pay us to stay.”
He watched the Bronco pull away, feeling like he’d just closed that last remaining door to his past. For the first time in his entire adult life, he was looking forward to his future, instead of behind him.
There was just one remaining detail.
He needed to go and grab hold of the woman who made him whole.
And this time, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.
Chapter 17
Because of his run in with Mitch, Taylor had already showered by the time Jake was pounding his fist on her front door, all but shaking the frame of the house. When she opened it, she was fresh and sweet smelling, with her long hair damp around her flushed face.
His chest clenched tight. It was nuts, the things this woman did to him. He wanted to roll himself all over her until he’d marked her with his scent again, wanted her claimed as his in the most basic, elemental way two animals could connect. He wanted her to smell like him, coated in his cum, with her own juices smeared all over his body.
He’d never felt so savagely primitive before, like a red raging beast of possessiveness. And what made it human was the heart buried beneath the lust. The heart that wanted to be claimed just as strongly as it wanted to conquer. The human heart married with the needs of the flesh, secured by love and trust and commitment. Shit, he was waxing poetic here, but there was no help for it. Any moment now he was going to be on his knees begging, and he figured he might as well get it said right the first time.
Then the crazy woman had the nerve to say, “Jake, what are you doing here?” His noble intentions flew right out the window. Wild man surged forward in all his ruthless glory, and he knew she could see it in his eyes, the set of his mouth. She stepped back, moved away from him, but at least she didn’t slam the door in his face. Jake stalked into the house before she changed her mind.
She kept backing up, but he just kept moving in on her. He took a step toward her, then another, advancing with the predatory skill of a dark, dangerous animal preparing to strike. Her eyes were swollen and red, as if she’d been crying, and the sight ripped a tear of pain right through him. He reached her in three long strides, backing her against the wall, pinning her there with the delicious strength of his long, muscle-hard body. She trembled as he cupped her cheek, holding her in place with his legs braced on either side of her own.
His eyes searched hers, desperate for answers. “Why’d you run out on me, Taylor?”
She bit her lip, trying to stop its ridiculous trembling. She wasn’t afraid of Jake. She was afraid of herself—afraid of making an absolute fool of herself over him. Each time he’d come into her, he’d taken a little more away when he withdrew. He’d possessed her, staked a claim, and her mind had recognized the fact as clearly as her body. If she’d stayed another day, there wouldn’t have been any fight left in her and she would have given in. She’d have given him anything he wanted, including her heart, and even though it’d always belonged to him, she still couldn’t find the strength to acknowledge his claim.
That was why she’d run, fleeing like a coward. One short taxi ride home, and she’d thought she’d cut her ties to him forever.
She was holding the pain tight to her chest like a bitter old woman living off of fear and worry and regret. She was too young to have even lived her life yet and here she was, already throwing it away because she was too terrified to take a chance on love. It was pathetic, and she hated herself for this inherent weakness and insecurity.
She tried for a smile, but knew she failed big time. “Come on, Jake. Did you really want me there this morning? You got—what you wanted.” She shrugged, swallowing down the uneasy pain. “I didn’t see the point in going through an awkward goodbye.”
His hand moved from her cheek, back into her hair, fingers spearing through the silken mass to hold her in place. “Jesus, you just don’t get it, do you, woman? I didn’t come back to settle some old score with Mitch, you little idiot. And I didn’t come back just to get your sweet ass in the sack, though God knows that’s exactly where I want it, every single day and night. I came back for a hell of a lot more than that, Taylor.”
Her lips thinned, eyes suddenly flaring with fury. “And you thought what, Jake? That I was just going to run from one womanizing bastard to another?” She crossed her arms, hugging them against her body in a desperate attempt to hold herself together. “Give me a little more credit than that. I know what men like you want. Variety, Jake. Lots and lots of variety.”
The sound that burst from his throat was part outrage, part laughter. “Hell, he really did a number on you, didn’t he, babe? You don’t have a fuckin’ clue what kind of man I am. Not if you can compare me to Mitch. Mitch is a spineless, sniveling coward. That’s why he ran around screwing any and every damn thing that moved. He knew he wasn’t man enough for you, Taylor, and he blew the best thing in his life because he was so afraid of losing it.”
“To who, Jake? You expect me to believe Mitch has been worrying about the day you’d come back to town?” she scoffed, finding the idea too ridiculous to even credit. “That’s why he threw our marriage away? Because he knew you were going to come back for me? He was just waiting to get screwed over, so he screwed me over instead?”
“Damn straight. And he was right. Not that your marriage had a chance in hell of lasting anyway, because you married the wrong guy, sweetheart. I already knew I’d wasted enough time waiting for you to come to your senses. When my uncle called, I was already on my way here. I already had my bags packed, Taylor.”
“And you knew I’d just be waiting here with open arms? How, Jake? What’d you do, read my mind
from thousands of miles away?”
Green sparks of passion lit his eyes, his mouth going grim with determination. “No, I read your book.
All of them, actually.”
Taylor groaned, mortified all the way down to her toes. Oh, God. It was like a great gaping hole opening at her feet. He’d looked and seen just how obsessed with him she’d always been. Rainier, her King of the Faeries, was the spitting image of Jake, as were Nashtash the Warlock and Ivanor the Gaul. God, she wanted to crawl into a little ball on the floor and die right then and there.
How was she going to explain this one without coming right out and admitting that she’d been more
than just attracted to him all this time? It was too much, after everything else she’d so stupidly ‘fessed up to. She couldn’t take it. This was supposed to have been all about sex for him, wasn’t it? Scratching an old itch and all that. Why was he trying to turn it into more?
His body pressed closer, cutting off any chance of escape. “I’ve seen them all, sweetheart. One day I was cruising through this Barnes and Noble and there you were. A picture of you and your pretty little books spread out all around it. I bought every single one of them. That was six months ago, and I’ve pored over them every day since then trying to figure out what they meant. When I finally thought I’d got it, I came back. And one look at you told me I’d been right.”
“Well hooray for you, Jake. I’m sure that’s just what your enormous ego needed, more fuel for the fire.” She squeezed her eyes shut and let her head bang back against the wall, thankful for the distracting pain. God, she couldn’t look at him. She must seem so pathetic to someone as strong as Jake—like a broken little waif too homely for anyone to want, aching for love from someone as gorgeous and sexy and vibrant as him. He was all the bold colors she’d ever painted him with, while she was small and washed out.
Invisible.
Transparent.
She could feel his stare like a lick of fire across her skin. She was shivering, but she wasn’t cold. Maybe it was that strange tremble that came before shock. Any second now and her world would go mercifully black. It was so odd, like floating, if only Jake would stop shaking her shoulders, demanding her attention.
“Taylor, don’t you dare pass out on me. Take a deep breath and open your damn eyes, woman.”
Tiny pinpricks of cold were dancing against the backs of her lids, across the tingling flesh of her lips.
“I can’t,” she moaned. “This is so horrible. Please, Jake. Just leave me alone.”
“Like hell I will,” he growled. “What do you think I’m going to do, Taylor? Laugh at you? Make fun of you? Don’t you know what I saw when I opened those books and found my own fucking face staring back at me from every single page, over and over again? Don’t you?”
He didn’t wait for her to answer, just pressed his mouth against her own and ate his way inside. His head moved from one angle to another, its only intention to get deeper inside that sweet, moist recess till he’d touched and tasted every part of it. It was a consuming kiss. Hungry and demanding, worshipping her mouth with pleasure. And she was right there with him, pulling him in, stroking his tongue with the hungry need of her own.
No one, she thought. There couldn’t be anyone else in the entire world that kissed the way Jake Farrell did. It was as if he were making love to her mouth, the same way she’d felt when he’d spent all those long, drugging moments with his head pressed between her legs—with his cock claiming possession of her pussy.
When he had to come up for air, he kept his lips against hers, unwilling to break the physical contact. “It made me crazy,” he growled against them. “Drove me out of my mind to see those books because I
knew you’d been just as crazy for me all these miserable fucking years. I knew it, Taylor. It was painted right there on every single friggin’ page, screaming that you loved me. That you loved me, damn it, and I’d left you here! I’d left you with that lying bastard when you belonged with me!”
“I didn’t need you to come back home and rescue me, Jake. I was doing just fine without you.”
His hand bracketed her jaw, forcing her to hold his heated stare. “Is that right?”
She gave a jerky nod, and his grip tightened. “Well, I’m not buying it, sugar. I think you’ve been dying for the day I’d come back—because I know I sure as hell have been. You may not need me for anything, Taylor, but I need you for everything. I need you to make me complete, to make me whole—to make me stop feeling like half of a man! You’re gonna have to let the baggage go, Taylor. I came back for you, and I’m not fucking leaving without you!”
Oh God. Something beautiful clicked free inside of her—the lock around her heart forced open—and she gasped or cried out, too overcome to recognize the noises tearing from her soul, pouring into his. Suddenly it seemed as if her life was about to find its defining moment in all its shining glory, right here in the arms of the only man she could ever love. “Jaaaake,” she moaned, wrapping her arms around him, trying to crawl into his body, right through his skin. “Jake—”
His fingers twisted into her hair, tilting her face up to his. Their eyes met, both glassy with tears, stormy and violent and full of love. “I love you, Taylor. That’s what I’ve been trying to show you. Trying to make you understand. I love you! Hell, I always have. I always will.”
Jesus, he made her feel so strong. Jake wasn’t bad for her. He believed in her, maybe enough for the both of them, and Taylor suddenly began to open her eyes to what was standing right in front of her.
She shuddered in his arms and tried to pull his mouth back against hers, but he wasn’t finished. “Now tell me why you stayed. What were you waiting for? Tell me, Taylor. I need to hear it!”
“You!” she cried, holding him as tightly as he held her. “Oh, God, Jake, I was waiting for you! I
always have been. I love you…I love you…I love you—”
That was the key he’d been waiting for to set the hunger free. It took only ten frenzied seconds of ripping at the buttons on his fly, dragging her skirt and panties out of the way, and then he was shoving her legs open with his own and knifing up into her, having to work against the swollen tissues of her sex-ravaged pussy until they finally relented and hugged him deep once more.
He plowed up into her, going straight and fast and thick.
She screamed as he pounded her into the wall, too caught up in everything to be gentle or seducing. Not that that was what she wanted. She wanted this—this wild, rough claiming that told her in no uncertain terms exactly who she belonged to.
And yet, it was as giving as it was taking. The long, thick thrusts of his body cramming itself into hers with such desperate need were proof of everything she needed to know. It was all there—hers for the taking, if she’d just reach out for it.
When he could finally find his voice, Jake grunted, “Then marry me, Taylor. Make me the happiest bastard alive and tell me you’ll marry me.”
“What?”
He ripped her shirt open, pulling her bra out of the way so he could lick her nipple, using all the weapons at his disposal, cheating like hell as he nibbled the pink tip with his teeth. He knew he should’ve waited to ask it, but he couldn’t. He wanted it too badly.
“You heard me. Marry me,” he demanded gruffly, his arms tightening in case she tried to pull away. Shit, he didn’t want to scare her off by forcing his hand, but he’d been waiting a lifetime for this woman. What in the hell was the point in waiting any longer?
“You can’t—you can’t be serious.”
Jake pulled back, looking down into her shocked face. Her eyes were huge, glistening with tears. He rubbed his thumb against her lower lip, marveling at the soft, silky texture, like the petal of a flower, only sweeter. “Don’t give me that shit. You know I’m serious. I’ve never asked a woman to marry me before, and I sure as hell wouldn’t do it as a joke.”