The Storm Inside (23 page)

She leaned in and took both my hands in hers. She looked down at them for a long minute before taking a deep breath and looking up into my eyes. I felt like I was on the edge of my seat waiting for some invisible bomb to drop out of the sky. “There is no rush. He’s not leaving again. Take your time and don’t lose you because of some preconceived notions about how relationships should work. You aren’t a love-struck college girl anymore so I don’t think you are in danger of that. You are Eve Fucking Daniels and you are a badass.”

I hugged her. I wrapped her right up and hugged her for a long, long time. I had no idea how desperately I needed to hear someone say that. “Thank you,” I whispered.

She squeezed me back. “We can’t let ourselves get swept up in the love fog anymore. You and me, we need a night every week without the guys.”

I sat back and composed myself, smoothing down my clothes and sipping the wine—anything to keep me from looking up. I knew Jake was watching me, I could feel his gaze as sure as if he were touching me. “I think that’s a great idea.”

To Jake’s credit, he left Jennie and I alone for a full minute before he was at my side, “Everything ok over here?” His voice was rough and yet it somehow soothed me as his hand brushed up my arm. He squatted down next to me so that I was actually looking down at him. It was a strange change of position for us.

“Yes,” I replied. “Everything is fine, just catching up with my best friend.”

Jennie smiled and stood with her drink, “I’m going to go check on my roommate.” She squealed, “That is so cool to say!”

“Get your ass over here woman!” Andrew yelled.

Somehow Jennie’s grin grew before she scurried off to Andrew’s lap.

Jake placed his hand on my knee and ran his thumb back and forth. His eyes were dark and sad. He was worried about me. “You don’t look ok.”

I loved the sound of his voice. It was so deep and gravelly, it sounded like a man should. And something about that was unmistakably sexy. “I will be.”

He studied me a for a moment longer while he looked for the answers I wasn’t giving him. “Let’s go to bed.”

In Jake’s arms sounded like just about the best place in the world to me. But a small part was still hurting, still wondering how to get over this last wall. I stood and let Jennie know we were done. She smiled and promised to lock up before they left.

“Come to bed with me darlin’,” Jake purred, pulling my hand as he headed toward the kitchen. I memorized his face in the dark that night with the rain gently patting on everything around us. I wanted to always remember how handsome and sure he was as he asked me to join him.

Chapter 16

Sunday morning was overcast. The entire sky was gray, the bay was choppy, and the air had a weird cool charge to it. It was still early and I was draped over the armchair by my window, reading my favorite book. It was one I’d read a hundred times since high school and for some reason I couldn’t quite explain, kept coming back to. It was like an old blanket, familiar and comfortable.

“Is that the same book you used to read?” Jake asked quietly. I realized he’d been watching me. Propped up with pillows on the bed, his pajama pants on with no shirt, his six-pack on full display, his bare feet surprisingly sexy against my blue sheets, but his hands were clasped in his lap and I could tell by the probing look in his eyes I wouldn’t be able to distract him with sex.

I should probably talk to him.

“Yes,” I replied, looking at the yellowing pages. They had that old book smell that I loved but hated.

He studied me and I studied him, a silent warning passing between us. Jake wanted to bring down the wall I’d erected, one I didn’t even know why I put up.

“What’s it about?” he asked.

I pulled my ancient bookmark out from where I’d tucked it in the back and slid it into the page I was reading, closing the paperback. It was beginning to fall apart and I’d read it more times than I could count or remember. I’d taken it on trips, kept it in my desk and my car… it’d had a rough life. The cover was separating from the spine and many of the pages were permanently deformed.

I bit my lower lip as I studied the cover. “It’s about a woman finding herself. In an unexpected place and an unexpected time in an unexpected way.”

Well, that explained a whole lot.

I don’t think there was a more obvious sign for how I was feeling.

I felt out of control. Since Jake came back into my life I’d been flying by the seat of my pants and I wasn’t quite sure who I was anymore. I’d gotten swept away by the intensity and urgency of everything and somehow gotten lost along the way.

Suddenly he was beside me, squatting beside the chair so that he was just below my eye level, “Talk to me,” he pleaded. “I feel like you’re slipping away from me. Please come back.”

The earnest hope in his green eyes tugged at my heart in a way only Jake could. Where I held back from everyone else, I felt compelled to talk to Jake. He does something to me that takes away my fears and opens my mouth.

One of the reasons we hit it off so quickly was his ability to see my thoughts even when they were stuck inside my head. Jake had a unique ability to get through the block between my brain and my mouth and know the turmoil underneath just by looking at me. He could read my emotions like no one else.

“I’m struggling.” I finally confessed. I don’t know why it had been so hard for me to realize this, let alone talk to Jake about it, but it was.

He moved his hand to cover mine, gently stroking the skin on the top of my hand. It instantly relaxed me and I sighed, “I’m stuck.”

The sight of his fingers stroking my skin reminded me of a night fourteen years ago—the night Jake met my family. We hadn’t even been dating a week. He was still this strange, mysterious new enigma in my life. But he came with me to a family dinner. We were talking to my mother. I’d made a stupid throw in from the outfield playing intramural softball and wrenched my elbow. It hurt. Jake was talking and without missing a beat, pulled my hand into his and started massaging the damaged muscles. He and my mother never broke their conversation and Jake didn’t stop until he was satisfied my arm had been sufficiently massaged and my mobility restored. He squeezed my arm and smiled warmly.

After he left, my mother appeared at my side and announced Jake and I were meant for each other. I had been shocked into speechlessness. I hardly knew Jake and she knew him even less. But she smiled knowingly at me and told me there was only one man her strong, opinionated, independent daughter would ever love and that was the man who I would instinctively let take care of me.

I told her she was crazy, that I didn’t let Jake take of me. Then she’d pointed to my arm and asked me what I called the arm massage. The thing was, I hadn’t even realized he’d done it until she pointed it out. That was how naturally I’d let Jake take care of me, I hadn’t even been aware of doing it.

And here he was, so many years later, sitting at my side with his hand on the same arm relaxing me enough to talk. I think it might be why he could get me to express myself when others couldn’t. He had the unique ability to make me feel safe enough to open up my heart.

“I’m stuck, we’re stuck… I’m scared, I’m mad… I’m a mess.” I sighed.

Jake smiled warmly and kissed my hand, “Let’s start with scared. What are you scared of, darlin’?”

“You, your dad, losing what we have.”

Jake stiffened, his hand clenching around mine. “Why are you scared of my father?”

I realized how what I’d said sounded to Jake, “Oh, babe. I’m not scared of
him
. I’m scared of how he could affect us. I’m worried he still might show up one day and you’ll run off again.”

Jake probably did the one thing that would reassure me right then—he rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. Trust me, please.”

All right, I could give him that… for now.

But the time was coming where he and I were going to have to have a serious discussion about his father. I couldn’t simply keep taking his word for it. I needed a helluva lot more information to really feel comfortable on that front.

“Why are you mad?”

This was why I kept dodging Jake. This was why I liked hiding behind sex. Sex made me feel close to Jake and like we could ignore our problems for a little longer. I didn’t like feeling mad. “A few reasons, actually.”

“Start with one.” He was getting impatient and I didn’t blame him. I was acting like a child.

“Ashley.” I spit out her name, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to say that name any other way, ever again.

Jake raised his eyebrows, “Really?”

I sighed with exasperation, “Are you going to be angry about Sebastian for the rest of time?”

Jake nodded, “Good point. I completely understand what you are saying. Now, reason two?”

“We lost so much time. It fucking pisses me off every time I think about it.”

“It should. You have every right to be mad. Number three?”

I sighed. “I’m mad at you. I still just get so
fucking
angry that you left me. You didn’t give me a choice, you just… left.”

There was nothing but silence after that. No witty comebacks, no soothing words. Just silence. Jake was looking through me the way he always did when he was thinking. I started to wonder if he was going to say anything at all when he startled me, “You should be angry. It’s ok if you’re angry about that forever.” He looked up at me and shrugged. “I can’t change what I did. I wish I could, but I can’t. And I think you need to get angry. Really, really fucking angry. You need to let some of it out, Eve. Keeping it in isn’t going to do you or me any good.”

I shook my head. Letting anger like that out wasn’t easy for me. It never had been. I preferred to keep it in and let it slowly dissipate over time. But this anger wasn’t dissipating. It was growing. I was afraid if I didn’t let some of it out, I might explode.

“I’ll try.”

Jake scooped me up out of my chair, spinning around so that he was in the seat and I was in his lap, cradled in his strong arms. He ran his nose along mine and pressed his forehead against me, looking up into my eyes, “Let’s get away. Right now. Let’s just pack up and go somewhere for the rest of the day and call out sick tomorrow.” His eyes zeroed in on mine and his voice dropped to a soft, husky whisper. “I think we need this, Eve. We need to reset.”

A reset. I liked the sound of that… in fact I liked it so much I wanted to run out of my house in the direction of freedom. When had my life started to feel like a cage? “Take me away, Mr. Spencer.”

***

We didn’t waste a second. It took us all of five minutes to throw on our bathing suits and head downstairs to the hotel pool. We’d booked a last minute room at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Orlando. It was a short hour-long drive from my house. It was the kind of hotel you didn’t need to leave if you didn’t want to. There were restaurants, a gift shop, and most importantly a pool with a winding lazy river that wandered from pool to pool, around and back again. All we needed was to buy a tube and float.

The only stop we made between our room and the pool deck was at the bar to get drinks.

I was stuck in this weird limbo between getting out of my head, but needing to be
in
my head to figure myself out. I was shifting back and forth between being totally and completely present in conversation with Jake and then suddenly staring off into space as my thoughts wandered off.

But I was relaxing, the cocktail and the sound of the water both helping. Jake looking all hot and sexy wasn’t hurting, either.

“What?” he asked in his rough and sexy voice.

“I think you should walk around for me, let me ogle some eye candy.”

He raised an eyebrow up over his shiny sunglasses, “You want to ogle me?”

I nodded vehemently.
Oh, yes. I wanted to ogle
. “It will help relax me if I’m distracted by your six pack and pecs.”

Jake took a long sip of whiskey and tonic and cocked his head to the side, examining me. I wasn’t sure if he thought I was crazy or having fun with him. Not that it really mattered- I was enjoying myself thoroughly.

But then he carefully set down his glass and leapt up, straddling my chair, “How about I just come over here and make out with you?”

Now that wasn’t a terrible idea either.

“How about we make out in the lazy river instead? That way we can rotate around the people we’re grossing out.”

“Deal,” he said holding out his hand for me.

I was grateful the sun had burned through the heavy morning drizzle. It was a hot and humid day, which made it nice to be in the cool water of the floating stream.

Jake snagged a tube and held it still while I hopped on. “I love this suit, by the way,” he growled. Even though I couldn’t see his eyes behind his mirrored lenses, I knew he was taking all of me in. I’d picked a very unpractical but very pretty bikini. It was strapless and very, very tiny. The upside to being out of town in the tourist district of Orlando meant we didn’t know anyone here. We were just another couple in a mix of tourists from all over the world.