Forever Rain (Rain Will Fall Trilogy #1) (24 page)

Yes, please. My inner woman was doing a happy dance.

After going up the stairs, he pulled me to the opposite side of the house and away from the other rooms he was talking about, to open the door to the master suite.

Holy shit! And what a room.
A massive cherry wood sleigh bed with matching dressers and armoire were not the only furnishings in this charming room. There was also a sitting room toward the back with a view of the yard. I peek at the bathroom with yet another chandelier, huge glass enclosed shower with five showerheads and an adjoining dressing room with lights, mirrors and more dressers.

“Jordan.”

I stood at the door of the huge customized walk-in closet. An array of dressers lined one wall. Dressers with glass drawers displayed incredibly beautiful and sexy underwear, negligee and other clothing. Another wall had a floor to ceiling rack of shoes all color-coordinated; beside the shoes were the latest in designer purses. The other wall displayed short and long evening gowns, and professional clothes. In the middle of the room there was a glass armoire with jewelry.

“What do you think, Zoe?”

“I think you are out of your mind.”

“That does not answer my question. Is it OK that I did this? I had a professional shopper, but I chose everything in here for you before he bought it.”

“A ‘he’ bought my clothes?”

“Yes. I flew him in last week from Los Angeles to purchase and organize your closet. He’s some kind of fashion guru and fashion adviser to many Hollywood stars.”

“He has great taste and sense of style.” I looked around the room again. “Jordan, we need to talk. Really, I mean all this…I don’t know what it all means.”

“Let me run a bath then we can start talking. I know you have doubts about me, about us, but what I feel for you is real and I would like to know if it means something to you as well. Will you give me that? Let’s start at the beginning. But first a bath.”

Jordan went off to start the bath as I continued to stare in the closet with a hundred different thoughts flying through my mind. Was it too much, too soon? Could I handle a committed relationship with Jordan after 10 years of having my mind set again him? Was he just trying to prove a point that I was wrong about him?

“Come here.” He lifted me into his arms and took me to the bathroom where he stripped me of my clothing and set me in the tub. His clothing followed mine on the floor then he stepped in behind me and pulled me into his body. We sipped on the crisp Champaign that he’d brought upstairs with us.

“Now. Ask me anything,” he said.

“I have too many questions, and I truly don’t know where to begin.”

“Then I will start by telling you that I never got over you. I left Austin because I couldn’t deal with you breaking up with me. I needed to put some distance between us. I figured as time went by you would either get over me and move on, or you would call and we would work things out, but you didn’t contact me. I thought it best to leave you alone, and I did for a few months, but soon I wanted to know how you were doing, so I hired someone to report to me once a month.”

He took a deep breath as the water around us bubbled from the whirlpool tub. “Anyway, I tried to date, but just didn’t have emotional feelings for any of the women I went out with, so I decided that I wouldn’t date. By that, I mean I felt no emotional ties to any of the women I went out with, but I was up front by letting them know that I was not interested in an emotional or committed relationship. They got what they wanted from me and I scratched an itch, so to speak. They knew the score and I never disrespected them in any way, but the emotion thing did not happen.”

“So all those photos with the drop-dead gorgeous bombshells were for what? An itch?” I bristled at the thought of Jordan with other women now, but had no reason to be mad at him.

“It was sexual, but that was all. I took some of them on a few trips now and then, especially when I was traveling for business and needed a hostess or companion.”

Ouch, now that just plain fucking hurt.
I drew away from him, but he pulled me back.

“I didn’t mean to upset you. I just needed for you to know what went on with me, and especially with other women, because I don’t want any grey areas in my personal life with you. No gory details, but all this is to let you know that no one could ever hold a candle to you. They could never fill that void in my life nor my heart that you did. I tried to move on with others, but it was just simply impossible. Emotionally, I had nothing to offer them.”

“So you continued to have me followed and sent me countless gifts for just about every occasion in my life.”

“Indeed. I figured since you did not want to see me, you would soon forget about me and I couldn’t deal with that, so I sent gifts and made sure they could not be returned. Some of them were quite valuable but I didn’t care what you did with it, just as long as you would remember that I still existed and was thinking about you. I even enlisted the help of David now and then with the understanding if you ever found out he helped me with information about you, he would kick my ass from Europe all the way back to Houston where I would come clean with you.”

Silent tears streamed down my face with his confession, falling into the warm water in the tub like rain. It felt like the past 10 years my life has only know rain, forever rain, but now there was a glint of sunlight breaking through the clouds and maybe, just maybe, I would allow my head to turn to the sky, listen to my heart and stop the rain from falling. I’d caused that rain, no one but me.

Jordan got out of the tub and quickly dried off then picked me up like a prized treasure and wiped me off, led me to the bed and tucked me under the cool covers. He then slid in beside me cradling my head to his chest. We held each other as he stunned me by sharing what he knew of his mother.

Chapter 24

“As you may remember, my grandparents had three children. One son and two daughters. My mother was the youngest of the three. By the time my mom was 16, her brother was married and her sister was in college. Both of my grandparents worked so there was no one at home when my mom came home from high school. A couple months after she turned 16, she came home and was attacked by a man. He raped her and almost killed her.

“My grandparents said she withdrew and did not go back to high school. She went to counseling but would not talk about the horrific incident and if she knew who raped her…well, she never said if she saw the man’s face. Anyway, what I’m saying is that I am the product of rape. I don’t know who my father is.”

“Oh my God. Jordan. I am so sorry to hear that. Raped at any time in one’s life is horrifying, but pregnant as well.” I reached up to kiss his face and ran my hands down his arms comforting him as he continued.

“I’m glad I don’t know who he is or I may just commit murder if he’s still alive.”

“You were an infant when she died.” He’d once told me a little of his childhood and living with his grandparents, but never went into any details about it.

“I was about a year old. My mother would not leave the house from the time of the rape and she never went out in public again but she took great care of me. My grandparents said she would not let me out of her sight.”

“I am sure she was a good mother.”

“Yes. I feel that there is a connection between us even though she’s gone. I feel the love she had for me.”

I looked up at his face and saw that his eyes were closed as he spoke. As if though talking about the memories was painful for him and I almost asked him to stop. “Jordan, you don’t need to tell…”

“I want to. I want you to know more about me. I’m asking you to give us a chance at a relationship and to do that you need to know about me.”

I sighed and settled back down at his side with my arms wrapped around his waist protectively.

“One day my grandmother got home from work and my mother was gone. She said she was leaving for South America with a man that she loved and did not want anyone to look for her. That she was happy with him but could not take me along with her. So she chose him instead of me. I was home crying in my crib when nana got home and found the note. They filed a police report and the authorities started an investigation since my grandparents did not believe that my mother would have done this.”

“They thought she was forced? Like kidnapped?” I asked.

“Yes. They never believed for one moment that my mother went of her own free will. A day later, there were reports that a plane went down over the ocean heading to South America and that there were two passengers. My mom and some unknown guy. They both died. Supposedly he may have been the guy that raped her. Seemed like he had threatened her not to speak of the rape, then kidnapped her and was taking her to South America.”

I was dumbfounded by the information and my heart ached for his mom and the courageous man beside me.

“I feel guilty for destroying her life. Maybe she could have healed emotionally, but then she was pregnant and that further inhibited her from dealing with the rape, because now she had to live with the product from the rape.”

“Oh, Jordan, you can’t think like that. She would not want you to blame yourself about any of what happened to her. You were innocent in all this.” I tried to ease his burden but I wasn’t sure that I got through to him. He continued to talk and I decided to just listen, glad that he was able to talk about the ghastly emotional ordeal of his early life.

“No one knows who he was or how he hid his identity so well. He may have even changed the way he looked during the year my mom was pregnant and the following year after I was born. He was a pilot or learned to fly during the two years since he was supposedly flying the plane that went down.”

“How did he buy a plane and not reveal his identity?”

“He stole it. Radar did not pick up the airplane since he was flying very low. There were reports in the investigation that he stopped and refueled in Mexico and again in Nicaragua, but he was in disguise.”

I slid one of my legs over both of Jordan’s, securing us in a tighter bond as he continued to share with me. I was hurting for the infant crying in his crib for his mother who’d adored him and did all she could to protect him, and for the man in my arms that was still trying to find closure to a part of his life that he was clearly still struggling with.

“The plane went down before they got to Venezuela. There was a distress signal picked up by a fishing vessel but it was very hard to understand what the pilot was saying. They did, however, tell U.S. authorities that the pilot mentioned my mother’s name and that she was a passenger along with him.” Jordan let out a long slow breath as if ridding himself of the haunting memories.

We both remained quiet and after a few minutes I placed light kisses on his chest. I wanted him to know he was not alone. Part of me understood the need to know the parents that others speak of but you never had the opportunity to meet, would never have the memories of their hugs and kisses, nor them tucking you in bed and reading yet another bedtime story.

“She would have been so proud of you. Of the man that you are and the way you care about her parents in her absence, sitting at her mother’s bedside…yes, you have made her proud.”

“Thank you. I think the same of you. You are a special and incredibly smart woman that has accomplished so much. Your parents would be proud of you indeed.” Again, we fell into another silence, each in our own thoughts.

“Go to sleep, pretty lady.”

I listened to his slow, strong heart beating in his chest. The cool dark room contributed to the calm that surrounded us as we lay in each other’s arms. Deep in my heart I was aware that something changed for us tonight. Jordan’s pain reached into my soul and I longed to help him heal emotionally. The more I found out about the gorgeous man beside me, the more he tugged at my heart that was now open for love.

Sometime during the middle of the night I was in a slumber and tried to turn over in the bed but our limbs were tangled in a convoluted state.

Jordan moaned and pulled me closer to his body.

My eyes popped open when I heard his husky laugh. He was awake and sporting an erection that rubbed against my belly. My body responded to his immediately. I reached down between our bodies and took his length in my hand, slowly pumping his huge cock.

He rewarded me by slowly pushing two fingers into my now moist folds. Jordan flipped me over on my back and with one slow fluid motion, entered me and did not stop moving until I felt his balls against my ass.

I wrapped both my legs around his hips and he started to move over me. As our body mated, our erratic breathing and groans were the only sounds in the room.

He increased his pace and my legs fell from his hips giving him more freedom to move. Jordan placed my knees over his arms pulling me closer into him as he knelt between my legs. Our bodies were longing for the moment when we reached the climax of our mating. I reached down to touch my clit and Jordan hissed above me as my folds clamped down on his cock sending him into a frenzy of need to release his pleasure into me. My hand flew over my clit again and I rocked into the moment of ecstasy as my orgasm slammed into me. With trembling hands I held onto Jordan’s shoulders. His powerful body jerked above finding his moment of bliss.

A few minutes later, Jordan eased off me. We settled back in each other’s arms. Sated and relaxed, we slipped into blissful sleep again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Nothing pleases me more than to find you in my bed.”

I opened my eyes to see Jordan standing beside the bed with a cup of coffee in his hand. I reached out to take the cup, but he held it away from me.

“Oh no. You don’t get this yet. Show me a peek of your sexy body first then you can have your crack coffee.”

“God, you’re mean. Fine.” I shoved the covers to my knees. It was hard to be shy around Jordan. The way he ogled over my body…well, the man knew how to make a woman proud of herself. I grabbed the cup from his hand and sipped in the blissful hot liquid.

“My feelings are hurt, babe. I thought I would be the only one to make you moan like that, but you do it for coffee, too. May just have to buy out Starbucks.”