CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

What the fuck just happened?

The thought spinning in a continuous loop through his brain, he pulled into his driveway and killed the engine. He glanced across the darkened interior at Jane. Her back was to him, her soft snores competing with the low drone of nocturnal insects chirping their persistent tune outside.

He didn’t believe for a damn second she was actually asleep. Under normal circumstances, a woman faking it with him would have been concerning as hell. In this case? Her avoidance strategy was a big ass blessing.

Neither of them had broached the sticky subject of what she’d blurted, but it’d sure as shit been a constant looming presence between them for the last hour. It was the last thing he’d expected to come out of her mouth. The damning part? He’d deliberately used that stuff about loving his cock as a means of reminding himself of his past. Of reminding him of every fucking reason he should keep the focus on sex.

Then she’d blown his mind with her declaration.

He didn’t know what the hell to do with it. How to react. How to proceed. If he should proceed. With any of this.

His heart knocking like a sonofabitch, he tore his focus from her and sank back against his seat with a weary exhale and a million doubts setting up house in his psyche.

He’d suspected something was up with her with the way she’d been acting earlier tonight. If he was being brutally honest with himself, a part of him had been preparing for the possibility of this happening. The inconvenient truth? All the preparation in the world didn’t do an iota of good. Not when it came to him. Certainly not with this.

He could count on one hand the number of times Ava had said she loved him. It required even fewer fingers to tally how often she’d said it convincingly.

With Jane? Her heart and soul had been in her eyes. And it terrified the living shit out of him even while it whispered the most enticing lie in existence—if she truly loved him, she’d never leave.

His gut twisting, he pulled the keys from the ignition and pocketed them before climbing from the vehicle. He crossed to the passenger side and unclicked Jane’s seatbelt. Her eyelashes fluttered and she murmured groggily. “Are we there yet?”

If there was an Emmy for best fake sleep performance, she’d have a damn shelfful. “Yes.”

“Mm, too tired to walk.”

Taking that as a none-too-subtle hint, he scooped her into his arms. She cracked a yawn and snuggled into him. Deciding to return for her shoes and purse later, he kneed the door shut, hit the locks, and made his way to the house. Once inside, he carried her upstairs and helped her remove her dress before tucking her in bed. She immediately tossed aside the sheets, a seductive come-hither twinkle in her eyes.

He grunted. “Thought you were tired.” And avoiding the massive pink elephant in the room. Kinda like him. Brilliant and fucked up minds think alike in that regard, obviously.

“Orgasms always make me fall asleep faster.”

Shit, he wouldn’t argue with her inspired sleep therapy. Or her means of ignoring the awkward tension that’d crept between them after her climax confessional.

He raked her with his gaze, his cock instantly hardening. His head might be a fucking mess, at least he could count on his dick always having its priorities straight. He nudged off his shoes and shucked his pants and shirt. Hooking his thumbs in the elastic waistband of his briefs, he tugged that last article of clothing down.

Holding her stare, he climbed over her and settled between her legs. She shifted beneath him slightly, causing his cock to glide through her wetness. He shuddered. Her fingertips dancing along his spine, she rose up a fraction and sucked on the side of his neck. His cock swelled, damn near doubling in size. She nibbled her way toward his jaw. “Looks like I’m not the only one with a sensitive spot.”

Determined to reacquaint himself with all of hers, he eased inside her. The hot, silky heaven enveloping him in a snug embrace drew a groan that he swore traveled all the way from his toes. Still a surreal experience, feeling her bare like this. Other than Ava, Jane was the only woman he’d ever foregone a condom with. The disturbing realization that he no longer wanted the barrier between them provoked one more warning signal blaring in his brain. It wasn’t about the possibility of pregnancy. With her on the pill, he couldn’t cling to that excuse. The condoms had always been his security blanket. His way of maintaining control so he’d never be used again. Giving them up took mountains of trust. A part of him balked at surrendering it while the other ninety-nine percent was too intoxicated with Jane to listen.

Resistance dropped several more notches when she trailed her hands down to his ass. She scored his flesh with her nails, the light sting bringing his mind around to his earlier claim about her marking him if she hadn’t been tied up that night.

Another twisted part of him wanted her to mark him. To put some permanent claim on him he wouldn’t be able to weasel out from. Meanwhile, the small percentage of him clawing to his last scrap of sanity was all too eager to point out how royally fucked he’d be if—no, when things went south.

He didn’t have only himself to think about. Sunny was impacted by his actions too. She was already attached to Jane as it was. How devastated would she be if—when—things went to shit between him and Jane? He was supposed to protect his daughter from hurt. He was damn well doing a piss-poor job of it.

Jane’s nails sank into his ass, her kneading fingers effectively muting every thought other than fucking her mindless. He broke her hold on him and slid his hands to the backs of her knees. With a little maneuvering, he pinned her legs with his shoulders, ensuring her complete capitulation as he ruthlessly nailed her G-spot. Her pussy obediently clenched around him, endless flutters massaging his dick. She shuddered and gasped, straining beneath him. He eased out and flipped her onto her stomach. Allowing her no time to catch her breath, he hiked her ass up slightly and slid into her pussy again. The new angle guaranteed even more intense focus right where he wanted. Her luscious cunt hugged him like a glove, so slick and fucking soaked, it took every ounce of his willpower to clamp down his own release.

“Jack. Yes, yes, yessssssss!”

Her ecstatic cries spurring him on, he increased his tempo until she had his dick in a ceaseless chokehold and his muscles were burning from exertion. He was a fucking madman. Unrelenting in his drive to fuck her into oblivion. Equally out of his goddamn mind for obsessively seeking those words from her again. I fucking love you.

He was determined to torture himself. If she said them or not, the result was the same.

Her orgasm ebbed and he pulled out long enough to lift her up onto her knees and plant her hands on the headboard. Lacing their fingers together, he pumped into her, the thud-thud-thud of the bedframe continually banging the wall a mocking metaphor of his own useless quest to pound the words out of her. Literally.

Desperation sinking him to the lowest depths, he went in for the kill and bit the side of her neck. A fierce tremble tripped through her and he dropped one of her hands to cup her pussy from the front. She broke around him, hot liquid surrender packaged in his biggest heart’s desire and ultimate downfall.

Resigned to the words remaining nothing more than resident ghosts haunting his brain, he caved to the insistent milking massage of her pussy and came hard and deep inside her. Their groans tangling together, he dragged her down onto the mattress with him and spooned her, locking her in place with his leg thrown over hers.

The stitch in his calf warned of an epic charley horse in the works, and sweat trickled in a multitude of places—some of them uncomfortable and the opposite of enjoyable. None of it meant a damn to him, not when his head was a Tilt-A-Whirl of chaos.

His haggard breaths competing for space with the anvil of uncertainty in his chest, he stared at the back of her head. “Jane...”

Heavy silence preceded her faint snores. She was getting adept enough at them, tough to tell if they were real or fake. He rolled away from her and stared at the ceiling for a lifetime and then some.

This is why he didn’t do relationships. Why he didn’t let a woman into his heart. One way or another, he always fucked it up.

Only he’d let Jane into his heart.

And he was still managing to fuck it all to hell and back.

Past the point of standing the sound of his own thoughts, he shoved up off of the bed and tugged on his discarded pants and shirt. After jamming his sockless feet into his dress shoes, he trudged downstairs and grabbed his keys from the console in the front entry.

His initial plan was to fetch Jane’s purse and shoes, but as soon as he clicked the Maserati’s lock release the urge to clear his head with a spin hit him hard and furious. Studiously ignoring the voice in the back of his head insisting that he was running again, he slid behind the wheel. He had no damn idea where he was going. An ironic and all too appropriate summation of his current status with Jane. Choosing not to dwell on that either, he backed out of the driveway.