— ELEVEN —
JAKE headed for his brother’s house, but only got as far as the edge of town before he realized he couldn’t very well tell Dean what the hell was going on.
And he’d just stormed out on Dani like a fucking toddler. Shit. He pulled out his phone and sent her a quick text message. Don’t leave. I’ll be back.
Tonight?
His gut twisted in guilt. Yes.
Instead of Dean’s place, he went to his dad’s. The Colonel still lived in the rambling century home they’d grown up in, although all four of his sons had moved out.
“Jake, this is a surprise,” his father said gruffly after opening the door.
“I was hoping to get something from the attic.” Four years he’d owned his own house, and he still hadn’t moved his childhood stuff out of the old man’s place.
“No problem. Take a few boxes home. Could use the space.”
Jake grunted, not up for the usual tug-of-war they did. He liked leaving stuff behind. The ties that bind a family of emotionally unavailable men. “Got big plans for the attic, do you?”
“Might think about selling this place, actually.”
It was an idle threat. “Sure. Move into the retirement home and take up crocheting.”
His father waved him off and returned to his show. Jake didn’t bother taking off his boots—another benefit of a testosterone-rich living environment—and headed for his pile of boxes on the top floor. He knew exactly what he was looking for.
In the last few years, he’d made the move to keeping photos on his phone like everyone else, but before he got his first smart phone, he’d kept a small wooden box full of photos on his dresser. It was a fine line between being a stalker and showing her how much—and how long—he’d cared, but he needed to do something and words had failed him already tonight.
They needed to talk, but first he needed to give her something tangible before she gave up on him entirely for being an oaf and a brute.
He took the entire cardboard box labelled Jake’s Dresser and headed back downstairs. His dad twisted around in his recliner and grunted at him. “Your other arm broken?”
Laughing, Jake shifted the box to his left arm, detoured into the living room and held out his hand. Fosters didn’t hug unless their football team won the Superbowl—an official Colonel Foster rule. One that Matt and Sean had perverted, of course, but Jake and Dean were the good boys.
Too good. Too well trained. Too repressed.
“Good night, sir.”
“Might do ribs on Sunday.”
“I’ll be here.” He cleared his throat. “Might bring someone with me.” God willing.
“Good. Can she make coleslaw?”
Jake laughed again. He’d make a coleslaw and let Dani take credit. Not that she’d want it. “On second thought, she might be busy.”
“Get out of here and don’t come back until you bring a woman with you.” His father turned up the volume on his show and turned back to the National Geographic magazine he’d been reading at the same time.
Jake got out of there.
He’d only been at his dad’s for ten minutes, tops, but his truck had already cooled off and his breath puffed in front of him. He barely noticed as he peeled back onto the road out of town. Toward Dani.
Say you’re sorry, he told himself. Mean it. He would and he did, but it was ingrained in his nature to bristle and argue, and if he did that, she’d slay him.
He liked pulling into his lane and seeing the house blazing with lights and Dani’s car parked in front. He tapped his garage door opener and rolled inside. He glanced across the interior of the space. The other side of the garage held some construction supplies he’d randomly unloaded from his truck here instead of at the company showroom on the highway, and his snowblower. All of that could be moved. He hopped out of his cab, snagged the box of stuff from his dad’s, and stalked across the garage. The other door opener was on a ledge along the wall, and he picked it up.
He’d stormed out the front door, so instead of slinking in the mudroom, he went out the side door of the garage and up the front walk again. Out like a lion, in like a lion. Just an apologetic one this time.
— —
She’d made coffee when Jake said he was coming back. Then she lay down on the rug in front of the fireplace—after lighting a fire—and did some deep breathing exercises. When the door swung open, she didn’t bother to get up.
He stalked in, clearly looking for her. She watched as his boots went to the kitchen first, and he paused long enough to set something on the counter, then he stomped back to the foot of the stairs. “Dani?”
“In here,” she said softly.
God, he was beautiful. Long legs, powerful thighs. She’d never get enough of looking at how he filled out a pair of jeans. And when he crouched, bringing the smell of man and cold winter with him, his face all drawn and serious and unbelievably handsome, it made her heart ache.
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “It’s been a long day and I unloaded on you.”
“How long have you been upset with me?”
He reached out and touched her cheek, and she resisted the urge to cover his hand with hers. To pull him down to the rug and kiss him instead of talking. They made love so easily. Too easily. That wasn’t where the problem lay, so it wouldn’t be where the solution was found.
“It’s probably that I’m upset with myself. Can I show you something?”
She nodded silently and took his hand, letting him pull her up. As soon as she was on her feet he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her softly. “I’m really sorry,” he muttered against her lips.
“Me too.” She stroked his cheek. She missed his beard. He’d been able to grow it out over December because his unit stood down for the holidays, but now he was back in the usual routine of shaving at least once a week for his Army training night. Her clean-cut, upstanding citizen. “I hate that you got the impression that I think this is just sex between us.”
Just saying those words tore her apart. So did the look in his eyes.
“It’s not,” she quickly added. “And I’m sorry if I let my…enjoyment of our physical relationship take precedence.”
Jake just stared at her for a second, then swore under his breath as he spun her toward the kitchen. She barely caught sight of a large cardboard box on the counter before he snagged her by her hips and pulled her hard against him, one hand sliding possessively to the nape of her neck. “Gorgeous, never be sorry about how it is between us. Letting my worries fester? That’s all on me.”
“Tell me, then.” She let herself touch him then, trusting that if she slid her hands under his shirt he’d keep talking.
“I’d rather show you.” With his free hand, he reached behind her and rifled through the cardboard box. Finding what he wanted, he hesitated for a minute before pulling back and handing her a photograph.
“It’s me,” she breathed. It took her a few minutes to place it. She was younger, probably in college, and it was summer. She was standing on a dock wearing a bathing suit and a t-shirt—damp in places, so she must have just gotten out of the lake and pulled it on. And she was laughing, her legs slightly bent, knees together, hands clapped together in glee.
He handed her another one, from a bonfire party. She was holding a Tim Horton’s cup and talking to Tom, her lower lip snared between her teeth as she concentrated on what her brother was saying.
The next one was older. Her high school graduation. God, she looked so young, all legs and arms and so damn proud to be wearing a fancy dress even though she didn’t quite fill it out. She was staring straight at the camera, and this moment she had no trouble placing. Jake had come over to hang out with Rafe. Her mother had thrust the camera in his hands after telling her brother he needed to change his shirt so they could have a family picture. Everyone else had been busy, and Jake had looked at her like she was the only thing he could see, and he quietly told her she looked beautiful. Dani had floated through her entire grad formal on a high from that moment, even though after he snapped that picture he hadn’t been able to look at her again for more than two years.
“Where did you…”
“That one I stole from your parents’ place.”
She choked back a laugh. “Seriously?”
“Your mom printed a whole stack of pictures from that night. They were on the table, and…”
“Jesus, Jake.” That made her feel…funny. In a good way, but also…
“I knew I couldn’t have you.” His voice was rougher than sandpaper and sexy as hell. “But you were so pretty. And if I couldn’t have you…”
“You’ve been my creepy stalker all these years.” She leaned back enough so he could for sure see the humour in her eyes and the smile on her lips. “How many pictures of me do you have?”
“Just these.” He hesitated. “And a bunch on my phone.”
“You need to show me those.” She licked her lips. “There aren’t any naked ones, right?”
He didn’t take it like the joke she’d intended. “Dani, that’s not funny. I’d never—”
“Settle down, hero. I know.”
His grip tightened on the back of her neck as he stared into her eyes. “I’m no hero, Dani, but I’ve always tried to be better than my base instincts.”
“Because you were attracted to me when I was a teenager?”
He winced. “Yeah, in part.”
“What’s the other part?”
“Because Rafe trusted me. I was supposed to be like a big brother to you.”
Under her touch, his core muscles rippled as he reacted viscerally to the betrayal he still felt guilty over. The guilt she’d helped perpetuate over the last month.
“I had no idea,” she whispered. “I wanted you, too. I never thought of you as a big brother. You were always different. Always a man in my eyes, and I dreamed that one day you’d see me all grown up and want me.”
He shuddered and pulled her tight against him. She pressed her lips to his neck, the warm, firm skin there, and kept talking. She’d keep reassuring him until he heard it for good. “You couldn’t help noticing me, Jake. We’ve got a thing between us. Not sex. Something unavoidable and deeper than that. You’re such a good man. You kept your hands to yourself. Kept your eyes to yourself, too, because I didn’t know.”
“I worried that you did. That night that I drove you home…”
She crooned a nothing noise against his skin, wanting to soothe him from the inside out. “I wanted you to kiss me so badly.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. There was no space for regret between them, and they’d spent enough time dwelling on the past.
“So…we should have talked about us, I guess. Now. Sometime in the past month when I was busy ripping your clothes off.”
“I don’t want to sound like a whiner. I really like the naked part and don’t want to discourage future clothing removal efforts,” he said gruffly.
“You’re my boyfriend, Jake. I just don’t want to share you yet. I told my mom about you today. I mean, not you, but that I have a boyfriend and it’s…serious.”
She hadn’t realized how tightly wound he was until his muscles softened under her touch. “I told my dad I’m seeing someone, too. Just now. That’s where I went—to get this box. He wants to have a family dinner on Sunday and I told him I might bring someone.”
It was such a big step. Telling everyone would be…noisy. Definitely some yelling. And a lot of speculation. Ugh. “Okay.”
“Okay?” The disbelief rolled off him in waves.
“Well, ‘I don’t know’ went over like a lead balloon for the regimental ball thing, so I don’t want to make that mistake again.”
“No.” He bit the word out like it tasted bad, but he didn’t let go of her. “We can do this at your pace.”
She rubbed her face against his neck, breathing him in. “My pace would be glacial. I’m so happy right now, I don’t want anything or anyone to burst that bubble. I don’t want to share you yet.”
She didn’t want to have to defend their relationship, either, and his mind must have gone to the same place. “It’s something we’ll have to get over with at some point. But it doesn’t need to be dinner or the ball. And when we do it, I’ll be holding your hand the whole time.”
It was her turn to kiss him, then, and after whispered promises to keep talking—more often and more thoroughly—they went to bed together and fell asleep holding each other.
They didn’t make love, but Dani woke before dawn to Jake’s hand on her breast and his erection wedge against her bottom.
“Go back to sleep,” he muttered.
“You’re not making that easy.” She stretched, rolling her ass against him, and he groaned.
She rolled over, welcoming him with her whole body. It was fast and simple, and as soon as she shuddered to her hungry climax, he followed with his own.
A quick, hot shower later, they were back in bed. Jake held her close, and at first she thought he’d gone back to sleep, but when she tipped her head back to look her fill at his face, she found his eyes stuck on her.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He cleared his throat. “Some shitty regrets piling through my head, that’s all.”
“No, don’t…” She trailed her lips over his jaw. “This was meant to be, just like this.”
“I keep thinking if I hadn’t gone to Afghanistan, maybe we’d have done this four years ago. Or the year before that…”
How many times had she had the same thought? That if he’d given in to temptation and kissed her that night, maybe there wouldn’t have been anyone else. Only…there had been others for him. She took a deep breath, then let it out completely.
“I’ve gone back and forth on saying this, because…well, because you’re you. And I’m me, and I know what it’s like to be greedy for you. I’m so damn greedy, Jake. I want all of you, every last piece. But I’m glad you weren’t my first,” she whispered softly. His grip tightened on her hip. “No, hear me out.”
“I don’t want to think of you being with other men.”
“There weren’t that many.” She smiled into his neck as he stiffened. “But back then…you were experienced. And I wasn’t. And if you’d been the one—”
He growled and flipped her onto her back. He stroked his rough, calloused hand over her cheek. “I should have been.”
His face was so serious, all hard angles and glittering eyes that she couldn’t help but laugh. “No, baby.”
“But you’re mine.”
That just made her laugh harder. She buried her face in his neck. “I know, you dork.”
He cupped the back of her neck and arched over her, tilting her face so she could see him again. “Why is that funny?”
God, he stole her breath. A hot, needy rush of feelings swept through her. “Because I’ve always been yours,” she whispered. “Even when there were others, it was never like this.” His nostrils flared and she lifted her hand to his cheek. There were things that needed to be said. “No, hear me out. If you’d been the one to take my virginity, then I’d forever be that innocent girl you’d deflowered. And I’m not a girl. I’m a woman. I’m your woman. I come to you as a sexual equal, and I can give myself to you without a power imbalance. And I do give myself to you, one hundred percent.”
He arched one eyebrow. “Wow, you’ve really given this a lot of thought.”
She glared at him as he fought to conceal a smirk. “Yes, I have.”
“Did you practice that spiel in front of the mirror?”
“Maybe.”
“Huh.” He gave her a thoughtful look.
She shook her head. “No room for regrets, okay?”
“Easy for you to say. I’ve spent the last five years hating every asshole you’ve dated.”
“They weren’t assholes.”
“Every single last one of them. Especially the one who…”
“His name was Dave.”
“Woman, I’m warning you.” He rolled onto his back and pulled her in to his side.
“He wasn’t very good.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.” But it did, because he smiled a little.
“You’re the best I’ve ever had, by a country mile.”
He smiled a bit more.
“This is the part where you say the same thing back to me.”
He just stared at the ceiling, a weird grin on his face.
“Jake!” She poked him in the side. “Fine, be like that. It was Halloween, and I was Wonder Woman to his Batman.”
“Enough,” he said softly. His fingers pressed firmly into her arm as he pulled into his side. “Of course you’re the best I’ve ever had. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
Shit. Well, that topped everything. “Oh.”
“I’m not going to apologize for wishing you’d never been with anyone else, no matter how much logic you shove at me. I lost my virginity when I was fifteen. You were seven, and it would be another ten years before I even thought of you as anything other than Rafe’s sister. I didn’t know I should wait for you. Like you say, maybe it’s good that we both spent time with other people, I can see that in my head, but I don’t feel it in my heart. Because once I fell for you, I knew you’d be the one. Even if you didn’t want me, I didn’t want anyone else.”
Except he hadn’t exactly been a monk the last few years. Nearly celibate wasn’t the same as totally celibate. But she’d just taunted him with how she’d lost her virginity, so she couldn’t rub other women in his face.
Plus he’d just told her he loved her.
“Oh.” Damnit, she needed to say something other than that, but she couldn’t. Hot, prickly tears burned behind her eyelids. She’d been so flippant, so teasing. So hurtful. “Jake, I love you too.”
His arm tightened around her.
“We’ve wasted a lot of time.” Her voice scratched in the semi-dark of his room.
“No.” His voice was equally rough. “Like you say. Maybe it’s for the best. Now we’re equals.”
But even though she’d practiced it—convinced herself of the truth of it—now she wasn’t sure at all that the wait had been worth the pain they’d caused each other.