Simple words.
Easy words.
And if I thought about it for even a minute, maybe that’s just what I’d do.
Tell him to stop.
Instead, I dropped my gaze and stared at his mouth.
I knew that mouth, almost intimately.
I say almost, because you can’t really know a person’s body intimately until you’ve touched that body, studied it, learned it with your hands…maybe even with your mouth. Tasted it with your own, felt it against your own.
A harsh groan ripped out of him and then his mouth covered mine and the world faded away.
For a few brief moments, nothing else existed. Not even fear.
It was just him and me, and that incredible kiss.
His taste—it was every bit as addictive as I’d dreamed. And more.
He tasted like pizza and beer, like summer and sunshine and man. He tasted like an obsession that I could never let myself have and I wanted to gorge on him and never let go.
Reaching for him, I curled my hands into the front of his shirt and opened for him as his tongue sought entrance. This was no gentle, seeking kiss. This wasn’t a man who was asking permission or even courting me. He wanted…and he took. He wanted…and I wanted to give him everything he wanted.
His arm hooked around the back of my neck while his free hand skimmed down my back and then gripped my hip, tugging me up against him. Nerves warred inside me and I tensed.
His mouth left mine and moved to my ear. “You’re here, with me. Remember that. And I’m not going to hurt you.”
I sucked in a breath as I fell back away from him, catching my weight on my hands as he reached for the string tie on the front of the poet-style blouse I wore. I watched his hands. He watched me. And as the lapels of the shirt fell open, blood rushed up to stain my cheeks red but it never occurred to me to make him stop.
The back of his fingers scraped roughly against my skin and sensory memory slashed at me. Times when I’d gone with nothing—
His hand tangled in my hair again.
“You’re with me.”
His teeth nipped my lip and I sucked in a breath, held it until my head spun. And then I blinked and focused on his face as he spread open the neckline of my shirt. Slowly, he straightened, staring down at me. Cool air danced along my flesh and I shivered, even though I wasn’t really cold. I just needed—
His hands cupped my breasts.
That.
I needed that.
Hands on me, flesh against my flesh.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I bit down on my lip to keep from whimpering.
“Why don’t you look at me?”
Slowly, I forced my lids open and stared up at Jenks’ shadowed face. As our gazes locked, he laid one hand on my knee and stroked upward. “You hide in these clothes. Who the fuck would have guessed you look like some kind of forties movie star under all these clothes?”
The oxygen disappeared.
He laughed a little, his thumb tracing over the skin he’d bared as he pushed the skirt higher. “All soft curves and pale skin, kept hidden away.” He slanted me a look and rasped, “I like it. You’re like a present, wrapped up and waiting to be discovered.” He pushed the skirt all the way up to my hips and then I gasped as he pulled me to the edge of the table. “I just discovered you, too. What else is there to find, Shadow?”
A whimper rose in my throat, then died as he stroked his thumb over the heat gathering between my thighs. He scraped across the bud of my clit and that light touch, just that light touch, after years of nothing, was more than I could handle.
Locked and rigid, blind to anything and everything, I started to shudder, then shake.
And Jenks, damn him, realized what was happening.
Nudging aside the simple, sturdy cotton of my panties, he found me underneath, naked and exposed…bare. And then he touched me again. Again, and again, until I shattered. Right there. On the picnic table where I’d first sighted him.
I climaxed, and as I started to whimper his name, he caught the sound of it against his mouth.
I was crying when it ended.
And sobbing, almost uncontrollably, before the tremors left me.
He didn’t ask any questions.
If nothing else, I was grateful for that.
That was one of the two thoughts on my mind as we started up the walk back to the street.
The second thought—I needed to find another beach.
I didn’t know how I’d face him after that, and I was almost positive he wasn’t going to want to see me. Talk about stripping yourself bare. I’d told him how messed up I was, and then I’d showed him. He’d brought me to climax with barely a touch, and then I’d broken down into tears before I’d even had a chance to catch my breath.
Blindly, I started to walk away from him once we reached the street but I didn’t make it far before his hands caught my shoulders. And then I was engulfed by him, his strong arms wrapping around me, his chin tucked against my shoulder while he murmured something nonsensical against my temple.
Holding still, barely able to breathe, I stood there.
Finally, I let myself breathe, let myself think. “What are you doing?” I asked woodenly.
“Waiting for you to stop panicking.” He rubbed his cheek against my hair.
“I’m not panicking.” This wasn’t panicking. Panicking was clawing against a locked door until your fingers were bloody nubs. Panicking was screaming until your throat was raw, even though you knew nobody would hear you. This wasn’t panicking. But I couldn’t tell him that.
“Then I’m waiting for you to stop trying to walk away from me, stop trying to shut me out. Where are you off to in such a hurry, sugar?” he whispered as he turned his face into my hair.
“It’s late. I want to go home.”
“Then I’ll walk you home.”
I couldn’t keep myself from stiffening up. “No.”
“I plan on doing that whether you like it or not, Shadow,” he said, and there was a thread of steel under his voice. “You’ve got some asshole following you and you’ve already told me this isn’t a new thing. I’ll make sure you get home safe, period.”
“That’s not necessary.” I tugged against his arms half-heartedly, even though the feel of him, the heat—just the touch—was such a sweet, sweet relief that I didn’t even want him to let me go.
He didn’t, either.
“Can you tell me that you know for a fact you’re safe?” he asked, his voice all too reasonable.
Safe. For some reason, just hearing that word made me laugh. It wasn’t a happy sound. It was dry and broken and brittle and I laughed until I could feel myself hovering on the edge of tears again. Tearing away from him, I paced forward, putting distance between us. “Safe?” I spat out, glaring at him. My hair fell into my face, and angrily, I shoved it back. “Safe is an illusion. There is no such thing as safe.”
“So you just let some bastard control you like that? Stalk you all the time?” he asked, his voice so reasonable I wanted to hit him.
My hand curled into a fist. The urge was that strong. “What would you know about it?”
“I know that if I had some sick fuck watching me, the last thing I would do is just ignore it.” He closed the distance between us, staring down at me. “Are you going to live this way the rest of your life? Have you called the cops? Tried to make it stop?”
“Yes!” I shouted it, the sound tearing out of me, harsh and jagged. “There was one guy, a friend of mine, who even offered to testify after my ex tried to bribe him into watching me. Seth had cops at his door two days later. He’s an ex-con and his parole officer had to go to bat for him. He could have gone back to jail, all because he was kind to me. It’s that easy for my ex to try to fuck up my friend’s life. And a week later, he showed up and he was the one watching me.”
“Get a damn restraining order!”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Are you that naïve? Really? He showed up in the coffee shop I used to like, claimed he was meeting a friend there, wanted to discuss investing in some real estate around here. And what do you know? The friend was there, claimed they’d had a meeting set up for months, decided they’d swing by that coffee shop just out of the blue, his idea, of course.” Swiping a shaking hand over my mouth, I turned away. “I can’t keep him out of South Carolina, Jenks! And of course since no charges were filed against him, I’d have a hard time even getting a damn restraining order.”
Closing my eyes, I worried the tie on my blouse.
So few had even believed me.
A man like him wouldn’t really keep a woman locked away in a basement room for almost a year. It couldn’t happen. People would notice. They would suspect. It couldn’t happen, right?
Except it had.
Tears clogged my throat and I held them at bay through sheer force of will alone. If I broke down here, I might never stop crying.
I’d humiliated myself in front of Jenks quite enough.
Woodenly, I said, “If you insist on following me home, fine. But don’t tell me how to handle my ex-husband. You have no idea what he put me through, what he’s still putting me through. If you haven’t been where I have, you have no idea how you would handle a damn thing.”
Then, without looking at him, I started to walk.
I was so close, I thought.
So close to taking back some small part of my life.
I could already feel it slipping away. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on just what had gone wrong.
Other than…well, everything.