Jumping in Puddles (22 page)

“I don’t have my purse.” She chuckled. “Millions on the backseat, and I don’t have a pound in my pocket.”

“Pull my wallet out of mine,” he said. “Though I think I know what’s in there, and it’s a lot of nothing.”

Jago stifled his groan as Ellie’s fingers slid over his hip, searching in the failing light for his pocket. He really hadn’t been thinking of this when he asked her to get his wallet. When she pushed her fingers into the gap, he held his breath.

“It’s a bit tight,” she whispered. “What have you got in here?”

His pet snake had been curled up asleep. Now it was very much awake. Jago shifted his hips to try to make it—what? Easier for her? Harder?

“You sure it’s in here?” Ellie asked.

“What?” he asked in indignation.

She laughed. “Your wallet.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot. Go deeper.”

Not easy to concentrate on the dark, winding road when all that lay between Ellie’s fingers and his cock were a couple of layers of cotton. She moved closer, her breast against his arm as she pulled his wallet back and forth, trying to wiggle it free. Jago wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to pull it out or not.

“Got it.” She flipped it open. “Two ten-pound notes.”

“Which we have to use for fuel. And I’m not sure that will get us there.”

“So nowhere to sleep. Nothing to eat.”

“I can think of something,” he muttered.

“There are two pound coins in here too. Chocolate for me, and if there’s enough change, we can buy a bottle of water for you.”

Jago laughed. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to make her forget what a prick he’d been. He wanted to make himself forget too. When he saw a closed service station coming up on the right, he pulled in and drove to the rear of the carwash. He unfastened his seat belt and unclipped Ellie’s.

“Turn around,” boomed the sat nav. “You’re going the wrong way.”

Jago switched the engine off. “No, I’m not.” He leaned over and kissed her.

AS HIS TONGUE slipped between her lips, Ellie wrapped her hands around the back of his neck and threaded her fingers in his hair. She didn’t want to think. She just wanted to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. Jago tried to haul her onto his lap, and then attempted to switch places. It became more difficult to keep their lips together as clothes and body parts tangled with the handbrake and steering wheel. Ellie’s shoulders ended pressed up against the roof of the car, her backside trapped between the headrests while Jago was doubled up below her, trying to unfasten his pants and kiss her at the same time.

Ellie tumbled onto him as a headrest flicked off, and in a flurry of arms and legs they laughed and tried to straighten themselves out. Ellie’s head hit the console, the windows went down, and the roof of the convertible began to retract. Jago pulled her up to kiss her again and hit the button to squirt the windshield.

“Sorry. Premature ejaculation,” he said.

Ellie squealed into his mouth as the seat slid away beneath her, the back folding down until it hit the rear seat.

“We need to swap places,” Jago gasped.

Ellie clambered into the back, and when Jago reclined in the passenger seat, zipper down, cock tenting his boxers, she climbed over and straddled his lap. She wriggled against his cock, and Jago groaned. He spread his hands on her back, his thumbs reaching forward to stroke the undersides of her breasts.

“How did a kiss lead to this?” he whispered. “I’m not sure you should be let out in public. You’re too tempting.”

Ellie reached for the hem of her dress, lifted it over her head, and tossed it aside. While she worked at the buttons of his shirt, he danced his fingers over her breasts and stroked the limits of the lacy material.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

She paused and smiled before she continued. When she spread the shirt open and exposed his chest in the dim light, the sight of him stole the air from her lungs. Ellie pressed herself and her lips against him, and her head fogged. He tasted so perfect, his kiss so soft and tender that she had to fight not to cry, because every time they touched from now on might be the last. He tugged off her bra, and she rubbed herself against him. The muscles of her sex had already begun the journey toward orgasm.

“Oh God. Think you can get your panties off without inflating the airbag?” Jago asked with a groan.

“Rip them off.”

He tried, failed, swore, and Ellie laughed.

“Hey. Stop laughing, or I’ll get a complex.”

He wrapped his fingers around the material on her hips and tugged. There was a faint sound of tearing, but the panties remained in place. Ellie slipped into hysteria.

“Let me take them off,” she choked out.

“No. If I can’t rip them off, then they stay on. I will not be defeated by a slip of material.”

Ellie freed his cock from the confines of his boxers, rubbed her thumb over the silky head, and her panties snapped on both sides.

“See? You just needed a little incentive.”

She curled up, bent over, and licked his cock from bottom to top.

“That’s it. B movie over. Time for the main event.” He smiled. “I will get better, take longer I mean. It’s just that if I don’t get inside you in the next few seconds, I think my heart is going to explode along with other parts.”

“Want me to slow you down?”

“No, I just want to be inside you, feel you clasped around me. I want us joined.”

Ellie lowered herself slowly onto his cock, drawing in a long breath as she sank down. He tugged on her hips to take her the rest of the way, and a sharp zap of pleasure ran from head to toe as he jammed himself hard against her.

“Oh Jesus.” His eyes fluttered shut.

She contracted her muscles around his cock, and his eyes flew open. “Do that again. Ooh that’s so good, Ellie,” he muttered. “Hot, tight, wet. Aaahh.”

She started slow but couldn’t stop herself moving faster, lifting her hips to drive down harder. Her body raced toward climax, and she couldn’t rein it back.

“Ellie, Ellie.” He groaned and shoved his hips up to meet her downward slide. The sound of their bodies slapping together echoed around them. If anyone had appeared, Ellie wasn’t sure she could have stopped. His fingers flexed around her waist as he pulled her down.

Both panting and flushed, they surged together in a frantic rush toward orgasm. They called out each other’s name at the same time, came at the same time, their bodies freezing taut at the pinnacle of arousal. Staring into each other’s eyes, they melted together and let their mouths kiss them down.

I don’t want to give him up
. He wanted her to go back with him to Sharwood, and Ellie wanted that too but feared it couldn’t happen. Jago clung to her so tightly, Ellie wondered if somehow he understood the uncertainty of their future.

“No more secrets,” he whispered in her ear.

Ellie mentally winced.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he said.

“I don’t want to lose you either.”

He smiled. “Well, you’re about to lose one part of me. Tissue?”

“No. Use my panties. Can you find them?”

He helped her rise from his lap and catch his cum before it dripped on his pants. Ellie stepped out of the car and wiped herself down. She slipped the panties into a trash bin and reached into the car for her bra and dress. Jago was back in the driver’s seat, shirt fastened, pants zipped, and watching her.

When Ellie sat beside him, he leaned over and whispered, “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Then he kissed her, and Ellie tried to blank her mind to the fact that she was likely to be the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

Chapter Seventeen

They reached her parents’ house at seven thirty the following morning, having stopped to sleep in the parking lot of a motorway service station. Jago had tucked the Kewen under his shirt as they napped. They shared a bottle of water and a bar of chocolate and used the rest of the money for fuel. Jago hoped Ellie’s parents would lend them enough to get back to Yorkshire. They’d limped the last few miles on fumes.

He parked on the paved drive and looked at the large detached house. It stood adrift from its neighbors in a sea of flowers. Unlike Henry’s precise planting, these gardens were a riot of color. It looked like a rainbow had exploded.

Once the engine was off, he turned to her. “Anything I should know before we go in?”

“Yes…but better if you don’t.”

For someone bringing her family a fortune they’d spent generations looking for, Jago thought she seemed more anxious than excited, and it was catching. He’d like to have met her parents when he wasn’t wearing creased clothes and in need of a wash and a shave. He was trying not to think about the fact that Ellie’s panties lay somewhere back on their route. Hopefully, her parents wouldn’t take one look at them and know what they’d been up to.

Ellie took his hand as they walked up the path. Jago held the bag with the Kewen tightly in his other. As they stood on the doorstep, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at her.

A tall slim guy with blond hair opened the door. He looked to be barely forty, not old enough to be Ellie’s father. “No key, Ellie?”

“Quick exit. Forgot my purse. Jago, this is my father. Dad, meet Jago—er Lord Carlyle.”

“Jago is fine.” He held out his hand.
This guy looks too young
. There was something he wasn’t getting here.

Ellie’s father hesitated before he shook it. “Nev Norwood.” He looked down at the bag in Jago’s hand.

“Ellie!” An older version of Ellie came rushing to the door and hugged her.

Jago had the uncomfortable feeling that Ellie might be younger than he’d thought. Either that or this family had good genes. These three could have been siblings.

“I’m Caitlin.” She shook Jago’s hand and smiled at him. “I’m so pleased to meet you.”

His cartwheeling heart bounced on his stomach. She might not be so pleased if she knew he’d taken her daughter’s virginity.

“Come in.” Ellie’s mother ushered them into the house.

“Did Micah call and tell you we were coming?” Ellie asked.

“No. The last we knew, you were on your way to Whitendale,” her father said. “Though I assumed that was to mislead anyone listening. I called, but you never answer your phone.”

“Out of juice.” Ellie pulled Jago through to the kitchen. It was a huge room with a wall of glass looking out onto a brilliant green lawn and more swaths of color down the sides.

“Toast and coffee?” Ellie squeezed his fingers.

“Great, thank you.”

“Take a seat.” Nev pointed to a bench.

Jago tipped the bag out onto the table, letting the contents tumble free, and Ellie’s parents gasped. Caitlin reached for a necklace, and her husband snatched her fingers away.

“Better not touch,” he said.

“I never thought we’d ever see it,” Caitlin whispered. She grabbed a tattered book from a drawer and opened it.

Jago could see drawings of the jewels that lay on the table.

“It’s all here,” Caitlin said.

Ellie put a mug of coffee in front of Jago.

“Show them what was with it,” Ellie told him.

Jago took out the bill of sale and unfolded it on the table. Ellie slid onto the bench next to him with a plate of buttered toast and her coffee. They ate while her parents read, and Jago watched their faces pale.

“I’m not sure we were ever meant to find it,” Ellie said. “I wonder if we’re being punished not for losing it but for something else. We were only charged with finding it, not returning it, so I told Jago to bring it to London and sell it quickly. But I thought, what if those who buy the pieces end up being targeted? It isn’t fair on them. The only way to settle this is to speak to Oberon and show him that document, and prove Jago is the rightful owner.”

What was she talking about? Oberon had to be long dead.

“I don’t want it,” Jago said. “Jewels in exchange for children? I’d never feel right about spending any of it. In any case, the descendants of those children have more of a legal claim than I do.”

“How?” Nev asked.

“Rupert, the father of two of the children, died, and the estate and title passed to his brother, which is the reason I’m now Lord Carlyle. I don’t suppose there’s much chance of tracing the children, but I should try.”

“It mentions a third child,” Caitlin said.

“I only know about two going missing. Henry had the ring, so it might be a child from his family.”

“Who’s Henry?” Caitlin asked.

“He’s in charge of the gardens. He’s been at Sharwood since before I was born. I think his grandfather worked there too, and his grandfather before that. Oh God, I think the third child
must
have come from Henry’s family. If my bloody great-great-whatever-uncle was here, I’d strangle him myself.”

“Does he know what we are?” Nev looked straight at him across the table.

“No.” Ellie sipped her drink.

Jago paused with a slice of toast on the way to his mouth.
What they are?
What did that mean?

“But he’s seen the signature,” Caitlin said.

“He doesn’t understand,” Ellie muttered. “I want to tell him. I think he has a right to know.”

Her mother gasped and pressed her hand to her mouth. Jago was lost at sea with no land in sight.

Nev gave him a sad look. “He won’t believe you, Ellie.”

Jago dropped the toast. Ellie’s fingers slid onto his knee and squeezed.

“You only have one chance,” her mother said. She opened the book and pointed. “See what the elders say? Is this the right time? The right person?”

“Jago is the one.” Ellie turned to face him. “Open mind, remember?”

He stared at her.

“Remember everything else too,” Ellie whispered. “Everything we’ve done together. Everything I’ve done. I’m not mad. This isn’t a trick. It’s the truth, and I…I love you. Okay?”

She loves me?
His heart thumped all over his body. What the hell was she going to say? She chewed her lip; her fingers slid over his and clung tight.

“One chance, Jago. If you don’t believe, then I—”

“Ellie!” Her mother’s voice held warning.

What were they so frightened of her saying? Jago’s anxiety fed from theirs, and his stomach churned.