Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (6 page)

He was murmuring in that husky rumble that tickled her eardrums, and she moaned herself as the rhythm picked up.

When she pulled one of her legs from his waist, his eyes opened. Automatically, he dipped a shoulder to accommodate, and as always, he turned his head for a brief brush of his lips against her ankle.

Their next move together brought a simultaneous gasp as this new position allowed them to become even closer—if that were possible. She watched knowing by now that there was a good chance she would see a brief smile and wasn’t disappointed. His lips soon parted slightly as they moved together again and again.

Her eyes traversed every expanse of him. The pleasing planes of his face, and the way the tips of his hair fell over his shoulders. The ink designing his arms, and the way it stopped just short of meeting between his collarbones. The ripple of muscles on his torso, and...

Remembering the mirror, she twisted her head hoping their angle would give her a view of his bare ass, eye candy that had elusively remained hidden inside denim all day.

What she found was so much more. She admired the contrast between the two of them, his dark complexion, and her lighter skin. The scales brought a scowl each time she stepped on them, but tonight she looked slender enough sprawled before him. The enthrallment on his face seemed indication that he found her perfect.

Perfect?

As she pondered, one of his hands pushed back his hair, then came to rest, distinctly tan against skin that had only seen the sun once—when Olivia had talked her into sunbathing topless. Mesmerized, she continued her watch as his hand trailed down, below the next slight tan lines and then moaned in delight when it reached its destination.

They were beautiful together.

The feeling of complimenting every last part of him was more arousing than the sweet place he caressed from the outside, and from within...hit over and over until they both cried out.

SHE RETURNED FROM
a quick rinse
in the shower to find the lamp still on and Jack still wide-awake with his hands clasped behind his head. His eyes were in a vacant stare toward the high ceiling. Immediately, she hugged up against him. Viewing the digits on his docked phone, she mentally calculated the latest logical time to move from his room to avoid Tristan finding them together.

“Mariss?” Her name rolled off of his tongue into her hair.

“Mmh?” Her lips went to his shoulder, an automatic response to hearing his version of her name.

“Why don’t you ever let go? Completely?”

The question was so unexpected and ambiguous that she raised her head, and when she did, he propped on an elbow to better see her face.

“Let go of what?” She returned while her brain spun in search of any possibility.

“The first time. In the bus. Never has it been that real, never that real with anyone else. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. There is something different now and I wish I could fix it for you.”

Her breath hitched for two opposite reasons. First, her heart, dry for so long, soaked up any of his sweet words. Yet, did he just allude that the present sex between them had not been as good for him when compared to the past?

“What do you mean?” Not able to look him in the eye, she studied chocolate brown sheets the shade of his eyes.

His thumb brushed at her bottom lip and in that way she was becoming accustomed to, he brushed his lips to hers, kissing away whatever hurt he might have seen in her eyes. Or maybe he just wanted a kiss; maybe she was making too much of why he did things.

“I just mean you always seem to be stopping things before you have any real fun...”

Her mind contemplated these words as they floated on the surface of her confused soul. The self-translation wasn’t long in coming.

She always stopped anything he was doing before she could really ‘get off.’ Sure, she ‘got off’. It was impossible not to with him. However, he was right. The crazy out of control mind losing orgasms could be counted on one hand, and that was counting the time in the tour bus.

“You know why,” she protested while envisioning their son always down the hall.

Jack had no trouble understanding. “I know there were always little ears on the other side of the walls. But not now. And you still pushed me away...”

“How can you say ‘not now’? Two rooms away is not much different, Jack–I—you have to understand.”

“The bedrooms in this house are soundproof.” The argument was made as he played in her hair, sifting it between his fingers. “I know I mentioned that...”

“Yes. But how soundproof can a room actually be?”

“You can scream as loud as you want and no one would hear.”

As much as that answer quivered the depths of her stomach, she couldn’t stop her laugh, and his dark brows drew inquiringly together.

“That’s not really something you should tell a girl the first time she is in your room.”

“Why? Is it scary?” A laugh was just beneath the surface of his words, and he carried on the charade, “You could scream for days and days and no one would ever hear you.”

When he began to quote a famous line from a psychotic thriller, her hand went to his mouth. Even though she was giggling uncontrollably, she didn’t want to be creeped out, even with Jack by the end of that sentence.

Jack, however, wasn’t through playing. With a roll, he was atop her, and his hand went from her hair to pin one of her wrists. Although she tried to flay the other away from him, he imprisoned it as well.

“So it would be creepy if I tied you up the first night?”

“You are not tying me up any night.”

Her assurance only heedlessly bounced from his smug face. “We’ll see.”

With another quick kiss, he rolled with them. She landed on top of him and discovered that any extra movements could swiftly bring on a test of the soundproof claim. Jack’s smile grew broader upon watching whatever was in her face as she made this observation. However, ignoring his body’s response he eased off and she eased away.

“I’m going to go back to my room so I don’t have to wake up again until Tristan does. Hopefully he will sleep late.”

From the foot of the bed, she picked up her towel grasping again her clothing dilemma.

“I can get your luggage if you want. Or you can wear something of mine?” The last part rang hopefully as he crossed to his closet.

Following him, she found a room almost as big as her bedroom back home. Jack pulled a tee shirt from a hanger and passed a pair of boxers from a drawer.

As they both pulled on clothing, she asked, “What if Tristan needed us? And we were in here? With the door closed?” Banging our brains out in the soundproof room?!

“His t.v. has a webcam type of camera. It can be pulled up on my t.v. or either of our phones.” His half smile quirked as he piled back into bed admiring the way his clothing draped on her frame. “I forgot tonight though. Left it off ‘cause you were in there with him. Then got distracted...”

Distracted was putting it mildly.

Recalling every second of their time tonight burned and bothered her body making sleep elusive for almost an hour. The mirror images branded her brain. His touch left her skin singed. His taste remained in her mouth and on her lips...His ringtone jarred her from a dead sleep.

Several disoriented seconds passed before she fumbled her phone from the nightstand. By then, voicemail intercepted the rings. Without waiting to see if he left a message, she hit the send button return dialing his phone.

“Hey Mariss.” His voice was cheery, alert, and she could hear Tristan happily gaming in the background. “You going to be ready to go shopping in an hour?”

Deducing that he was calling from downstairs, she refrained from asking him all the motherly things she wanted to, like if Tristan had eaten breakfast. And lunch. She squinted at the clock on her phone seeing that it was noon. Lying, she assured him she would be ready in an hour.

She would be ready, but never ready.

The drop party was terrifying to dwell on. In college, she was a party type of person, but that urge had waned over the years, and altogether disappeared when Tristan came along. Even if she liked large social gatherings, this was different.

Tonight, she would be arriving to a place where she was sure to feel out of place. Jack would be the only familiar face. If that were not bad enough, he was one of the guests of honor, which meant that attention would be on him and spill over to her. On the opposite end of that spectrum, there might be times when the focus was solely on him and she could be left to fend on her own.

Rubbing her eyes, she found her luggage lined up just inside the doorway and marveled that she had slept so soundly for so long. Picking through her clothing, she randomly tossed aside most of it, envisioning it unfit for the ritzy clothing stores on Rodeo Drive.

Narrowing the choice to a couple of shirts, she bit back a frustrated curse and let the lid fall closed. In thinking of this day, she had never given forethought to what to wear into the store.

Tugging the zipper on the suitcase containing her jeans, skirts, and pants, she thought of the black dress slacks that were part of her work ensemble. Mentally, she began matching them with one of the nicer shirts just pulled from the folded stacks. However, once the next suitcase was open, she fell back in surprise.

EVEN FROM THOUSANDS
of miles away, in any fashion nightmare, Olivia saved the day. Instantly, she sent her friend a grateful text and hurriedly put herself together.

Descending the stairs, she could not stop looking down at the pair of designer jeans and blouse. The tags were upstairs in the trashcan, and as the denim stretched with each step, she marveled that Olivia could size her so well.

The kitchen table had cereal remains on it. One bowl with milk splashed around it, and automatically, she moved to clean it up. Even in an unfamiliar house, this routine was familiar.

Outside the large window, the sunny day and shimmering placid water caught her eyes, and she froze at the breathtaking sight.

Sunken, in the colorfully blended stone of the patio, was a guitar-shaped pool. The long water-filled neck extended toward the covered patio area, and a detailed effect of strings was clear beneath the placid surface.

After sparing a few more seconds to admire the view, she crossed to the sink and ran water over the bowl. She wiped the milk from the table and then followed the Xbox noise finding Dax, not Jack, in an intense game with Tristan.

Taking his eyes from the television for only the briefest second, Dax attentively informed her that Jack was in his music room. As a testament to Jack’s soundproofing claim, she heard nothing until she cracked open the door. Then, what was obviously some type of business call became loud and clear.

“That was pushed back six weeks–and yes, he did know that...my son had unexpected surgery, not that it is really any of your business...” At this point, the door was open enough that Jack noticed her. Admiration, when his eyes skimmed her figure, joined the stormy emotions that clouded his face.

Stepping over wires, he stopped before her so close that she could hear the bitching from within the phone. His spare arm took comfort in drawing her near, and she wrapped around him dropping her face to the tee shirt stretched across his chest.

“Sharon,” he spoke into the phone again, “I need for him to return my call. I love you sweetheart, you know I do, but I need to talk to him, capish?...Yes, you CAN promise, you always get the impossible done, and I know he falls under the impossible...” Here, Jack laughed at whatever ‘Sharon’ said, and spontaneously Marissa pulled away from him, pretending to study the array of guitars.

Though she winced at the word love and the endearment included to this voice on the phone, she knew it for what it was. Charm worked; in her line of work, she had used it many times. However, that same husky laugh that she had thought was hers alone had just rumbled into a wireless broadcast to this invisible vixen.

“Alright, thanks sweetheart. Before tonight, please. I don’t want his hairy-eye on me all night...”

The call ended, and he tossed his phone aside with the fury withheld from his words. After staring, for a second or two, at the table where it clattered to a landing, he seemed to shrug the mood off.

“Sorry. Music’s not always fun.” With a wry grimace, he eyed the guitar in her sights. “Get caught up on some sleep?”

She nodded, shooting an appreciative smile for the extra rest beyond Tristan’s awakening, but she couldn’t ignore the fatigue in his eyes.

“What time did Tristan wake up?”

“A couple of hours ago–” As he spoke, his phone sounded. “I’m sorry, I have to–”

Nodding with understanding as he retrieved the phone, she crossed to the door, but he elaborately gestured for her to stop as he spoke a greeting to the caller.

The conversation began calm, however, it was easy to sense when it became hostile on the other end. Jack was trying to maintain his cool; she had seen that look a couple of times before. With a semblance of patience, he was repeating the same explanation and reciting the same defense as in the previous call.