Full Circle (26 page)

"This is some of your parent's stuff," Josie guessed. "Oh, I remember some of these things from when I was in there cleaning the place up."

"These are some of the pieces that my mother liked or at least that I associate with her," Jack agreed. He weaved his way to the back of the storage unit and pointed to a tall inlaid secretary.

"Oh, yes, I remember this, it's beautiful! I thought you got rid of all the furniture in the house."

"I trashed some of it. Most of it I sold to an antique dealer. These were the pieces I kept. I don't know how old this is, but it was one of her favorite pieces. It's Italian inlaid marquetry, and according to my research, dates back to the 1890s. I had to look it up on the Internet. You can have it for that short wall. It has the feminine touch you wanted. You can have any or all of these pieces."

Josie bit into her lip. "You're staying."

Jack frowned. "I thought I made that clear. Yes, I'm staying. Why would you think I wasn't?"

She sighed. "Experience. Everyone leaves me."

Jack gathered her in his arms, strong and tight, and forced her chin up, so she had to look at him. "I'm not leaving, Josie. Not ever again, I'm here for the long haul."

"I want to believe it," she whispered and yelped when Jack smacked her hard on her bottom.

"Believe it! You're mine. You've always been mine, and I'm not letting go of you again," Jack promised.

Josie had barely nodded when he took her breath away kissing her long and hard. His hands were groping, pulling at her tee shirt, releasing her breasts, suckling them, and making her ache with need.

"Jack," she moaned. "What if someone comes in?"

"The brothers don't work on Mondays. A whistle goes off when the main gate locks are activated. If someone arrives, we'll know. This place is quiet during the week."

"Good," Josie gasped as Jack unsnapped her jeans, yanked them down and cupped her mound, thrusting his fingers inside pumping fiercely. He was all over her as she struggled to pull off his shirt and unbutton his jeans. She kicked off her boots and jeans and jumped him, winding her legs tightly around him.

Jack backed up and raised his head only long enough to focus on a suitable flat surface in the storage unit. He carried her over to a kidney shaped writing desk where he laid her down. She was desperately trying to release him and have him inside her, but he was not ready for that yet. He spread her legs, grasped her hips and lowered his mouth to her sex.

He devoured her, and she reveled in every second of it. Jack's tongue was relentless and magical. He suckled her and tortured her clit until she begged for release. When she thought she was about to lose her mind, he released his cock and entered her in one long hard thrust clear to his balls. She exploded, but he was not anywhere near being done. Those magical fingers went to work on her clit again, while his tongue went after her breasts. He brought her to orgasm over and over, each time thrusting into her deeper and harder. She wanted to feel him let go when suddenly he yanked out of her, flipped her over, leaned her over the desk and thrust back into her from behind. She was coming again, and this time so was he! It was a collision of orgasms, hers and his together—wet, hot and deliciously sensuous. The intensity of the moment left her quivering with spent passion and the desire to keep him inside her forever.

Jack shifted back. He moved her around to face him and sat down on the desk, pulling her onto his lap, mingling skin wet with sweat and the smell of sex.

"Never doubt me again, Josie, never," Jack breathed. "I'm never leaving you."

Living with Jack was not dull, and sometimes it got loud. Both of them had short-fused tempers, and both of them yelled. It was great sex one moment and huge arguments the next.

After showing and tempting her with those beautiful pieces of furniture, part of his history through his mother, Jack had refused to let her help load them on her truck. What he could not lift by himself, stayed behind until he could get help. He said he would get Buck or Jimmy Richards to help him load the rest of the furniture and take it over to the house. He had essentially given the pieces to her, and she loved that he was willing to share that part of his history and his memories with her. He wanted to share everything he had with her, most importantly himself. Arguing did not get her anywhere except another whack on the ass, and a lot of them were not all that playful.

Josie still could not believe that she, an ex-cop, ex-CIA agent, ex-sheriff, was allowing a man to whack her on her butt and spank her. Unfortunately, it came as a package deal with Jack. He believed he would put her well being first, and she did trust that he did. Domestic discipline was part of his lifestyle, and if she wanted him in her life, she had to accept it. She didn't have to like it, but if she wanted Jack, it was part of him. And, sometimes deep down, she reluctantly admitted to herself, she deserved it. She might argue before he spanked her, but afterwards any guilt she felt for defying him was gone, and she knew his reasons for doing it were valid.

She had considered the tradeoffs. She knew she could easily find another man, as many men had pursued her in the past. The problem was she found most men lacking. They were too needy, too pliable, the kind of men who did not turn her on. Jack turned her on. She felt herself revving toward an orgasm merely by having him near, and she knew he felt the same way about her. Maybe deep down she needed a dominant man like Jack. Maybe it was because she would not settle for anyone but Jack, only Jack.

The men in her past, they saw a pretty face and a well-shaped body, but she never felt they accepted the rest of her—her intelligence, creativity and her inner strength—the fighter in her. That inner strength was important to her. She had fought long and hard for it.

The incongruity of the situation wasn't lost on Josie. Jack respected her for her intelligence and her strengths, but at the same time, he firmly believed he had the right to challenge her decisions. Any decisions he thought were ill advised or dangerous, he took as a personal affront. She could not budge him away from the idea that he was in control of her well being. He would apply discipline as he deemed it necessary to keep her safe and protected, or to remind her to think through her decisions and err on the side of caution.

What was a woman to do when faced with a man like Jack? He was her personal dream man come true. He was so damn handsome; all he had to do was look at her and she was ready and willing. She'd always had trouble building up to sex with her other relationships, but sex was not a problem between them. He had every quality and trait she had ever wanted in a man, without any of the negative traits she disliked except one—he believed in spanking. She had yet to figure out that conundrum.

"Do you want me to start the grill?" Josie asked, while watching Buck and Jack muscle furniture out of her truck and into the garage.

"No," Jack grunted as he lifted his end of the tall secretary. "The grill's off limits to you. I'll fire it up as soon as we're through here."

"Why is the grill macho-man territory?" she demanded.

"Because it is," Jack said with a grin. "You can shuck the corn and slice the vegetables."

Josie rolled her eyes. "I know and I can clean up the dishes afterward, too. How come that isn't part of macho-man territory."

"Luck of the draw," Buck said, grunting as he held up his end of the Italian secretary, and they heaved it onto a four-wheeled dolly to push it into the house.

Josie followed along behind them carrying a polishing cloth and some special Amish furniture polish she had ordered online. After they had wrestled it off the dolly and into place, it was her turn, and she polished with gusto. It was a beautiful piece of furniture, perfect for the place she'd chosen and she was glad that some of Jack's good memories would be in the room. The men went out to retrieve the kidney-shaped writing desk from the truck. That desk now held special memories too although she was not sure where it was going to go in the house. Until she and Jack picked out the permanent furniture, the small desk would reside in the library. She was determined that she was going to force him into sharing the responsibility of future furniture selections.

Josie opened the drawers, the little compartments and the glass-enclosed bookshelves that were a part of the intricate design of the secretary. When she was satisfied that it was thoroughly cleaned and polished, she attacked the writing desk, doing the same. One of the desk drawers was sticking, and she wiggled and pulled on it gently, not wanting to damage it. The drawer came loose and inside she discovered a leather-bound book. The volume appeared to be old and had the letters AJR written on the light brown leather. She marveled at the discovery. This book was probably Alice Rawlings' journal; it probably belonged to Jack's mother.

She opened it, saw handwritten entries and closed it as she heard Buck and Jack shouting for her.

"Coming," Josie yelled back and headed across the room. She realized she still had the book in her hand, but the bookshelves and the secretary were wet from her polish. She didn't want to turn it over to Jack until she was sure there wasn't anything in it that would hurt him; she knew enough about his parents' tumultuous marriage to be worried. She raised her arm as she went out of the room and slid the book onto the top of the Italian secretary, and headed outside to the deck to fulfill her part of tonight's barbecue since they were expecting Clay and Georgina in a half hour.

Josie figured she had at minimum another two weeks of reports and paperwork to sort through for the inspection. She would be finished with her job about the same time Alex came back from camp. After she had finished organizing all the data, she would turn it over to Sheriff Tucker and brief him on what the State expected during the inspection cycle. She was not too concerned about them passing the inspection now. She had gotten a handle on what they needed and was assembling a three-inch notebook full of reports and final analyses of the last five years covering every contingency of what the inspectors might ask them to produce.

Josie also did not want the Sheriff's office to get through the inspection and simply return to the shoddy way they had previously handled reports. As disgusted as she was with the entire time-consuming process, she had to shoulder part of the blame herself. She had refused to correct the problem while she was in charge, maintaining for ten long months that the job was still temporary. She had added nearly another year of shoddy performance to the mess. She hadn't been as bad as her predecessor, but not up to the standards she was now putting into place. When she was through setting up the new system, it would all be online with reports past and present accessible in a matter of minutes.