The Storm Inside (31 page)

“Try me.”

“You’d put a lot of ideas in his head. Filled it with all kinds of nonsense about seeing the world, having powerful jobs, and being happy. But you see, I know different. Life is hard, Eve. Especially for those of us who don’t have money to fix our problems. We have to rely on ourselves, and my son was forgetting that. What good was it going to do him to walk out into your world and get crushed?”

“You know, I think you actually believe yourself. I think you’ve sold yourself that line of bullshit so many times you’ve forgotten it’s a bunch of crap.”

Jake Sr. just stared at me, his clouded eyes barely keeping track of me. It was late and he was drunk.

“Here’s what I think really happened that night. You saw how great he was. You saw how smart he was. You knew he was going to be everything that you never were. People were going to respect him and want to be him. You saw how much power your useless son was about to have and you got jealous. You couldn’t let him be better than you. So you lost it. You went nuts and you tried to put Jake back in the hole you’d forced him to live in his whole life. Only it didn’t work out so well for you. Jake had grown up and gotten a backbone. He fought back. But instead of letting that ruin him, instead of becoming you, he left. He learned and he grew. And he became all of those things you were so afraid of him being.”

Jake Sr. stared at me for a long minute, he didn’t move or say anything, I wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Until suddenly he spoke, “You need to leave. I have respected my son’s wishes, but a man can only be pushed so far before he is forced to take matters back into his own hands.” He lunged toward me, not to touch me, just to scare me.

I flinched, which was the worst possible thing to do in front of a man like Jake Sr. Men like him thrived on intimidation. They got their power and sense of confidence by taking it from others. He smiled and leaned in closer, “I must say, my son did have good taste, though.”

He reached out and grabbed my arm just as a car came peeling down the street. Jake Sr. jumped back in surprise and I showed him my pepper spray, “Do not ever touch me again.”

His eyes flicked from the spray to the car that squealed to a stop behind mine. I recognized it immediately; it was Greg’s bright red Porsche.

The passenger door flew open and Jake unfolded himself, stepping out onto the sidewalk. I didn’t know how he’d found me, but he was clearly pissed on a level I couldn’t comprehend.

Jake Sr. barely had time to sneer before Jake landed the first punch, knocking his father backward into the fence, “Get in the car, Eve,” he pointed at my car. Then he turned back to his father, “Do not touch Eve ever again. You do and I’ll kill you. Period.”

Everything about Jake was pure rolling masculine energy. He was mad, but that wasn’t the predominant emotion coming from him. He was in full protection mode. He was protecting me.

Greg walked around to close Jake’s door and he looked about as happy as the rest of us. He locked eyes with me and nodded reassuringly, “He’s got this,” he murmured to me. For some reason Greg’s quiet confidence in Jake made me feel a sense of relief. Greg knew this side of Jake better than I did and he was the one who had driven Jake here. If he thought Jake was fine, then he was fine.

I turned and grabbed the passenger door handle, hoping like hell Jake was planning on driving us out of here. There wasn’t a chance I was leaving him here no matter what Greg thought.

“Jake…” Lydia moaned. “Can’t you do anything right?”

“No, apparently I can’t, mother. I’m pretty sure I will never make you happy.”

Lydia stared at her son.

Jake Sr. stood all the way up, “Your girlfriend has already said all that needed saying. You can take all your fancy cars and leave us be.”

Jake shook his head and rubbed his face. He looked so different standing here in front of this house all these years later. The boy I’d come to pick up here never looked right. He always looked just a little off, his eyes always a little closed and sad, his body always hunched against the world. The man standing in front of me now was tall and strong, he looked damn good in the tux he was wearing, and he smiled all the time.

“We’re done. After we leave… we’re done. I want you to forget you ever had a son and I will forget you were ever my parents.”

“She’s not your blood.” Jake Sr. said cocking his head toward me.

“That’s where you’re wrong. She’s more family to me than you ever were.”

He and his father stared at each other while the thunder rolled across the sky, “Goodbye,” he said simply, shaking his head and turning toward me. He scowled the moment he saw I wasn’t in the car. “Get in the car,
now.
”

I nodded and sat back, pulling the door closed once I saw Jake move around the back of the car. Only when he was safely inside with me did I dare to take a breath. Jake Sr. glared at us and I could feel the hate through the darkly tinted windows.

The throaty engine flared to life and Jake revved the engine before peeling away.

I didn’t dare say a word until we were back on the highway. Jake was silent as he shifted hard through the gears and wove down the interstate. He was so tense every move he made was precise and measured.

“How did you know where I was?”

“Private investigator called me the minute you pulled up.”

Oh, right.
He had his father under constant surveillance. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to come down there.”

He didn’t reply. He was brooding.

We exited the highway and shot down the quiet streets toward my house.

“Jake…”

He shook his head, “No. I can’t, not right now.” He was vibrating with tension. Jake was pissed. I just didn’t know for which reason. At this point I’d racked up a nice little list.

Leaving when he needed to talk.

Leaving when I needed to talk and get out of my head.

Going to his parent’s house.

Or there was everything I said to his dad.

Of course he could also be pissed I’d accidentally forced him to see a man he never wanted to see again.

Yeah, I was on a fucking roll.

I sat back in my seat and quietly waited for him to take me home.

The black night turned into a wicked storm, but not the kind that actually rained like it did in the heart of summer. This was the kind that seemed to be everywhere, the wind and lightning lighting up the sky, surrounding everything as far as the eye could see, while not actually raining.

He didn’t kill the engine when we stopped outside my house. We sat there for a long time, his hands were on the steering wheel, gripping and squeezing while mine were folded tightly in my lap.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he finally asked. His voice was rough with emotion.

Ah, the question of the night. It may not have been my most brilliant move, but I had gotten what I needed, so there was something in that. “It all comes back to them.”

He closed his eyes, “You could have gotten hurt.”

I shook my head and reached out for the smooth skin of his cheek. He let me touch him, which was a good sign, “I wouldn’t have let that happen and I wouldn’t have gone there if I wasn’t sure I could keep myself safe.”

He opened his eyes and looked at me, “There are never any guarantees in that house, Eve. It was stupid to go there.”

I nodded, it didn’t matter how sure I was, he was right, too. When it came to people like his parents there were too many variables. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

He shook his head and took my hand, folding it between his two larger ones. “When I got that call I thought I was going to die. I made him repeat himself three times. ‘Eve is at your parent’s house’. It just didn’t compute. And then my heart stopped.” He reached up and cupped my face, his thumb stroking my cheek. “I have never been so scared in my life.”

How badly I wanted to protect this man from anything that might hurt him. And his protective need to save me from the same thing was clear on his face. The way his eyes looked wild and focused at the same time, the way his muscles were tight and ready for action, the shallow way he was breathing… it was all for me.

I reached out and ran the back of my fingers over his cheek, then dipped my finger into the space where his dimple would be. “Kiss me.”

His eyes lit up and his hands grabbed for my face, threading through my hair. He crushed his lips to mine. I ran my hands up his biceps, grabbing him at the shoulders. The next thing I knew, he was lifting me up and over the console, and settling me on his lap. He didn’t say anything, just watched me with those burning green eyes of his, as he did his very best to make me feel good, to erase everything that was hurting us.

His fingers kept tangling in my hair, but it was nice. One minute he was gently stroking, the next tangling and tugging. His tongue plunged deep into my throat. We were kissing like animals, there was nothing gentle or teasing about anything we were doing. I bit his lip and his earlobe between kisses. My skirt went up and my top went down as I continued to grind against his firm erection. And then I was undoing his belt and fly, digging inside for my prize. With a little help he sprang free, then with one finger, Jake pulled my lacey panties to the side, and with the other tilted my chin so that I was looking right into his burning eyes.

I slowly rocked against him, taking him in inch by inch, until he was fully inside. He didn’t let go of my chin. When my eyes closed, he pulled down, forcing them back open again. He wanted to see me, wanted to know what I was feeling.

It was incredibly intense sex. Not fast and hard, but slow and deliberate. His thrusts were powerful and individual. With one hand on my hip and one on my chin he had complete control of me, forcing me to keep my attention on him, while gently coaxing me to do what he wanted by changing the pressure of his fingers against my skin.

His breathing was becoming ragged as he held back waiting for my orgasm to come first. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to feel in control of something, and right now, that meant Jake’s pleasure. I took great pride in doing everything I knew he couldn’t resist, from the focus of my eyes on him, to the squeeze of my muscles, to my little moans of pleasure.

He lasted about thirty seconds.

The moment I felt the first pulse of release, I let go of my own, and we came together, grinding against each other, moaning and groaning, until finally we were done.

I rested my forehead on his shoulder and relaxed for the first time in hours.

“Well, I think I’m good for the night now,” Jake chuckled, maneuvering the top of my dress back over my breasts.

“I’m gonna need an hour in the shower,” I agreed. And not just to get clean. I needed to loosen up my poor muscles.

But in all seriousness, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The bottom line was that I loved the man I was straddling in the front seat of my car. I loved the way we were together, and how desperately we needed each other. And I loved how carefully he loved me in return.

Nothing about our relationship was a game. We were both painfully aware of how easily we could lose everything.

“Taking care of the one you love… that’s what you and I do,” I whispered, looking deep into his gorgeous green eyes. “Sometimes that means one of us is stronger. I lean on you when I’m weak and you take care of me. But I hold you up, too. It’s a give and take. I haven’t lost myself to you, not this time around. I love you so much and I will do anything to keep you safe and healthy, even if it means sacrificing a lot of myself in the process… but I’m not lost to you. I’m still me… and I think you’re still you.”

His thumbs stroked my cheeks and he kissed me, “Did you find the answers you were looking for?”

“Yes.” I was confident in that. There were no more lingering doubts. I wasn’t going to be second-guessing anything from our past. I knew everything I needed to know now.

He nodded back, “Ok then. Where do we go from here?”

I smiled because I knew exactly where we went from here, but I was still a little nervous about saying it. “You could move in with me.”

Chapter 24

Jake had officially moved in with me after that night and kept his promise of a romantic vacation in the Bahamas’. Our little plane had just taxied onto the runway and I was already feeling more relaxed.

Jake leaned over to look out the window and I caught sight of a gold chain tucked under his shirt.

I reached out to touch it but he caught my hand and pulled it up for a kiss. Jake wasn’t the kind to wear jewelry, and he clearly didn’t want me to ask about it. I fingered the gold sun hanging from my own neck. Jake had worn it, maybe he did wear jewelry- at least when it meant something to him.

Maybe it was another one of his mysterious projects. He’d been working on a few more demons from his past in light of what happened the night of the party. He’d gone to some therapy sessions, worked in his workshop, and finally opened a box of mementos his mother had sent him many years ago.

That had been an interesting night. His mother had a twisted sense of history. We’d thrown most of it out and fucked the pain away for the rest of the night.