Dawn of Forever (Jack & Jill #3) (19 page)

“I’m a little concerned that you’ve constructed this imaginary world with an uncle that never existed. I’ve always assumed you and your father had a good relationship, but this makes me question that. Is there something about your father that you’ve never told me?”

She frowned, looking down at her gloved-hands resting in her lap. “Well … there was this one incident. The door was cracked to my parents’ bathroom. I thought it was my mom, but upon closer inspection I noticed my father standing in front of the mirror in a pink lace bra and matching panties. Beneath the tough guy uniformed exterior, he liked wearing lingerie. I think that day a little piece of me died. The man I looked up to was no longer truly a man.”

“Jess …” Luke whispered, touching his hand to her cheek.

She looked up and grinned. “Just fucking with you. God … you’re so gullible.” She hopped out, letting Jones out as well.

“What the hell?” Luke chased after them as they made their way to the elevator. “You were joking? About your father?”

The disbelief in his voice cracked her up. Ruffling Luke’s feathers was her favorite past-time.

“Yes, joking about my dad and my imaginary uncle. Joking about all of it.”

The second the doors opened, he shoved her to the back of the elevator, pinning her against it with his body. Her heart pounded, certain he would give her a pounding of her favorite kind very soon as well.

“You made the whole story up?” He pinched her sides.

It tickled and hurt at the same time.

Jessica giggled. “The look … oh my gosh, the look on your face was …”

He clenched her ass with an iron grip, yanking her body to his. She felt the evidence of his angry desire hard against her belly.

“Payback’s a bitch, sweetheart.” He sucked at her neck just short of leaving a mark.

Out-of-control Luke made Jessica all kinds of crazy. Their bed was too far. She wanted him right then, not a second longer to wait.

“Tell me I’ve been a bad girl,
daddy
.”

Luke froze, lips still pressed to her neck. “
What
did you just say?”

“I’ve been a really naughty girl, big daddy, you need to spank me.”

He released his grip on her ass so fast she could barely remember the feel of it.

The elevator doors opened. His long strides took him to the door twice as fast as hers did.

“You’ve ruined the moment. We may never have sex again.”

She felt like a masochist. Her actions left her turned on, yet she couldn’t resist. Cold feet over marrying Luke? Not in a million years.

*

“Luke?” Jessica mumbled.

His sexy, naked fiancée often talked in her sleep.

“Dammit, Jones! Answer your phone.”

She wasn’t asleep.

“You’re on top of me.”

She nuzzled her face into his neck. “You love it.”

He did. They started their love affair in separate beds then separated by the great wall which came down, leaving an empty gap of complete trust, but one night she fell asleep on his chest. He risked life and limb for a night of her naked body against his. His lips on her head and hands on her perfect ass awoke her the next morning. She didn’t flinch. He proposed to her three days later.

“I do love it, but it’s 2:00 a.m. and you’re demanding I get my phone.”

She rolled to the side and he lumbered from the bed to grab his vibrating phone that danced along the dresser.

“Hello?”

“Luke?”

“Who’s this?”

“Deborah.”

“What is it, Deb?”

Why was his ex-fiancée’s mom calling him?

“It’s Fran.”

He held the phone to his ear with one hand and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the other.

“Yeah?”

“She died an hour ago.” Her voice cracked. Painful sobs bled through his phone.

“I’m sorry, Deb. I really am.”

“Y-you loved … her … r-ri-right?”

Luke grabbed the back of his neck, looking at the woman sprawled out on his bed—the woman who would be his wife in five days. He never went to see Fran, even when Jessica told him to go. They found a match and she received the heart transplant she needed, but it was never a guarantee and he’d heard from mutual friends that she wasn’t doing well.

“Yes. Of course I did.”

“The … the f-funeral is Sat-Saturday. You’ll b-be there?”

“I’m sorry, Deb. I can’t. I have other plans.”

She sobbed harder. “What can be m-more important … than F-Fran’s funeral?”

“I’m getting married. Give Matt my condolences.”

Luke pressed
End
. After slipping into his pajama bottoms, he headed to the kitchen. He grabbed a glass of water and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the hazy lights of San Francisco.

Arms swimming in his stolen red hoodie wrapped around his waist. A warm cheek rested on his bare back.

“Fran died?”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes life sucks.”

Luke loved, with his entire being, the woman who clung to him. He loved that every single one of her imperfections made her absolutely perfect for him.

“Yes.” He turned, using his free hand to cup the back of her head, pulling her into his chest. “And sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we weather the storm, mourn the casualties, and find the sun on the horizon has never been brighter. I’m blinded by mine, and I’m certain for the rest of my life it—
she—
will leave me breathless.”

“I hate how much you’ve lost to get to me.”

“I feel the same way about you.” He kissed her head as she kissed his chest.

“The funeral is on Saturday, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to think of her that day, there’s no way you can’t.” She looked up at him. “And I’m going to love you even more for it. You hide behind your structured life, a three-piece suit, and the plaques on your office wall, but your heart is so damn big. Everyone who really knows you loves you, it’s impossible not to.”

“Don’t ever leave me,” he whispered.

“I have to work tomorrow.”

He chuckled. She called his sense of humor dry, but hers was just as dry.

“Oh you meant it more like a stalker, didn’t you? Like ‘Don’t ever leave me … because I’d find you.’”

“Yes, but not really in that voice.”

“Were you good at hide-and-seek? I sucked at it. Jude would talk stupid gibberish while looking for me. Stuff that would make me giggle and give away my hiding spot. He’d say things like, ‘I ran out of dental floss so I cut the strings off your tampons. Is that going to be a problem?’ or, ‘I masturbate in the shower. Don’t you think it’s odd that you never run out of conditioner?’”

He laughed with her. It was easy to imagine Jessica and Jude as kids because they still sucked at being adults, especially when they were in the same room.

“I dominated hide-and-seek. Especially the seeking part. So yes, I would find you in the most creepy, no-other-man-will-ever-have-you kind of way.”

“I should be disturbed by your confession. I should report it to Dr. Jones, but I love to think about you finding me. You’ve saved me from so much, I can’t image a life where you’re not there to make it worth living.”

He walked to the kitchen, holding her to his chest like a slow dance. After setting down his glass, he lifted her onto the counter. She wrapped her naked legs around his waist, her arms around his neck.

“Hold onto me, Luke. Never let me go.”

He slid his hands under the hoodie, feathering his fingers along her abs and up her ribs.

“I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”

She pressed her palm to his chest, over his heart. He closed his eyes because that’s exactly where he kept her.

Knight

J
illian’s stomach roiled
in pain. She didn’t have a fat reserve for unexpected kidnappings. Stupid her. After being in the same basement with Claire, that lesson should have been learned. Gandhi went twenty-one days without food and survived. Drifting in and out of sleep and consciousness left Jillian unsure of how many days she’d been in that dungeon, but not twenty-one. Yet.

“You need to eat?”

Knox must have heard her stomach.

“I’ve been offered maggot-infested dog food. I’m good.” She looked down at the IV still in her hand. “She’s keeping me hydrated. I’ve been pissing myself quite regularly, which I’m sure you can smell. I’m so fucking constipated, if I make it out of here alive I’ll die trying to shit the redwood-sized cement turd that’s backed up in my colon.”

Knox chuckled. “Always such a lady.”

“Funny, coming from the guy who preached his training facility had to be gender neutral because the enemy killed indiscriminately. I act like a lady in the presence of a true gentleman.”

“Let me guess. I’m not a true gentleman?”

“You raped me.”

“You let me.”

She glared at him. All those years she knew he didn’t look at it as rape. It’s the same reason she didn’t—until working with rape victims. Until Luke.

“You had me pinned naked to the ground.”

“You could have escaped. I didn’t hold you down. Your fear did.”

“Two hundred pounds of fear.”

He shrugged. “I saved your life that day and you know it.”

“Is that how you sleep at night? Is that how you justified yourself worthy of my mother?”

“You killed Edwin Harvey and Matthew Green because I took away your fear that day. You weren’t a victim. I gave you power that day.”

“I beat the shit out of you. I had power, dumb fuck. Just ask the paramedics that hauled your ass out of the building.”

“You had skills, a gun of sorts, but you never would have pulled the trigger. I showed you how to shut off your mind and pull the trigger. You’re no longer a victim. Even now, look at you. You’re a starving bloody mess. I see the anger in your eyes. I bet Edwin saw it too, but he didn’t believe it. You hated him but if it weren’t for me, you never would have killed him, not with
forty-four
slashes to his body.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you better than anyone. You like the taste of blood and the control that comes with it. That’s a part of who you are now. A wedding dress, a fancy apartment in the city, and a big-ass dog won’t change that.”

“No, but killing you and your Frankenstein bride might cure what ails me. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I plan on testing my theory.”

He shook his head. “You’re going to die in that puddle of piss, sweetheart, and there’s nothing you can do about it. If someone removed you from your bindings right now, you wouldn’t be able to stand up, let alone kill anyone.”

“Get her to let me go and we’ll just see what I can do.”

“As you can see…” he looked down at himself, completely bound “…I’m not her favorite person either. I don’t anticipate her heeding my special requests to let you go.”

“Then go ahead and tell me.” Jillian closed her eyes, feeling a wave of nausea seize her stomach.

“Tell you what?”

“Make me see what my mother saw in you, because right now I hate you and that makes me hate her for loving you.”

*

Sunny

Knox met Sunny
in kindergarten. Sunny’s bright smile matched her name, just like the ribbons she wrapped around her strawberry pigtails matched the dresses she wore with the same pair of red Mary Janes.

The disheveled ginger-haired boy followed the pig-tailed angel around like a puppy on a leash.

“Knox is a funny name.” She giggled.

He did too. “My mama’s grand pappy’s name was Knox. She says it’s a strong name because Grand Pappy was a war hero.” He spoke with a lisp from having his two front baby teeth knocked out by his drunken father.

“Sounds like rocks.” Sunny giggled more as the other kids chased each other around the schoolyard. Occasionally one would tag Knox or Sunny, not realizing they weren’t playing. They had more important things to do, like figuring out a better name than one that rhymed with rocks.

“If you let me give you a new name, I’ll let you kiss me.”

Knox would have adopted dog poop for a name if it meant he could kiss the most beautiful girl in the world. However, his mama taught him to stand up for himself, even if she didn’t standup to his mean daddy.