Still The One (Family Stone #4 Jack) (Family Stone Romantic Suspense) (6 page)

Jack burst out of the bathroom like he was being attacked and Bliss jerked. She’d forgotten how everything he did was physically imposing. He moved and breathed and sucked the air from the universe.

Jack was big. But more than that, he had a big personality. He commanded attention. Not in an overt way but somehow when Jack was around he drew energy from the air and it nearly crackled around him.

Of course he noticed her flinch. “You okay?”

“Besides that fact that I’m sorta wishing I had a black light for these sheets—”

Jack snorted. “No, you don’t.”

“I’m...fine.”

The tension in the room ramped up to a new height as the reality that they were in a hotel room together seemed to hit them at the both time. All day Bliss had been trying to ignore his innate sex appeal. Jack had always been a tactile person. He liked to touch, to stroke, to feel. He’d spent hours exploring her skin, her curves, her mouth seemingly never tired of just...learning her body.

He’d taken off his t-shirt and stripped down to a pair of basketball shorts. Jack ran hot. She’d never needed a blanket when they slept together, his body was like a raging inferno. He’d kept her warm and safe wrapped in his arms. At least she’d felt safe.

An illusion, but back then she still had nightmares and sometime the old fear would sneak up on her while she slept. But Jack had made all those fears disappear when he held her in his arms. The feeling of safety had let her sleep at night. And when he’d left, she’d gone back to her sleepless, restless nights for a long time. Until she’d learned to keep herself safe.

But oh, those nights in his embrace. The way his much larger frame dwarfed hers. The way he put his body between hers and the door. The way he’d made her feel safe without even knowing that he’d given her that gift.

Bliss’s breath caught as memories bombarded her. “Night.” She rolled over quickly and faced the hideous ancient wallpaper.

Jack slid into the other bed. She heard the rustle of the sheets, and the squeak of the box springs as he propped up the pillows and pulled out the file regarding Maria and flipped through the sheaf of papers. They had gone completely old school with Maria. Her name wasn’t anywhere in the Adams-Larsen database so there was no way for anyone to hack their system and find information. He sipped from the water bottle next to the bed.

Bliss was exhausted. But the emotional toll of the last few hours hit her hard and her brain wouldn’t shut off. She kept seeing the hard planes of Jack’s chest, the ripple of his pectorals and the bunch of his biceps as he crossed his arms over his massive chest.

Bliss’s breath came faster and she began to sweat as other images of Jack bombarded her. His fierce determination to protect his assistant. His frustration when they’d found the house empty. His relief when they found no evidence of foul play at the safe house. The longing that she managed to suppress most days came roaring to the forefront of her mind. She missed his passion. Missed his intensity, missed him.

She needed to shut down that line of thinking right damn now.

She just needed to get through the next few days, find Maria as quickly as possible, then Jack Stone would be gone, and her life could go back to normal. She could hold out. She just needed to focus on Maria. On getting her back.

And then she would be lonely again.

***

Bliss was finally asleep. He’d listened to her panicked breath and wondered what she had been thinking about?

But he was no longer entitled to that knowledge. He’d given up the right to be privy to her thoughts right around the time he’d left. Although in reality, she’d kicked him out.

To put it mildly, he’d been shocked when she’d told him they were over. Completely blind-sided. Thankfully, he’d already joined the Navy and he’d known it was the right move. She had never explained why she had dumped him. But even if it had something to do with his intention to serve, he wouldn’t have given it up. He’d given up his childhood to take care of his step-mother and siblings. He’d been responsible for everyone for years. He’d known that the Navy was his path. That he needed, wanted, someone else to be in charge, at least for a little while.

When they’d been together, life had been amazing. He’d left California, his brothers and sister behind and reveled in his newfound freedom. He hadn’t been responsible for anyone but himself. And yes, he had felt guilty off and on. He’d done what he wanted, when he wanted it, and only thought about how Shelley and the kids had been getting along in the dark of the night, when he couldn’t sleep or the quiet morning dawn when his head had been pounding from a hangover and too little sleep.

Jack continued to sift through the files. He just needed to get through this, find Maria, and get back to the West Coast and forget all about Bliss. But he knew after less than a day in her presence that was going to be easier said than done. Jack tried to wipe the memory of the fear on her face when they’d first gone into that house earlier.

She’d been terrified that they were going to find Maria dead. The stench of the rotting meat wasn’t distinguishable from other types of rotting flesh. She’d known instinctively that something was dead, which also made him wonder what she’d seen in her life.

Jack glanced over to her bed, stared hard at the elegant curve of her back and the tumble of her auburn hair on the pillow and tried not to remember when that hair had cascaded over his chest and shoulders. Tried not to remember waking up with her wrapped around him, curled into his body as if he were her world.

Jack forced his gaze back to the papers and his laptop. If Bliss was correct and Maria was heading back to California, to the Salinas area, and she didn’t fly which required identification, how long would it take? And what would likely be her route from the middle of the country to the West Coast? Several days. Within an hour of withdrawing the cash, she’d would have been on the road. There were so many variables with all the unknowns. Car, bus, train? The bus and the train would take less time than driving a car. If she drove herself, she’d have to stop to sleep. So bus or train would likely mean she’d get to California sometime Sunday. If she drove it would take longer.

Bliss’s body twitched, and drew his gaze back to her.

Jack frowned. He watched her for another moment, then returned to his examination of possible avenues for Maria to travel.

Bliss’s entire body jerked as if she’d been shot, then she whimpered and jerked again.

Jack swallowed. Nightmare? Bad dream?

“Bliss,” he whispered. But she didn’t react to his whispered attempt to wake her up.

Her whimpers degenerated into soft cries as she twitched, jerked against invisible bonds or imaginary attacks.

Fuck.

“Bliss.” This time he spoke in a normal voice and still she didn’t awaken.

Jack sighed and moved his laptop and papers to the side. He did not want to go over to her bed. He could only take so much.

But as her cries got louder, he realized he had to stop her dream, nightmare, whatever. She was caught in some scenario that was causing her great distress.

Jack shoved the covers aside and knelt on Bliss’s bed, one knee planted behind her back, his other foot on the floor. He placed his palm on her hunched shoulder. “Bliss.”

Dammit. He tried not to notice the smooth skin of her shoulder and the sweet scent of jasmine shampoo as he touched her flesh for the first time in thirteen years.

But when she didn’t wake, Jack bent over her body and leaned down and began to speak quietly, “Bliss, wake up.”

His hand on her shoulder must have triggered another fight or flight response, because Bliss rolled onto her back and began to struggle in earnest. “No, no, no, no,” she murmured.

Jack’s heart iced. What the hell was she dreaming about? “Bliss, wake up.”

She flailed her arms and Jack grabbed her wrists so she didn’t accidentally hurt herself. Tears trailed down her face. At this point, Jack had one knee planted by her waist and the other foot on the floor, but his torso was even with hers and whenever she bucked trying to get him off, her breasts brushed his chest. His cheek was even with hers as he spoke calmly, deliberately in her ear, repeating the words over and over again, “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Jack tensed as she continued to struggle. He kept repeating the assurances. “Bliss, you’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Finally, she stopped struggling and gave a shuddering breath. Jack leaned back just in time to see her spiky wet lashes flutter open. He still held her wrists lightly trying to make sure she didn’t hurt herself.

“I’ve got you.”

“Jack?” Her honey eyes were glazed and she still seemed disoriented.

“I’ve got you.” Jack curbed the urge to tell her he’d always have her.

“It’s you.” She threw herself against him and twined her arms around his body so tightly he had to shift to draw breath. “It’s you.”

Bliss pressed frantic kisses to his ear, his cheek, arrowing toward his mouth. Jack was shocked speechless. So much so that when she pressed her lips to his, he didn’t immediately stop her.

Bliss had risen to her knees and pressed her body tight against his. And she felt so right , so familiar against him that Jack let himself return the kiss. Like all was perfect with the universe, she melted against him, her arms tight around his neck, her breasts pillowed against his chest, her fingers gripped his hair and pulled him closer as if she never wanted to let him go. Jack’s cock responded to the stimulus and he swelled with need, with love.

Jack got caught in the memory of them pressed together, and the familiarity took his breath away.

She rubbed her body against his. Her generous breasts, a perfect handful, spilled from the pink spaghetti tank. The concave bow of her belly, clad in matching pink and tan plaid flannel shorts, cradled his erection.

She moaned at the intimate contact and fused her mouth to his. Jack lost himself in their kiss. The way they fit together, the way her mouth felt beneath his, the way her tongue stroked against his. Jack slid one hand into her hair and cupped the nape of her neck in his palm. She was so delicate. He’d forgotten because her personality was so bold, but she was more fragile, breakable than he remembered.

He gentled his hold, but Bliss wanted nothing to do with gentle. She snaked an arm around his back and clenched her fist tightly in the waistband of his basketball shorts. Her other hand gripped his ass with a desperate insistence.

In an instant, memories of him and Bliss together washed over him. And he kissed her back. Kissed her with all the pent up longing that had been building since he’d found out that he was going to see her again.

Bliss slid her hands around and gripped his biceps. With surprising strength pulled him even closer into her embrace. “Please,” she whispered. “Jack.”

Jack lost himself in the fierceness of her desire. She shoved his shorts to his knees and he groaned into mouth as she wrapped her long delicate fingers around his thick, engorged shaft.

Jack’s head swam. All the blood in his body zoomed to his cock as she gripped him perfectly and pumped. Dammit. She’d always had the ability to take him from zero to two hundred in seconds and apparently that hadn’t gone away.

He should remove her hand. He knew she still wasn’t quite aware of her surroundings. But she’d groaned his name, so she knew who she was with.

Jack cupped her face and kissed her tears away. When they’d been together before, she’d never cried. Not once. She had occasionally been melancholy but she’d never exposed a crippling weakness like that before.

Her thumb swiped over the head of his cock. Desire wept from the tip.

Jesus. He wanted her. And call him selfish but he wasn’t about to stop her.

Jack smoothed his palms down her neck and pushed the spaghetti straps of her cotton camisole over her shoulders and over the beautiful globes of her breasts and then cupped her in his palms. Her nipples beaded at the exposure to the cool air and burrowed into the warmth of his palms as he explored her soft skin.

They were kneeling on the bed. Her hips rocked into his full to bursting erection, the cotton flannel soft as she rubbed against his bare thick cock.

Jack shuddered as she squeezed the root. He moaned into her mouth. She was killing him. Jack slid his palms down her flat stomach, and pushed the little plaid boxer shorts and her panties over her hips until his fingers hit gold.

Fuck yes. She was dripping wet as he slid his middle finger through the nest of curls and gently, lightly rubbed her clit.

She jerked again. But this time in arousal as her body surrendered to his caress. Jack continued to explore her sweet sex as he rubbed the juice of her desire over her and through the curls. With his other hand he cupped her rounded ass, and urged her against his erection.

She attacked his mouth, and her movements became more frantic. Jack knew he should slow things down. Take time to rediscover every nook, every sensitive curve, every place that made her shiver, every hidden spot that would ramp her up until she was begging for him to take her.

But Jack was overcome with the sensations of her smooth palm curled around him, the urgency her hips. As she silently begged him to finish what they started, he couldn’t seem to make himself slow down.

He bent to draw her beaded nipple into his mouth. Bliss clutched his head to her breast and moaned.

God, her taste. Her urgency. Her need.

He needed to slow down. Make this memorable. Savor the taste and feel of Bliss.

Fuck. Today had been insane. Seeing Bliss again brought up all the old emotions and sorrow that he’d shoved down into his subconscious for the last thirteen years.

“Condom?” Bliss panted.

Condom? Yes. Thank God he was prepared.

“God.” Jack was nearly frantic with the need to be inside her. To find what had been missing in his life for the past thirteen years. “Minute.”

He broke away from her embrace, pushed his shorts to the floor and stumbled over to his duffel, felt her gaze follow him as he rummaged through his bag.