When Tomorrow Ends (7 page)

“I need you to love me right now.”

She felt his warm breath across her earlobe as he tugged and pulled on it evoking sensations from her head to her toes. She wanted him to do that to her breasts and reached down and pulled the top she wore over her head in one smooth move. He stripped her of her bra and squeezed them together, his tongue and mouth all over them. Maggie rocked against him as he pushed her deeper against the wall. “You taste so good,” Jake mumbled. He ran his hands up and down her sides, and arms, around the thighs that cradled him.

“Take me Jake. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.”

“So sorry baby, to put you through so much pain. I’ll marry you right now. If that’s what you want. Whatever you want.”

His voice was mesmerizing as he covered every inch of her exposed skin with his mouth. Maggie didn’t think she could take much more. He was so sexy. Holding her up against the wall like this, she couldn’t move. It made his touch so much more intense. It made her want to explode against him. “I need your clothes off Jake. I need to feel you against me, inside me.”

Jake stilled. His heavy breath against her ear tickled her skin. “Take them off of me.” He gave her enough room as slender fingers tore off his shirt and peeled open his jeans. She let them fall down over his hips and smiled a wicked smile as they dropped to the floor. He pressed his nakedness against her and she moaned out loud. He did it again. She could feel him, rock solid, between her legs. She struggled to be free of his weight that held her to the wall so she could remove her shorts and panties. The thin cotton shorts she wore, she needed them off of her this instant so she could take him, every single inch of him, inside of her.

He teased her, relentless as he let her rock against him. He devoured her breasts with his tongue and held her hands above her head, against the wall. “I’m going to come,” she whispered. “Please, don’t let me, not like this. Oh yes, like this.”

Jake released her arms and pulled her shorts and panties to the side as he plunged inside of her. Maggie moaned against his mouth, her hands on his shoulders as he pounded in to her, against the wall. She held on for the ride of her life until she screamed his name and shattered. Jake called out her name and stilled as every muscle went taut against her own release.

He picked her up and carried her through the bedroom and in to the shower where she leaned against the wall as she tried to compose herself. Jake took her in his arms as the water pounded her skin. “I love you Maggie,” he said and held her close. She whispered how much she loved him back as he took a bar of soap and rubbed it all over her skin, massaging her muscles and soaping her up. She turned and placed her hands against the wall as he soaped up her back. Maggie let the water rinse her off and did the same for him.

They loved each other until the water chilled and Maggie grinned as he towelled off. She had her Jake back, the one who was fun and loving and couldn’t get enough of her. His eyes, so intense when he loved her made her shiver. She went in to the bedroom to get dressed when she realized her clothes were in the suitcase. Maggie began to shuffle through them to find something to wear.

Jake came out of the bathroom, his body relaxed, a towel around his neck. When he saw her root through the suitcase, he stopped cold. His eyes, intense and dark, stared at the suitcase. “You were going to move out?”

She sighed. “Yes. Don’t you remember our conversation last night?”

He closed his eyes. “I was drunk last night. Big time. Jon told me this morning what happened but he never mentioned you were going to move out. I don’t remember every detail.” He took a step closer. Maggie didn’t like the look in his eyes. She tried to explain.

“Abby told you I was going to move downstairs until you make me your wife. She thought you were dragging out the promise of marriage and would never go through with it until I forced you to make a choice.”

Jake raked a hand through his wet hair. He stared, his eyes intense. “Is this how you feel too, Maggie?”

Maggie stiffened. She looked down at her hands, which held the top she was about to put on. How did she tell him she wanted to be his wife and yet if he wasn’t ready she could wait no matter how long it seemed. Except it wasn’t the truth. She wanted to be called his wife, and she didn’t want to wait. It was all or nothing.

“Maggie, I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll marry you right now. I don’t want to lose you. The night you were out on the sea and I couldn’t get to you tore me apart.”

She turned to him. “The reality is I do want to marry you, right now. I want to have a family and live every girl’s dream, you know I do.”

“Then I don’t see a problem. Let’s go to Vegas.” He grinned.

“Vegas? You want to whisk me away and marry me in Vegas?”

“Why do I get the feeling I said the wrong thing?” He tried to pull her close but when she looked at him, he let her go.

“That makes me feel even worse.”

“What did I say baby? Vegas is the place to get married quick and fast and we can take a red-eye there and be back by Monday. It’ll be a great weekend getaway and I won’t have to miss much work.”

She opened her mouth then clamped down. She tried to say something but her pulse raced and her heart began to pump. Maggie looked around the room, down at her suitcase and shoved her top over her head. She began to close the suitcase, then picked it up.

“What are you doing?”

Maggie bent down and picked up a pair of her shoes off the floor. She shoved them under her arm instead of on her feet. She was about to explode and he didn’t even realize why. “Jake, I’m going to the bungalow. I don’t want to go to Vegas to marry you this weekend real quick so you don’t miss work on Monday. If all we can afford is a quick get-a-way, then maybe we need to re-think things. It’s obvious we have different ideas on marriage. Maybe it’s always been this way.”

“You’re going to leave me after all? Because I want to marry you, now you leave me? What the hell did I do wrong?”

Maggie turned to him before she walked out the door. “If you can’t figure it out, then we aren’t meant for each other Jake.”

“What is it you want Maggie?”

“I told you I want it all. The marriage, the house with a picket fence, babies and a man who sweeps me off my feet so hard he’s in every move I make and every breath I take. I thought it was you. It is you. But you can’t take a girl like me to Vegas and dump me back home when it’s over. I need more. I won’t settle for less Jake.”

He stood there, his eyes intense as he stared at her. His silence disarmed Maggie. She waited to see if he would say anything and when he didn’t, she clutched the suitcase and walked out the door.

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Jake didn’t move. He stood there as she walked out the door with her overstuffed suitcase. Why didn’t he stop her? He could have forced her to stay, promised her the moon. He could give her the biggest and baddest wedding the Florida coast has ever seen. Is that what she wanted? Somehow Jake didn’t think so.

He loved her like he never loved anyone before. She loved him too, he knew. Yet she walked out of his house because he offered to take her to Vegas for a quick wedding. He moaned. Perhaps he shouldn’t have offered quick. Didn’t she realize Vegas would solve their problems? At least it was the way he looked at things. They would both get what they wanted. He wouldn’t have to deal with frilly wedding stuff and she could have her wedding, oh shit!

Jake hung his head in his hands. He made her feel as if she wasn’t worth the effort. He kicked his foot against the kitchen cabinets. She was fragile at times and yet so strong and independent. It was the reason he fell in love with her. An idea came to Jake so strong, he realized he needed to show her how much she meant to him because she was worth going all out. She was his every breath, the beat of his heart, the air he breathed. Even if she didn’t think so he would prove it to her.

He had to prove it to her without using his fortune because that was too easy. He could hire anyone to do his bidding.

Jake walked out on to the balcony. He raced down the steps and stopped at the screened in porch. He strolled over to his boat and started the engine. Before he took off, he took one last look. “Get ready, Maggie McCoy. Because you’re about to go on the ride of a lifetime.”

Chapter 7

Maggie left the bungalow after she spent two days organizing her new business. The idea of self-publishing her own books took on a new challenge. No agents to warn her about approaching deadlines and no more doing what anyone else wanted. She became the final decision maker at last.

Yesterday she down-loaded everything she needed to begin. She had a few books already on-line. She published the ones her publisher rejected. Those were the ones that tugged at Maggie’s heart and she was hoping her readers as well. She was about to find out because she hit the publish button twenty minutes ago.

This was a whole new way as a writer and she loved every single minute. To have control over what she created was bliss. Before she headed out for some sunshine she looked around and took a deep breath. Jake fixed up this little bungalow so perfect. She had everything she needed. If it weren’t for wanting to catch a glimpse of him, she may stay in this room forever, but she heard the bike a little while ago pull in to the garage.

She hadn’t seen him in days and she ached inside.

Maggie strolled outside towards the dock. She sat down and hung her feet over the edge. Her toes didn’t quite touch the water. She leaned back and placed the palms of her hands behind her on the ground and looked up in the sky. It was a beautiful evening. Perfect for lovers. Except her lover was upstairs at his place and she was in her little bungalow missing him like crazy. Her choice.

She had to get her point across, didn’t she? Maggie sighed and stared at his boat, tied to the dock. The memory of him as he drove that boat so long ago in a bad storm to rescue her on the deserted island made her shiver. She kicked her foot back and forth.

He didn’t care what he had to do, or how hurt he was, he came for her that night because all he wanted was to make sure she was safe. Her hero, her rock. He was the Jake she knew, the one that would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

Maggie, startled for a moment, looked up at him through her dark sunglasses. He wore a pair of cut off jeans and no shirt. She never heard him come outside because he didn’t have Jax beside him. Jax must be at Abby’s, she thought. Abby was training Jax so he could be a part of her entourage as she took her act to children’s hospitals. Abby put on a show for the less fortunate and was happy to include the spunky dog.

She stared at his chest and didn’t realize she licked her lips until he chuckled. His soft husky voice made her breath hitch. He held out a single flower, one he picked from the garden.

She reached out her hand and tried to take the flower by it’s stem but his hand covered most of it. When she felt the warm skin as they brushed fingers she jerked back. Stay calm, be strong. There was no way she could give in to him now, not yet. Not when she was the one who walked away, to prove a point.

What was the point she was trying to prove?

Jake pushed away her hand and knelt down on one knee, like he did the day they met. He broke off the stem and placed it behind her ear. His eyes, intense, dark and full of need, looked in to her own. How was she going to hold out? He licked his lips as his dark eyes delved in to her own, his tongue slaked out and ran across his mouth. That was so unfair even if it did make Maggie shiver.

Then he pulled his hand away and sat down beside her, far enough away where she couldn’t touch him.

“I miss you. It’s not the same without you.” His words were simple and honest. He gazed at the water, unlike Maggie, who stared at his profile.

“I miss you too and yet I think this is good for us to be apart. I need to think.”

“What’s there to think about? We love each other. Enough said.” She decided to change the subject. They wouldn’t get anywhere if they got in to an argument and she didn’t want to give up being beside him so soon.

Maggie tried to keep her eyes off his chest as he leaned back with his arms stretched behind him, his muscles stretched and taunting her. She turned her head, desperate to resist the pull of his hard, sexy body so close.

“I’m loving my new office, by the way. I have it all set up and published my first two novels this morning. Thank you.”

Jake nodded. “Great news. I’m glad.” He leaned back, leaning his body on his elbow and arm so he faced her. All she wanted to do was touch him. Yet she had to resist. What was the point of all of this if she fell under his spell whenever she saw him.