Forever, Jack (36 page)

“I’m sorry you missed out on
Ever Broken Sea
,” I offered. “But I do hope you had a lovely evening. I really appreciate the support.”

“Well, actually we aren’t going home empty-handed.” The wife smiled. “We’re enthusiastic supporters of SCAD students. I understand you’ve been accepted to start in the fall. Congratulations. I think you’re very wise to go through that program and not use your early success as a reason not to build a foundation and contacts. Being an artist is a business, not a whim these days. To be successful takes more smarts than luck. But something tells me you are going to be extremely successful.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.” I smiled.

I said goodbye and made plans for phone conversations with a few more people. And then when Allison motioned for us to follow her, I quickly hugged Joey and my other guests. Colt offered to take Joey and Jazz home. I’d be riding with Jack.

We moved to a small conference room. Jack gave Shannon the details for his publicist and his assistant. Then he advised her to go ahead and submit the story of my successful evening without our relationship angle if she wanted us to continue being cooperative.

I looked apologetically at Shannon, although she didn’t seem to have a problem with his directives.

He advised her to show us the article first for approval, and if it was good enough, his publicist, Sheila, would put her in touch with some national monthlies instead of having it run just in a local paper.

Shannon gulped and nodded.

I felt oddly detached from the conversation as if we were talking about something affecting complete strangers, not Jack and me. There was almost relief in letting him handle us as a couple in public. After all, if anyone had prior experience, it was Jack. And watching Jack in no-bullshit mode was kind of hot.

From the way he’d handled tonight, I knew he was going to do his best to only have his notoriety work for me, not over me. Regardless of what Tom Price splashed all over the Internet.

Jack reached out and took my hand, sliding his fingers through mine as we sat side by side talking to Shannon about revealing our relationship.

I realized I also had a choice not to let the craziness in.

I was a fighter.

I was strong.

I would protect what I had with Jack, and he would protect me in turn, the best he could. I’d never trusted him more than in that moment.

Shannon left, and Jack and I were led through the now emptying foyer between Sheriff Graves and another officer, and then outside and into the back of a waiting black limousine.

I swallowed as I slid over on the cool leather seats, careful not to tear the beads on my dress. “Whoa. Where did you get this? A bit fancy for the Lowcountry isn’t it?” I looked around the interior.

Jack laughed. “I wasn’t sure if I’d need room for your friends on the ride back.” He slid in next to me.

Sheriff Graves poked his head in. “I’ll ride up front with the driver … give you all some privacy on the way to the airport.”

“Wait, what? Airport?” I stared at Jack as the sheriff closed the door.

“Don’t be mad, okay?”

“I can promise you if you start any conversation with that phrase, it’s a racing certainty I will be. What the hell, Jack? Are you leaving already? I thought we were going to face this stuff together? It’s not fair you won’t be in Butler Cove if the Tom Price’s of the world start coming to harass us. They’ll only focus on me! Please don’t. And stop smiling. I’m serious as a damn heart attack right now.”

My heart pounded and my cheeks throbbed. But unlike what usually caused these crazy physical reactions in the presence of Jack, this time I was
mad
.

Jack’s smile broke free into a bellow of laughter.

Smacking his knee, I made to move across the vehicle to the bench seat.

He grabbed my wrist tightly.

“Let go,” I whined.

“No.” He laughed again. “Just let me explain.” He leaned forward and pressed a button. Then talked into the darkness. “Hey, can you drive around the island a few times? Our flight’s not scheduled for over an hour, and Keri Ann needs to get changed.”

“Sure thing,” came a voice. “Overtime?”

Jack smiled. “Of course.” He released the button then he turned on a dim sidelight so we could see each other better. At least, I assumed that’s why he did it. A John Legend song poured softly into the interior.

Smooth
.

“Get changed?” I asked, belatedly recognizing a small duffel I’d bought for a camping trip to Hunting Island a few years back, sitting on the seat. “How did you get that?”

“Jazz might have been in on it …” He winced.

My mouth dropped open.

Wait.
“
Our
flight?”

He nodded. “I wasn’t sure when the story was going to drop so I asked Jazz to help me in case you needed to get out of the spotlight at a moment’s notice.”

A fizz of nausea swirled low in my belly. “Where to? God, never mind. And what about
them
having to deal with it? Is this what you usually do? Of course it is. It’s how I met you. Is this what …” I swallowed. “I can’t just leave! Is this how
we’ll
have to be? How will I work, keep a job?”

Jack reached for my hand again, and I wrenched it free lurching away from him. “How will I go to school?” A strand of the dress caught and snapped, tiny jet beads poured down over my feet. “Shit.” I tried to grab the strand and stop them, making it worse. Tears pooled in my eyes.

“It’s okay, we’ll fix it.” Jack’s hand closed over mine where I held the dress. And he moved to the edge of the seat opposite me, spreading his knees and leaning forward.

“Okay,” he said gently. “Let go, I’ve got it.” His hands took over from mine and tied a small loop knot in the strand, stopping the flow of beads. Then he reached down to the floor between his feet and carefully picked them all up. I reached down to help. “I’ve got it,” he said again.

I watched him, looking at his bent head, his soft hair, his strong hands making sure he had every last one. I fought a battle with myself to reach out and touch him. I knew I was panicking again about being with him. I just couldn’t see what our relationship would look like.

“You can’t always swoop in and buy my art, you know.” I cleared my throat. “And if I can’t afford to go to school, or we lose the house, you can’t step in and save me. You know that, right?”

He sighed. “It’s just money, Keri Ann. Do you have any idea how much money I make? It’s meaningless unless I do something meaningful with it.”

“I can’t, I won’t owe you like that. We are not doing a repeat performance of that auction tonight, as fun as it was.”

“You have too much pride, you know that? And you wouldn’t be owing me. If you were my wife, for example, why would you owe me?”

The breath I was taking as he spoke stuttered and hiccupped in my chest. Shock flooded my system, making me lightheaded.

Jack continued picking up tiny beads. He transferred a handful into the inside breast pocket of his jacket.

I raised a trembling hand to my chest, putting my chin down. My flight response jumped to attention. We had to stop the car. He needed to take me home. My breathing picked up a panicked rate.

Then I felt his hand snake into the hair at my nape tilting my face up to look at him. “Just breathe, Keri Ann. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to figure it out. Take it one step at a time. But right now, until we know what the reaction to this story will be, we should go somewhere.” He brushed his thumb over my bottom lip then dropped his hands down. “And maybe it will be nothing. And maybe I just want to be alone with you.”

I stared into his deep, dark green eyes, my vision blurry. I needed to get back the feeling of calm I’d had earlier, when I felt such trust in him. I did trust him. I didn’t want to leave him. But God, be his wife? I blew out a slow shuddering breath. We’d need to talk about that. A lot. Way, way in the future.

He watched me, waiting for my reaction. He seemed to know he just freaked the hell out of me. And after an evening like the one we’d had, he couldn’t blame me. But God, I wanted this man. I wanted him to look at me the way he did, forever.

Giving in finally to the urge to touch him, I reached forward, sliding my hands through his hair.

He stilled, closing his eyes.

Then he exhaled slowly and reached for my calves, lightly running a hand over my skin. His fingers worked the small buckle of my silver sandals at each ankle, and then slipped each heel off my feet.

Moving up my calves, he gathered my beaded dress up past my knees. “Kneel down,” he murmured, leaning back and creating space between us. His eyes were dark, somewhat unsure. “Let me help you get your dress off.”

I did as he asked, kneeling between his dark suit-clad thighs, feeling the vibration of the car beneath me. He gingerly lifted the delicate beaded dress over my head leaving me in just the champagne-tone shift beneath and carefully laid the dress out on the long bench next to him.

My tears spilled over even while I smiled.

Jack’s concerned face furrowed further. “Shit. I’ve got whiplash. Are you happy or sad right now? Please help me out here.”

“God, both. I don’t know.” I laughed. “The things you do, the way you make me feel, it’s incredible. You set my worries and fears alight until I feel they’ll burn me alive. Then I find them floating away like sky lanterns. You asked me if I could be proud to be with you. It was never that I’m not proud of you. If anything it’s the other way around, most of the time I don’t understand why you want to be with
me
.” I hiccupped.

“How can you not know?” He looked at me earnestly. “That’s like asking why we breathe air. Because it’s the way we were made. I’m telling you, that’s how it is for me. The way I feel about you was never a decision. It just was. I was made to love you. I never fell, I was already there. From the very first moment.”

He swiped a tear from my cheek. “Do you know that you’re beautiful even when you’re crying?”

If he kept talking like this, I would be a sobbing mess with my heart bleeding through my chest. “Just, just kiss me, Jack.”

He smiled, and cupping my cheek, pulled my face toward his but stopped a breath away. “There was a time when you asked me not to.”

“Yes, well. You certainly corrupted
that
girl.”

He grinned.

Leaning forward, I ran my hand up his fabric covered thighs, feeling the hard tension under my fingers. Then I touched my lips to his.

I moved over his mouth gently, reveling in the feeling of his lips and responding with a jolt of arousal as his impatient tongue swept into me, his hand twisting into my hair, tugging the bun loose.

“You looked incredibly beautiful tonight, but I’m done with your hair being up,” he whispered against my mouth. A hand swept down my spine and lower until it reached the back of my bare thigh. Then it inched back up under my slip. “And I kept imagining you were naked under those beads.”

Heat sluiced through me in a wave, pooling into a heavy throb. My hands curled hard into his thighs.

“Is there any chance I corrupted you enough that you’d let me make love to you right now?” Jack rasped.

My heart pounded. “Now? Like right here?” I looked around at the dimly lit interior, my eyes wide.

He nodded then sat back.

“They’ll hear.”

“No, they won’t.”

His warm, rough hands slid my shift up, over my lace panties, to my waist. He hissed out a breath then pulled me up and astride his lap.

A nervous, prickly heat swept over my skin and chest. I felt bare and exposed against his fully clothed body.

My nerves fizzled as I watched his face, saw the flush on his cheek bones, the flare of his nostrils, the tight set to his mouth. He looked at me like I was his end and his beginning.

I traced a finger down his neck and over his rough Adam’s apple as it moved heavily. I undid a few more buttons of his white shirt and slid my hands against his hard chest, feeling his heart matching my own in powerful thuds.

Jack simply watched me. Waiting.

Then I went straight for his buckle, undoing it with jerky movements.

“My left pocket,” he whispered, his breathing labored as I touched him.

I nodded and my fingers shook as I felt around for the package. Jack stilled my hands and took over. Readying himself was far from a clinical reality to making love. It was the most erotic thing to watch. To know what we were about to do.

I shivered.

Then he sifted his hands through my hair, looking up at me. I held his gaze. “We don’t have to do this. I don’t want you to be nervous. Or feel self-conscious. We have forever, we don’t need to—”

I lifted up, moved my panties aside, and eased down on him.

Jack let out a guttural roar from deep in his chest and surged up, clutching me. Wrapping his arms around me, his head against my neck, he pulled me so firmly down upon him, that I felt like my whole body would explode from the depth of him.

I gasped.

“Oh, God,” he groaned against my skin, and his mouth opened on me.

Holding still, his body shuddered and trembled under my hands.

I rocked forward gently.

Then we moved. Both of us together. His fingers gripping my hips.

At one point he managed to work my slip up off over my head, and I tore the jacket back off his shoulders, spreading his shirt, needing to feel his skin against mine.

Looking up at me, he tilted his head as I clutched his shoulders then his hair, pulling it into disheveled tufts.

“I love you, Jack,” I whispered, brokenly, something within me unwinding with the admission I’d never made out loud.

He squeezed his eyes closed a moment.

“I love
you
, Keri Ann. I love you so fucking much it’s literally a physical ache in my chest.” He breathed out, roughly. “Whatever you want, I’ll do it. I’ll give you whatever you need. My life. Forever.”

“Jack.” My eyes stung.

His hands at my hips dug in, and he rocked harder beneath me. I bit down on my lip to keep my reactions in check, watching his eyes as they glazed, darkened, clouded with passion, pooled with emotion.