fell on my face. The eyes I looked into were as dark and sweet as the chocolate I always mentally likened them to, and when he spoke, they glistened.

“I was trying to say I want our son. And his mother too.”

My mind went into motion, processing faster than the processor of the laptop on the desk, which caught my panicked gaze. At last, I was brave enough to return my look to Jack’s eyes as he continued.

“When I met you, when we…”

When Jack paused here, unable to find what he thought were the right words for our fevered liaison in a tour bus bunk, I felt the familiar warmth that even after all of these years, flooded my senses when I let myself go there.

“Mariss, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And the ‘what ifs.’ What if we went out, what if we were meant to be. But my band was taking off like crazy. Then, every time I would be so insane that I was going to come see you or do something about what I was feeling, something would happen that kept me busy, kept me too tired to think. And you would go to the back of my mind where it was easier to deal.”

The paper fell to the table as he stood and paced a few steps.

“Then after a few months, I couldn't shake you out of my head. The tour was over. I had downtime.” In an unconscious action, he picked up a photo of Tristan before returning it to the shelf. “I ended up asking you to come out.” Loosely he referred to LA. “I didn’t even know I was going to ask you. It just came out.”

My mind went back to that night with remembrance of how surprised I had been, and my thoughts whipped around as his words sank in. He had felt as connected as I had from the start.

Jack’s eyes held unwaveringly on my face. “I thought you felt the same way, and a part of me didn’t care if you did. Because if you didn’t, I thought I could talk you into seeing me just because of who I was. Then I could trip you, make you fall for me.”

Hearing this sentence made me wonder if he even realized he spoke in verses of his songs sometimes.

“But you dissed me hard.” A wry grimace played on his lips. “I never got over you. That you wouldn’t come.”

“You know now why I didn’t though…”

Nodding, he continued, and his words came in short sentences. “I’m into my music. But not into the lifestyle. Not anymore. Lately I'm in burnout. I hate the road. And I hate going home. To an empty house.” He looked to me. “And you fall back into my life—complete as a family. And I began thinking ‘what if’ again.”

Already following his random pacing and trying to follow his random words, I watched, transfixed by the emotion feeding the fervor in his words.
What if.
What if, what? My heart pounded.

He moved a couple of steps closer, then stilled, his eyes still holding mine. “Whatever is going on between you and me, it's happening fast for me. I've never felt like this so fast. Hell, I've never felt like this.”

Dropping to sit on the sofa table, he locked onto my gaze again, and when he seemed to wait, I assured, “It's happening fast for me too.” That was an understatement.
It
, whatever it was, had happened hard to me too. “So fast, it scares me.”

“Don't be scared.” Lifting his hand, he sifted through the hair that fell over my shoulder, and the pad of his thumb stroked my bottom lip. “Okay?”

The gesture and voice tone was so sweet and reassuring. My throat felt clogged, and I could only nod. My look fell to the swirl of ink on his arm, and he dropped his hand. Both elbows rested on his jeans, and he closed his fingers around mine.

There was something more to come. His gaze was serious, so serious, I was terrified, even though he'd just had me totally trusting in him, in me, in whatever this thing was we were caught up in.

“Mariss?”

‘What?’ is what I meant to say, but my voice only croaked.

“I think I love you.” There was the slightest pause before he rushed on. “I know I love you. And the other day, I was on my knees about to pop the question…”

“What?” This time the word was a clear surprised whisper when he fell silent, and I blinked, needing the assurance that I had not fallen into one of my fantasies.
LOVE? And what question? THE question?

Shifting over, he sank to the sofa.

“I was. Remember I knelt beside you? And, I don’t know how it got so screwed up. What did happen in the screw up was I came to my senses. I know it was an impulse thing.”

Before I could fully feel hurt from that last statement, he explained, “I do want to marry you. But I know we need to work out a relationship between us before. We need to stop doing things backward.”

Backward had brought me Tristan, and I would never regret that. But I knew what he meant. I had been ready to dive into marriage with just one kiss outside Tristan’s hospital room– to scheme and do whatever I needed to do to accomplish it, and that had been irrational and wrong.

“I’ve done the same thing with the ‘what ifs.’” The confession spilled out, and now I was the one staring at the floor as I thought over my words. “For so many years. Felt fated to you somehow. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep at night, I would imagine us as a family. I felt like I knew you before you even came to the hospital that day.”

Having confessed my fantasies, I went on to divulge my humiliation. “And then, that day on the phone when you disconnected our call, I didn’t know that guy. You were not who I thought you were. After that, I guess, in the back of my head, I was always afraid that guy would show himself again.”

My gaze searchingly sought his, and before I could speak again, he did.

“I don’t know why I say the shit I do sometimes. I don’t know that guy either. Unfortunately, I have to live with his screw ups.” Playing in my hair, he met my gaze head on, and his words were soft. “I don’t want you to be one of those things I screwed up.”

“I’m not. I’m one of those things I screwed up.”

“You’re not. You’re not, Mariss.”

My heart pounded as always when his head closed the space to mine. The kiss was tender and sweet, and before it could fuse into fire, he pulled slightly back but maintained contact with his fingertips massaging the back of my neck.

“I had this plan, kind of. But tell me what you think, okay?”

Warily, my shields went up against this plan since he had used almost the same words in the exercise room concerning Tristan’s custody.

“I need to be in LA for another six months at least. At max, a year. But I don’t want to be away from you guys anymore. The week I left the hospital seemed like a year. Can you and Tristan move to LA? And then after that, we can move back somewhere closer to here if you want.”

A surge of emotions and questions shocked through me. “Are you still asking me to marry you?” The query was bold, but I was tired of the confusion.

He had trust issues. I had avoidance issues. Issues I wanted to be done with.

“I’m asking if you want to get married one day. Because I know I want to marry you. But we need to build a relationship. And, your proposal should be spectacular. So this is not it.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed at the absurdity. But the solemn, loving look in those dark eyes, as well as the devout expression, made his non-proposal work.

“Are you laughing because you’re happy? Or because I’m a stupid jackas―”

“Jack! Don’t ruin this by cursing. I’ll always look back on this as my real proposal.”

“Not after you experience the real proposal.” The promise was accompanied by that lift of his dark brows and the smirky expression I knew so well and loved– the look I always wanted to kiss off his face.

And I did…

… “So?”

My back was on the sofa, and he came up from that epic kiss long enough to toss that one syllable word and punctuate it with another touch of his lips to mine.

“So what?”

It wasn’t coy. I had no idea what he was going on about. While waiting for my answer, he propped on his forearms and unwittingly pulled one of Tristan’s shirts from inside the sofa. Throwing it aside, he placed his lips just beneath my ear.

“Are you guys coming back with me to LA Friday?”

“Friday?”

Pushing up enough to stare into my face again, he searched my eyes, and I pushed his hair from my eyes.

“I have this thing I have to go to. Album drop party. But if you can’t go, I can take the ‘lingerina’— “

The wrestling match ended with him finding the second of Tristan’s shirts in the couch and playfully using it as a chokehold.

“Okay. Yes. I’m there.” Making a production of coughing out the answer, I grabbed the shirt when he released it from my neck and slapped at him with it. “Thought these things took background checks. Can you get a background check in a day?”

“I could if I really wanted. But, I don’t have to. It’s already done.”

“You snooped me?”

This felt like more of a violation than internet stalking on a gossip site. A background check involved credit and finances. Still, I should have expected it would happen after calling up out of nowhere claiming to be the mother of his son. I learned different with his next words.

“I had my lawyer put it in motion the other day and put a rush on it. So you could start going to stuff with me.”

Right there and then, my heart exploded with love, and I pulled him down, expressing it in one passionate kiss. Even while we had been fighting, not speaking, he had seen the problem as temporary. He had still seen a future with me.

I could never get enough of just kissing him; could never imagine a day even years down the road, when I would not want my lips to his, the tease of our tongues.

But I didn’t mind when his attention strayed lower.

My fingers clenched in his hair as he divided that attention equally, unequally, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was each swirl of his tongue or tug of his teeth felt more fiery than the previous.

My shirt bunched beneath my arms, my bra hung unclipped, and my jeans vee’d open, but I stopped the hook of his hands at the denim waistband.

“We’re parents not hook ups…”

It didn’t make sense. I was trying to say Tristan was stealthier than usual these days because he didn’t lean on his crutches as much. However, I was incapable of a sensible sentence with him doing that… Proving with a finger that clothes were no barrier…

Lifting his head enough for me to see the smirk I loved, he reworded, “We’re parents hooking up.” With that, I was pulled to my feet, and when my strides were not fast enough, I was scooped into his arms and carried to the bedroom.

C
hicken gumbo. THIS was my new favorite food. My first taste of the dish had been on a night that was as rotten in my memories as it was epic.

The night Mariss went on a date after all I could think about, on the preceding flight over then the drive over, was kissing her crazy. The same night I had contentedly played karaoke, chutes and ladders, and read a dozen books to my son for hours.

“Jack?” The bitch in my memories and love of my present reality drew me out of the reverie.

Looking up from my place on the couch, I saw she held two hangers. Unconsciously my mind fit first the loose dress as I remembered it from the last wear to her form. In the sunlight during an ice cream run I had watched it become see through enough to show a shadow of her legs as she walked. The next choice was a pair of pants I had yet to see her wear– capris if I remembered the term right– and a matching black top. Black was so hot on her.

“Which one?” she urgently prompted with a darting look to the clock over the den television.

Taking in the wet uncombed hair already beginning to wave around her anxious face, and the lightly tanned limbs not covered by the fluff of a towel, which wrapped the really good parts of her body, I felt a grin twitch.

That’s not all that twitched.

My feet fell from the sofa table to the floor, the rest of me intent on a bathroom bang. Five minutes. Surely, she would be agreeable. Maybe I could make a deal. My mind ran through the possible sensuous bribes… And doing so was doing things…

“So, which one?” Mariss pressed. The outfits were still under her consideration. When I didn’t directly reply, her look swung away from the hangers toward me, until something detoured her eyes, and they narrowed. “Are you eating the gumbo already?”

Her annoyance was fleeting, because in that same second, her gaze slid to my face where it froze, perfectly reading my naughty thoughts. The return yearning was clear in the dilation darkening her eyes. Her lips looked slightly swollen from much kissing…and stuff, in the last couple of days, and they parted open as if already anticipating the things I desired, she desired.

This was all happening in the span of several seconds, but unfortunately, in that same duration, the two other occupants of the house crashed the party. Just in the last day or so, Tristan was down to one crutch and traveled at a faster rate of walking. Bally padded a length ahead, and the clip of her paws hit the den just before our son did.