LEAP OF FAITH (6 page)

He’d followed her inside and accepted the glass of ice tea she offered, casually leaning against the kitchen counter and making it abundantly clear that he had no interest in migrating to the living room, much less the bedroom. As the minutes ticked by with neither of them speaking, Jack seemed to withdraw even further. Abby was at a loss. 

She’d thoroughly enjoyed the long talks during their walks and honestly believed he had too. Even if he wasn’t prepared to take their physical relationship to the next level just yet, why did he suddenly seem so reluctant to carry on a friendly conversation? Surely, she couldn’t have been
that
boring, could she?
Apparently so
, Abby thought despondently when Jack placed his half empty glass on the counter and informed her it was time for him to go.

“We’ve both been neglecting our work. If I put my nose to the grindstone, I can get a lot accomplished tonight and come back in the morning to help you out. I can drop something off for dinner in a few hours if you don’t think you can manage on your own.”

“I…no, that won’t be necessary,” Abby replied evenly. It was obvious to her now that while Jack felt a physical attraction for her, she had come up short in the category of intellectually stimulating. It was a crushing blow, but she refused to let him see how much it hurt. She wasn’t about to beg for his company either.

“It’s no problem,” Jack said.

“I’ll be fine.” Forcing herself not to flinch, Abby flexed her fingers. “As a matter of fact, I think the blisters have healed well enough that I won’t need your help typing after all.”

“Is that so?” Arching a skeptical brow, Jack closed the distance between them. “Maybe I should change the bandages before I go. Just to make sure.”

“I’m a big girl, Jack,” she replied with a defiant tilt of her chin. “I’m perfectly capable of changing them myself. And I certainly don’t need a babysitter, so there’s no need to waste your time checking up on me.”

“I’m sorry, Abby, I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that…”

“I am
not
upset,” Abby insisted.

For a moment, she thought he was going to argue. Apparently thinking better of it, Jack turned abruptly and left. Abby had always enjoyed her solitude, but now with Jack gone the cabin seemed lifeless, as if the air had been sucked out and she’d been left all alone in a cold, dark vacuum. It was absurd to feel so…lost, so empty inside when she barely knew the man. Yes, they’d spent practically every minute together since he’d first charged into her life. And it was true that she’d slept in his arms that first night, but it wasn’t as though they had become lovers. Even the kissing and dwindled to nothing.

Maybe Jack decided it was a bad idea to get involved with her in light of the fact she only intended to stay until her novel was finished. It was also possible he viewed it as a poor decision to have an affair with his employer’s daughter, despite the fact her father was an absentee boss. Neither scenario eased the sense of loneliness that had engulfed her, but it was better than believing she couldn’t hold a man’s interest beyond three days! Besides, Jack was right; they had both sorely neglected their work.

Abby got as far as retrieving her laptop and opening the file containing her manuscript before her mind started to stray. Even if she hadn’t been thinking of Jack, it didn’t take long to conclude that it was still too painful to type. Her fingers were stiff and each movement stretched the partially dried blisters, making them burn and throb until she finally gave up and shut the computer down.

Flopping onto the sofa, Abby made a futile attempt to play out the next scene in her mind, but her characters stubbornly refused to cooperate. Each time she tried to conjure up an image of her brown-eyed, blond-haired, clean shaven hero, he morphed into a hunk of man with dark hair, a full beard, and eyes so blue a woman could get lost in them. With an irritated sigh of resignation, Abby gave up and wandered out to the balcony to drink in the scenery.

She hadn’t written a single word since she’d gotten here. Worse than that, she couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought where her novel was concerned and it was all Jack Burton’s fault!

                                                                ***

Abby sorely regretted telling Jack she could manage on her own. The afternoon had dragged endlessly, and since there was little she could do with her hands still bandaged and sore, a great deal of time was wasted restlessly moving from room to room until she finally ventured outside to do some exploring on her own. In reality, it was nothing more than a short jaunt just beyond the tree line and well within sight of the cabin. The past few days of meandering down one winding path after another had taught her a thing or two. Abby learned she wasn’t afraid of the woods, but she
was
terrified of getting lost in them. As darkness fell over the mountain, she discovered something else. No matter how many distractions she found to busy herself with, nothing seemed capable of driving Jack from her mind.

Mentally, she was exhausted, but going to bed seemed pointless when she was so wound up her muscles were tied in knots. Reminding herself that she was behaving like a love-sick teenager only made it worse because she was powerless to stop the turbulent emotions playing havoc with her nerves. Maybe a nice hot soak in the tub would make her sleepy. Except this time, she wouldn’t be foolish enough to put her hands in the water.

Thankful that she didn’t have to deal with buttons or zippers, she quickly undressed and tossed her dirty clothes in the hamper. While the tub filled with water, Abby brushed her teeth, furious with herself for allowing the unwanted intrusion of Jack Burton into her private thoughts. So he was intelligent and had a nice sense of humor; she knew a lot of men who were equally smart that could make her laugh and whose company she enjoyed. Granted, none of them possessed the same ability to liquefy her bones or send her pulse into orbit with only the briefest of kisses, but that was something that could easily be attributed to the same starry-eyed side of her nature that had urged her to become a writer.

“Chalk that one up to your annoying proclivity to romanticize,” Abby scoffed. “Imagining emotions that don’t exist, believing in your own silly happily ever after stories. He’s just a man, a complication you definitely don’t need in your life right now.”

It was true, she knew it was, so why did she still feel as though she’d lost something very precious to her?
Because you care about him.
And because, deep down inside, you know he could be…

Abby turned the water off, shaking her head as she absently tugged at the bandages on her hands. “Don’t finish that thought, Abby Travis,” she mumbled. “Your head was in the clouds when you started falling for Shane too, and look what a disaster that turned out to be.” 

But this was different, and there was no use telling herself otherwise. Unraveling the last bandage, her mind a million miles away, it took a few seconds to dawn on her that the faint tapping noise she heard was coming from the bedroom and not from the headache that was beginning to throb at her temples. Oblivious to her nudity and only partially curious, Abby emerged from the bathroom just as Jack barreled into the bedroom and then came to an abrupt halt when he spied her standing there without a stitch of clothing on. 

For a moment, their eyes locked.

Abby’s breath hitched as his gaze swept over her face and slowly migrated to her bare chest. It made her ache for his touch, made the peaks of her breasts grow painfully taut beneath his intimate appraisal. She’d been celibate for so long, this slow awakening of sexual desire seemed more potent, more electrically charged than anything she’d ever felt before. Perhaps it was. Her attraction to Jack was magnetic, uncontrollable, as wild as the heart that galloped inside her chest. He made her feel beautiful and sexy, especially the way he was looking at her now, as if he was dying of thirst and she was the last drink of water in a barren desert. 

But Jack wasn’t the only one admiring the view. He was built like a lumberjack, Abby mused; tall and muscular with thick, dark hair that her fingers were itching to sift through. When his eyes lifted to meet hers once more, she noticed they were darker than before; the same deep blue hue as the sea and every bit as fathomless. His nose was straight, his jaw-line firm and strong, and his lips…invitingly kissable. Jack certainly wasn’t the first man she had ever felt an attraction towards, but he
was
the first man to skyrocket her sexual passion to such dizzying heights she couldn’t seem to think about anything except shamelessly jumping into bed with him.

“I should go,” Jack said in a voice that was deep and gravelly.

Abby didn’t reply right away, or make an effort to reach for the robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Jack wasn’t going anywhere. The fact that he was still standing there was proof he wanted her as badly as she wanted him, and it was all the incentive she needed to let the robe remain where it was. Abby had never been overly confident when it came to relationships with men, and being so bold was very much out of character, but the thought of him leaving again was simply too unbearable to contemplate. She heard the slow intake of air from his parted lips and felt her own breath stall as he crossed the room and drew her into his arms.

As it always happened when Jack kissed her, Abby’s temperature spiked when he took possession of her mouth. Coupled with the intense heat radiating off Jack’s body, it was like standing in a hot, steamy sauna. Desperate to feel his skin against hers, Abby tugged his shirt free of his waist band, silently cursing her inability to do anything more because of the lingering stiffness in her fingers. Impatient as she was, Jack seemed doubly so, separating himself from her just long enough to shed his clothes. He was beautiful, magnificent, the corded muscles in his massive chest rippling with each movement as he inched her back towards the bed. She wanted to stop and look at him in all his naked glory, but her protest was smothered by another mind-numbing kiss and then lost altogether beneath his smoldering gaze when he eased Abby onto the soft mattress.

Her fingertips tentatively feathered a trail over bulging biceps and broad shoulders and curled around his neck. She wanted to tell Jack how much she’d missed him and how lonely she had been, but was afraid it would sound pathetically needy. Instead, she pulled his mouth down onto hers, telling him without words exactly how she felt and what he did to her. Beneath his demanding kisses and the urgency in his wandering hands, Abby came alive.

The achiness in her muscles that had plagued her for days barely registered as Jack continued an extremely thorough and intimate exploration of her body. If he left any part of her untouched, Abby was not aware of it. She was a live wire; sizzling, humming, and throbbing in places that had suddenly become so highly sensitized it bordered on pain. A moment later, her world exploded in a kaleidoscope of unimaginable pleasure.

Abby was still trembling in the aftershock of the most deliciously spectacular climax when Jack shifted positions and slowly inched his incredibly hard erection between the folds of her tender flesh. It had been six years since Abby had given herself to a man, and for several tense seconds her inner muscles seemed determine to prevent Jack from penetrating her completely. It was the tenderness of his kiss that finally eased her anxiety and allowed her to ignore the sting of his initial entry and focus instead on how incredible it felt to have him inside of her. Fire licked through her belly, a strange mixture of pleasure and pain; each sensation fighting for dominance. 

Jack withdrew slowly, only to drive himself into her with such force Abby let out a strangled cry. Not because it hurt, but because it set off a chain reaction of such rapturous physical heat and passion that she was incapable of containing it. Curling her legs around his hips, Abby urged him on, welcoming each hard, quick thrust as the heavy coiling deep in her abdomen ignited a hunger and need that only Jack could satisfy. As she arched her back, the sound of the low, primal growl rumbling in Jack’s throat sent her senses spiraling out of control, snapping the coil sexual tension like the springs on a trap. 

That same feral growl caught in her own throat as waves of pleasure swept through her, throwing her into an explosive and violent climax. Her muscles contracted, tightening around Jack’s heated flesh and triggering a shuddering release as he buried himself to the hilt one last time

His kisses gentled, his touch soft and feathery against her skin. She no longer felt the burning ache from the torture she’d put her body through that first day. It had been replaced by a warm tingling that seemed content to stay with her until she fell asleep. Jack eased himself out of her and rolled onto his back, pulling her close to his side. 

“Sleep now, baby,” he whispered, and she did.

***

Jack woke only minutes before the first rays of the morning sun found their way to the mountain. Abby was asleep in his arms, her warm body snuggled up close to his side. He knew he’d hurt her with his love making, but once they’d begun he hadn’t been able to hold back. He also knew she’d gotten a great deal of pleasure from it and, judging by the soft smile on her face, the feeling was still with her. 

He drank in her beauty, unable to comprehend the strong emotions churning inside of him. They barely knew each other, yet he felt he’d known her all his life, had waited forever for her to find him. The delicate skin around her mouth and on her cheeks still had faint red marks where his beard had rubbed against it. Jack’s hand went to his face and he decided he wasn’t going to be responsible for marring that exquisite skin again.