Shrouded in Darkness (Shrouded Series) (30 page)

“Why?”

“Because you made a huge decision without talking to me first. Obviously you didn’t think my opinion had any importance.”

“Damn it, Margot. I couldn’t risk your life.”

“It was already at risk.”

“I know that, but—”

“But you still lied—by omission. Deep down, it’s just as bad.”

“I’ll admit you have a point, but can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t have down the same?” In frustration, he rubbed the heels of his palms against the chair’s arms. “I knew if you found out I’d finished the antidote, you’d be right there wanting to be the first to test it out. Well, I couldn’t let that happen and live with myself. There was no way in hell I was going to endanger another person. Not again. Particularly you.”

“‘Not again”? What do you mean by that?”

Damn his mouth. He straightened and dug his fingers into the chair’s fabric. He’d let his emotions crash through any sense of caution. Guilt. He hated how it churned through his gut.

“It’s just a turn of phrase,” he whispered.

Silence slipped over the room as Jake tried to think of a word or thought—anything—to deflect the direction of Margot’s thoughts.

“Really?” Doubt coated the one word.

She sighed and walked toward him. The hem of her housecoat fluttered, then whirled as she dropped down into an adjacent chair.

“Can you be honest with me?” she asked, her voice husky and earnest. “Can you do that? You know, you don’t need to protect me. I’m stronger than you think. Stronger than I even thought.” She gestured with an arm, and the empty sleeve of her housecoat wavered in the air. “I’m missing something here. I don’t have any idea what it’s about other than it has something to do with Miracell and Miltronics. And I guess, the reason why I brought up trust is because somewhere I’ve always felt in the back of mind that you don’t—at least not fully. It’s like you’re keeping a part of yourself from me, holding back in some way. Almost as if you’re ashamed of something. I don’t know. Maybe that doesn’t make much sense, but that’s how I feel at times.”

Jake leaned his head back against the chair and stared up at the ceiling. Margot was too astute. She’d hit on something he himself had tried to deny and forget.

Yes, Jake was ashamed. At times, the feeling was so prevalent that it would wake him in the middle of the night with his heart crashing against his eardrums and sweat coating his body.

He knew she was staring at him, waiting for a response. How did he begin? How did he vocalize something he had problems formulating in his own head?

“What are you hiding? Tell me. Please. You can trust me with it. I promise.”

“I—”

Jake couldn’t find the right words.

“How bad can it be?”

If only she knew. Bad didn’t even begin to describe his crimes, Jake realized in despair, as Margot leaned toward him. Her distinct sent of flowers and sunshine wrapped around him.

“This thing you’re hiding is eating you up alive, so don’t even try to lie. It’s right there on your face. Absolute torment. What is it that has you so ashamed?”

Jake’s eyes suddenly watered. Bowing his head, he blinked several times and tried to focus on his hands across his lap. He hated Margot seeing him like this.

“Oh, Baby. Please,” she urged. “Talk to me.”

The air stirred around him as Margot sat on the arm of his chair and brushed a leg up against his own. He felt the light touch of her nails as she skimmed them across his temple.

He blinked again. Finally, his vision cleared and his hands came into focus. He cleared his throat. It was time to tell his dirty, little secret and...possibly lose Margot forever.

“You know how no one suspected that I was missing, that I died in the blast at Miltronics?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder?”

“I guess.” Shrugging a shoulder, Margot shifted on the arm of his chair. “But I never thought about it in any great detail. There were so many other things I had questions about.”

“It’s because there was another body, another person who died in the explosion. Selfishly, I saw the opportunity and used it.

Dental, police records, you name it.” Jake laughed harshly, staring across Margot’s office to the wall of bookshelves. “It’s amazing what you can do when you’re invisible.”

“Who was he?”

“Henry Steward. I didn’t know much else other than his general statistics—an eighteen-year-old, white male. Then again, at the time, I didn’t want to know. I was too afraid to know what was going on. The guy was probably a runaway, a drug addict or some lost soul who was unfortunate enough not to have any relatives or friends that would miss him if he disappeared.”

“What do you mean? Disappeared? It sounds—”

“Ominous? Oh, yeah. I know Malcolm had some type of deal with him. Money changed hands.”

“You’re not—you’re not talking a human guinea pig, are you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Experimentations didn’t stop at mice or lab rats. It went much further. Steward wasn’t the only one. There were others. I don’t know how many. Maybe one or two. Maybe even more.” Jake cleared his throat. He really hated talking about this. “I turned a blind eye to what was going on with Malcolm and Miltronics. I didn’t confront Malcolm. I didn’t investigate what I suspected. I’m just as bad as Malcolm. But at least with Malcolm, he never pretended to be anyone other than who he was.”

“Don’t. Don’t categories yourself with the likes of Malcolm. You don’t compare, and never will.”

Shocked at hearing compassion instead of contempt, Jake glanced up but of course couldn’t see what she thought. What he wouldn’t do to be able to read her expression right now.

“You don’t understand,” he insisted. “I suspected what was going on and I let it happen. I’m just as guilty by keeping silent.”

“You can’t say that. You’re not positive they’re dead.”

“No. But they disappeared all the same, and I know what Malcolm was capable of.” He shook his head and frowned. “Why? I don’t get it. Why are you being so understanding? Anyone else would have turned away in disgust.”

“But I’m not anyone. I’m me.” She brushed his temple again with her nails. “Did you think that by revealing your worst secret that I would stop loving you? It doesn’t happen that way. Love is a gift you just don’t take away because of someone’s mistakes.

Love is knowing the worse part of that person, taking the bad along with the good, and still believing and wanting to be with them.

At least that’s love to me.”

Jake felt truly humbled. “I don’t deserve you.”

“But you’ve got me. That is, of course, if you want me. Goodness knows I’m not the best catch. There’s my drinking. I’ve got it under control right now. Then I tend to be a tad stubborn.”

He heard the uncertainty in her voice, and quickly assured, “What fool wouldn’t want you? You’re beautiful.”

She laughed. “Well, right now, that’s pretty darn hard to tell, since you can’t see me.”

“Then you’d better take another look at yourself,” he said in growing excitement. “The antidote is starting to work. It’s only a matter of time now.”

Jake pulled back the sleeve of her housecoat to reveal the ghostly image of her arm.

“Oh, my.”

She wiggled her fingers in front of her face—a face slowly but undeniably materializing before Jake’s eyes. In delight, he watched the clean line of her jaw, the thick sweep of her brow and how the amazement etched in her eyes sharpened and solidified.

“You’re an absolute genius.” Wonder interlaced with sadness touched her voice. “You could have won the Nobel Prize over this.

Miracell would have given you fame.”

Jake shrugged, surprised at how little it mattered now. “Maybe. But I would have lost my soul in the process. Too many lives were sacrificed and, no doubt, many more would have been lost if I persisted with the project. There’s no way Miracell could contribute to society as a whole, not when people continue to be motivated by greed or fear. I see that now, but at the time, I’d been blindsided by the idea of fame and my own self-centeredness. ”

He saw the tenderness in her expression and felt himself melt. Strange, but that was the only way he could describe the heat flowing into his chest. Jake marveled at how one woman could touch his heart, his mind and his senses. Capturing her hand, he brushed his lips across the pulse point by her wrist. Her skin was smooth and warm against his mouth, while the scent of flowers whispered to him, entrancing him.

“Jake.”

Something in her voice made him look up, and he stilled. Jake saw her clearly now, every beautiful feature—the pink flush to the gentle curve of her cheeks, the classic turn of her nose, and the full, pout of her lips that screamed to be kissed. And her eyes.

Desire burned in their depths, turning them almost black with it and ripping the breath from his lungs.

Hunger, hot, fierce and wild scored through his veins. With one look, she had the power to throw all logic from his mind. No woman had been able to leave him raw and open, so damn vulnerable like Margot. He’d never given the opposite sex that power.

He reached out, circled her neck with both of his hands, splaying his fingers across the vulnerable slope of her throat and gliding both thumbs across the line of her jaw. As he urged her toward him, he lifted his mouth to her own. She tasted better than anything that had crossed his lips. The soft, subtle pressure of her mouth hardened as she grew bolder and deepened the kiss, using her tongue to touch him again and again.

He groaned deep in his throat and urged her nearer. But wanted more. In frustration, he broke away and rose to his feet.

“Here.”

Sweeping her up into his arms, Jake strode from her office and into the hall. To hell with the stairs and her room. His bed was closer, but not nearly close enough to his liking. The floor would be good enough for him, but he wouldn’t do that to Margot.

“Wait,” she murmured against his throat as he stepped into his room. “I’m tired of the dark.”

He paused as she snapped on the light switch by the door. The lamp adjacent to the bed chased the darkness from the room and illuminated the bed in a warm and intimate glow.

“I want to see every inch of you,” she whispered, her breath fanning lightly across his neck as she nipped at his ear lobe. “And watch your face when you climax beneath me.”

His heart crashed against his ribs. “Keep talking like that and I might be coming before I get my clothes off.”

Beside the bed, Jake eased her down to her feet, sliding her body, inch by glorious inch, across the length of his. Her housecoat gaped open, exposing the smooth line of her collarbone and the shadowy curve of her breasts. With one arm wrapped around her waist and the other cupping her head, he arched her backward, skimming his mouth over her long, sleek neck, then lowering to brush back the fabric with his teeth and baring one breast.

Jake heard the rapid pant of her breath, felt her hands press against his scalp, urging him on as he suckled her breast and lapped at her nipple, grazing his teeth across the hardened tip. He grew impatient, lowering his hand from the small of her back, bunching the housecoat in his hands until he felt silken skin. He cupped her bare bottom and inched lower, dipping between her legs.

She was wet, ready for him, dripping with need against his fingers. He groaned against her breast, thrusting his arousal against her belly. He wanted to tumble her onto the bed right this second and plunge into her, again and again, wrap those long legs of hers around his waist and get so deep inside her that she screamed with the pleasure of it.

Margot clutched at him, digging her fingers into his back pockets, grinding her hips against his own. “I want you, every hard inch of you. I want you bucking beneath me as I ride you.”

“Jesus!” He edged back before he lost it right then and there, and dragged in a lungful of air. Patience. He needed it like he’d never needed it before in his life. “You’ve got me so tied up in knots.”

“Are you saying you want to be tied up?” She gave him a devilish smile. “I’ll be more than happy to oblige.”

He wasn’t fooled by the grin. The flush to her face, the heat in her eyes, the quick rise and fall of her chest beneath the housecoat, now pulled apart to the waist, told him she was just as strung up with need as he was.

“Later.” He raised a brow. “Right now. I’ve got other things in mind.”

“Sounds promising.”

She helped him tug his sweater over his head. After it landed on the floor somewhere by their feet, she glided her fingers across his chest and stomach. Then she flicked his belt open. He helped her shrug out of his jeans and underwear with hands that were as unsteady as her own.

“I love the way you look, the feel of you on my hands. How your muscles tremble when I touch you like this.” She slid an index finger slowly down his throat and over his chest. “Until now, I’ve never had the chance to see you. I missed so much.”

When her finger glided past his belly to pause at his navel, Jake waited, breath drawn, but she stepped back, pulled the tie of her housecoat loose, shrugged and let the material drop to her feet.

“You’re a damn tease. You know that, don’t you?”

“Oh, but you love it.”

“Yeah...” He slid a palm over the side of her breast, down over her waist and stilled at the gentle slope of her hip, all the while inching closer toward her. She was absolutely beautiful. “And I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Those words along with the look in her eyes soothed his soul like nothing ever had. It felt so right being here in this room, in this house with her.

Margot swallowed, sliding her gaze over every inch of him. He looked dangerous, male and hungry. With long, strong legs splayed out beneath him, he stood naked, unashamed, all silk and rock before her. It was a sin for a man to look like that. He’d inherited a thick, hairless chest, wide, powerful shoulders with arms hard and lean with muscle, a flat stomach and narrow hips. His arousal jutted out into the air. The idea of what he could do to her with that made her quiver all over.