Authors: Kate Hewitt
And
then she’d found him here.
Cautiously
she slipped onto the stool next to him and nodded towards the tumbler. ‘You
aren’t going to drink that, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
she asked softly. There were so many whys: why was he here, why did he look so
conflicted, why didn’t he want to kiss her any more? She left it simply at
Why
?
and
let Jacob
choose which one to answer.
‘The
point,’ he said carefully, his tone clinical and even a bit
cold,
‘is
not
to drink it.’
‘Why?’
Mollie asked again.
Jacob
paused. He smiled, and it looked brittle, fragile. Like his whole face, his
whole self, might splinter apart. ‘It’s a test,’ he said simply. ‘How long can
I sit here without touching
it.
’
‘You’ve
been here a while already,’ Mollie said quietly. ‘How long do you intend to
torture yourself, Jacob?’
He
laughed rawly. ‘You have no idea.’
‘No,
I don’t,’ she whispered. ‘Tell me.’ Jacob shook his head, the movement no more
than an unsteady jerk. ‘Is it because of your father? Are you worried you might
have the same problem with alcohol that he did?’
‘Alcohol
is the least of it.’
She
laid a hand on his arm. ‘What happened?’
‘Annabelle
never told you?’
The
question startled her.
Annabelle?
‘No
…’ Mollie felt as if she were spinning in a void of uncertainty, a world of
ignorance. There were so many things she didn’t know.
Jacob
drew in a shuddering breath. ‘After my father died—after I killed him—’
‘Don’t—’
‘It’s
the truth, isn’t it?’ Jacob smiled grimly. ‘Never apologise for the truth.’ He
lowered his head, his hand
lying
on the table now, a
grasping fist, closer to the tumbler. ‘You
can’t.’
‘It
was an accident, Jacob,’ Mollie said firmly. ‘And you were protecting
Annabelle. Everyone knows that. You did the right thing …’
‘And
I didn’t protect her, did I? Everyone can see the scars.’
What
about your scars? Mollie wanted to ask. Who sees them? They were all on the
inside, and for so long she’d had no idea they existed at all. How could she
have assumed that Jacob had left all those years ago without a care in the
world, selfish, self-centred? How could she have judged him so utterly? Yet she
had, and his siblings had as well. Everyone had.
Especially himself.
‘It
doesn’t matter,’ he said roughly. He pulled his hand away from the bar. ‘The
point is I failed—just as my father failed.’
‘No—’
‘The
day I left, Annabelle found me in my father’s study. It was noon and I was
already half drunk on his whisky.’ He spoke with revulsion, but Mollie refused
to give in to it.
‘And
so one moment of weakness condemns you, nearly twenty years later? I don’t
believe that, Jacob.’
‘There’s
a lot you don’t know,’ he told her in a low voice.
‘I’m
sure there is. There’s a lot you don’t know about me too. One morning when my
father was ill, he couldn’t remember anything. Not my name, not that my mother
had died decades ago. He was confused and scared and he started to cry.’ She
drew a breath, the memory still shaming her. ‘And I yelled at him. I yelled at
him like he was a naughty child.
As if he could help it.’
Her voice trembled. ‘I’m ashamed of that.’
‘You
shouldn’t be ashamed.’ Jacob’s voice was low. ‘You stayed, Mollie. You saw it
through.’
‘And
you blame yourself because you didn’t stay?’
‘No.
I blame myself because I
couldn’t.’
Jacob drew a shuddering breath. ‘If I did …’ He stopped, shaking his head,
closing himself off. Mollie wouldn’t let him.
‘Our
mistakes don’t define us, Jacob.’
Jacob’s
voice was so low she could barely hear it. ‘This is more than a mistake. This
is who I am.’
The
raw grief in his voice shook her. Why did he think so badly of himself? What
was he not telling her? ‘You’re the boy who took care of his family, Jacob,’
she said firmly. ‘The man who saved his sister …’
Jacob
shook his head, the movement violent and instinctive. ‘You don’t
know—
’
‘No,
I don’t. I never could. I know your whole family suffered under William’s hand,
although I’m sure I could never guess how much. And,’ she added softly, ‘I’m
sure, as the oldest, you endured the most of all.’
‘It’s
not that.’
‘Why
do you carry so much guilt, Jacob?’ Mollie asked softly. ‘Why is it
all your
fault?’ ‘Because …’ He stopped, shaking his head.
‘Tell
me.’
‘No!’
The word was a roar. He dropped his head in his hands, his fingers raking
through his hair. ‘I can’t. If I told you …’
‘What?
What would happen?’
‘You
might hate me.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I couldn’t bear that.’
Stunned
and humbled, Mollie remained silent. Then she acted out of both instinct and a
newborn confidence. She reached out to draw Jacob’s hands away from his face,
his head still bowed. He lifted it as she took his hands in hers, curling her
fingers around his as she half slid off her stool to do what she’d wanted to do
for so long, what she needed to do.
She
kissed him.
Jacob’s
lips slackened under hers in surprise for a single second before he responded,
his arms coming around Mollie’s shoulders and drawing her closer to him so she
leaned against him, half sprawled on his stool.
He
kissed her with a pent-up passion that felt like fury and yet tasted so
achingly sweet.
He
tasted sweet, and
as she surrendered to the kiss he’d made his own she knew she would never get
enough.
He
pulled away for a brief, aching moment and shook his head. ‘Not here.’
Mollie
nodded, accepting, and then he took her hand and pulled her with him away from
the bar, flinging a few crumpled notes on its polished surface. She followed
him across the hotel’s opulent lobby towards a gleaming bank of lifts;
trepidation curled in the pit of her stomach. She was afraid this silent walk
would give Jacob space and time to change his mind. To decide he didn’t want
her after all.
He
jabbed the lift button and the doors swished open. The moment they closed
again, Jacob turned to her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her with an
abandoned hunger that thrilled Mollie to her core.
She
responded, every inhibition and uncertainty scattering to the winds as she
tangled her fingers in Jacob’s hair and pressed her body against his, wanting
and needing to feel all of him. Wanting and needing this, only this, this
moment, this kiss—it was everything, her whole world wrapped into one embrace.
They
stumbled back against the wall of the lift, fingers scrabbling at each other’s
clothes, their breathing ragged and desperate and yet the kiss went on, urgent,
endless, demanding and satisfying at the same time. Jacob’s hand pulled at the
zip of her dress and he tugged impatiently; in one slithering movement it fell
to the floor of the lift. Mollie kicked it off, pulling at the buttons of his
shirt and hearing them pop and scatter across the floor as the lift began to
slow.
She
could hardly believe she was being this daring, this reckless; she was in a
hotel lift in nothing but her bra and panties.
And Jacob … to
have him so urgent, so hungry.
He was losing control, and it thrilled
her.
He
pulled her towards him, kissing her again with that same deep urgency. The
doors whooshed open and in one easy movement Jacob scooped her into his arms
and carried her into their suite.
He
brought her to the bed, laying her gently down before he reached for the
buttons of his shirt, most of which she’d already wrenched apart. Mollie
watched him undress with desire-dazed eyes; he was so beautiful. He shrugged
out of his shirt, the muscles of his shoulders and chest rippling with the
simple movement. His hair was rumpled, his breathing ragged, and his eyes—
Oh,
his eyes. There was so much pain in those black, black eyes, it made Mollie
want to weep. She
lay
there, her mind still fogged
with desire, and yet the pain she saw reached out to her and wrapped around her
throat.
Her heart.
She could barely speak, barely
breathe, so she just held her arms out to him in silent supplication.
He
came to her.
He
fell upon her with a hunger and a need Mollie hadn’t expected, even now. It
humbled her, excited her, made her feel sexy and beautiful and, God help her,
even
loved.
He
buried his face in the curve of her neck, his hands roaming over her body, down
to her stomach, his fingers skimming across the tender flesh of her inner
thighs. She gasped under his touch; it had been so
long
. It had been for ever, because it had never been like this
before.
‘Mollie
…’
Her
name sounded like a plea, and she rose to
answer it.
‘Yes.’
She didn’t want his doubt. She
was sure, so very sure, and she wanted him to be as well. She held his head
between her palms, dragging him forward so she could kiss him, as if her kiss
was a balm she was bestowing upon him to take that pain from his eyes.
From his heart.
And
he accepted it, the tension leaving his body as he kissed her again, this time
with a new, slow languor, a kiss to savour. He bent his head to her breasts,
taking his turn with each, as Mollie gasped at the exquisite sensation. She
felt Jacob smile against her skin, and then he moved lower. He covered every
inch of her body, moving over her with his lips and hands, testing and tasting,
treasuring her. Mollie arched beneath him, her voice a restless plea as the
ache within her intensified, demanding release.
Finally
he rolled on top of her, and Mollie welcomed his weight, eager for the joining
of their bodies. She started in surprise as she felt Jacob touch her closed
eyelids. ‘Look at me.’
Her
eyes fluttered open. ‘Jacob …?’
‘Look
at me,’ he said again as he entered her, filling her to completion, the moment
of union so surprisingly, stingingly sweet that she had to blink sudden tears.
Jacob braced himself on his forearms as he looked down at her, his eyes still
so dark, his forehead furrowed. Silently he brushed the trace of a tear from
the corner of her eye, and Mollie let out a gasping cry.