14

HOPE’S MOUTH FELL OPEN. “You are?”

Was he kidding? She wanted to believe that he was, but it was so much money.

“Are you kidding? This might be the coolest thing I ever came up with, and if the lab closes who te hell is going to want it?”

His words made her laugh. Then she said, “Like, a lot of big companies that want to work on brain injuries.”

“Do you think it would work on all kinds of brain injuries?”

“It might.” She tugged at her lip. “Jackson, are we a couple? I mean, I need to know how you feel about me. Not because whether or not I take the money depends on it, but because when I cut you out of my life, it really hurt, and part of the reason that I did it was because I was afraid that if I succeeded at this – if I wound up making a breakthrough – that you would lose patience with me and go on with your life.”

Her heart stood still as she said the words. This was it. She was asking him to tell her how he felt, and she knew most men would not be willing to open up that way. She knew Jackson was not most men either, but that might be a breaking point for even him.

He asked, “Do you think I will lose patience if you succeed?’

“Yes?”

“I see. Has it occurred to you yet that I have thought about that? That I am working on this thing there on the desk because it would give us something that is ours – together? That we would be working together?”

No. She had not considered that. “Is that why? Because you want to be a part of this. I mean, you want to be a couple and part of what I do, too?”

Her heart felt like it was about to explode. If that was what he was saying, then he was more than the man she had thought he was. He was even more of a man than she had ever imagined.

“I want nothing more than to give you that money, and not just to make you happy. To make me happy. I want to help someone. I feel like I have to. And not just that, I feel like I owe it to give something back. But mostly, I want to be a person who is not selfish and greedy and just out for himself and, above all, I want to be a part of this thing.

“I want to work with you to make what your dream come true. I know what it feels like to have your dream come true, and despite what I might have said about that in the past, it is a great feeling. The reason it was not so great for me is because I could not see what it was that I gave to the world. Well, I could, but I could not see what you can see for the work you are doing when it succeeds. I want to be a part of that, and I want to be with you when it happens.”

Her lips trembled. “You said ‘when.’”

His smile was sunny. “I believe in you. I know you can do this. I know it might take you decades. It might take your entire life. But god damn it, you will do it. I know you will.”

Hope stared at Jackson, tears welling up in her eyes. “You’re serious.”

He nodded. “I am.”

Nobody had ever believed in her that way before. Her parents had laid expectations upon her, sure, and there had been no room for failure. But they had never believed in her ability to do what they pressed her to do. They simply expected her to figure out a way to get it done, because it was their expectation that she would. But belief? The absolute and total belief that she could accomplish things the way Jackson believed she could?

Hell no.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Tears started again, but she held them back.

Jackson said, “You know what? I love you, Hope. I love you, and I know this is important to you, and why. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, and everything that I need in my life.” The honesty in his voice told her everything else. He continued, “I’m just putting it all on the line here. I love you, and I want you, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

She swallowed down the salty lump in her throat. “I just want you to be happy, too, Jackson. I do. I want that more than anything but I can’t…I can’t make you change. I don’t want you to change. I want you just the way that you are.”

“I don’t want to change either.”

“But I feel like you are and that you are doing it for me.”

“No, I’m doing it for myself and because you showed me how good it would feel to be less about me and more about the world. I want to be this person. I am this person. I just didn’t show it often enough.”

She whispered, “I’m never going to be rich or successful in the way you measure those things.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and leaned close, looking into her eyes. “I don’t care about that, Hope. I want you to be happy in what you do. I want you to love your work and to be passionate about it. I’m not your father, and I don’t measure someone’s worth in how many dollars are in their bank account.”

Drowning in his eyes, trying to believe he meant it, trying hard to trust him, she whispered, “Well, if you did, I would be worth about twenty-seven dollars.” Her heart pounded furiously. “I’m just trying to be really honest with you here, Jackson. I want you, too. I love you, too, but you do know people are going to say I’m just a gold digger or that we are just together because you funded my research.”

His eyes stayed on hers. His fingers pressed down on her shoulders just a little as he spoke with real force. “Does anyone say that about Lexie? Hell no, not where Dawson can hear it. He’d wipe the floor with them, and I would do the same to any idiot who chose to say such a stupid thing.”

He would, too. She knew he would. He was right. He was nothing like her greedy and materialistic stepfather or any of the people she had known most of her younger life. He did care about things, and he cared a great deal about them as well.

He added, “But, if it makes it easier and better, then I will put it as an anonymous thing. That way, nobody will ever know.”

“Thank you.” It was the only thing she knew to say. She leaned into him and lifted her face to his. “Thank you so much. Yes. To all of it. To the donation and to you. To us.”

He said, “Now that is what I was hoping to hear.”

His lips came down on hers, claiming her. Their bodies pressed together. His hands slid down her shoulders and along her back, his fingers pressing and sliding along the knobs of her spine.

Desire hit, swarming over her nerve endings and making her legs go liquid. Her body trembled a little as their lips met again, and his tongue wandered into her mouth, teasing hers until she kissed him back with so much passion that they were both left gasping and panting.

His fingers found the round slopes of her ass, and he lifted them. His fingers squeezed those cheeks, kneading them, and he broke off the kiss for a moment to growl out, “I have a bed, at least.”

“Then we better get there, or we are going to be on this floor,” she panted back.

He took her hand and raced her down the hallway to a sparsely finished bedroom. Hope did not have time to look around, and she did not care to either. She saw the giant bed and that was the only thing she needed to see. They headed for it, their hands all over each other.

Their mouths met again as her fingers fumbled at his buttons, baring his magnificent body to view.

Her hands were all over him, touching the texture of his skin, and then she was naked, too.

Their skin met, and his mouth trailed down her neck and then went to her breasts, his lips tugging at her nipples and his teeth closing around them as they went pebble hard and rough below the urgent touch of his mouth. His hands moved down her belly, and then they were on the bed, her legs spreading for him as he found the slick wetness between her thighs.

His fingers slid inside her tight inner folds, and her legs parted further for him. His mouth moved lower while his fingers thrust in and out of her body, creating a furious rhythm. His tongue slid across her outer lips and she whimpered, her hands going to his hair and tangling in it as he found her clit and began to massage it roughly back and forth.

Her ass lifted off the bed, and she groaned as sensation shot through her body, making wetness spill from her. Her toes curled, and her nails scratched along his scalp. Her thighs shivered as he matched his fingers and tongue in speed and intensity, and more sensation uncoiled inside her body until she cried out, her heels digging into the mattress as she sought to get even closer to the source of the pleasure rocketing through her body.

The orgasm struck, making her core clench and fluids gush out of her body to spill across his chin and mouth in a slick and heated pool.

Jackson came up, his eyes darkened by desire. He entered her quickly, not even giving her time to catch her breath and while she was still riding the aftershocks of the climax.

Those aftershocks turned into yet another orgasm as his hot and thick member drove into her tight flesh, opening it and making more oils gather on her inner folds to ease his passage deeper and deeper still with each powerful thrust of his hips and firm ass.

“Oh, God!” her voice shook as hard as her body as she gave in and wrapped her legs around his narrow waist, her heels banging against his back as she canted her hips into a higher angle so that he could get an even more immediate plane of penetration.

He found that angle, and the pleasure that hit made her eyes roll back in her head. His mouth came down on hers, muffling her loud cries as her walls opened and closed, spilling fluids and milking his hard flesh as she fluttered and shook and cried out for more and more, yet again.

Jackson went rigid. His hands gripped her shoulders, pinning her upper body into place as he shuddered. He drove in and out of her with fast and frantic pumps of his body. Then, he let out a long howl, and she slumped against the bed, her fingers tangling into the sheets.

Jackson collapsed on top of her. His breath washed over her shoulder, and he grunted out something unintelligible in her ear.

They lay there, tangled together and still joined. The afterglow was long and sweet, and when he finally moved away, he left a thin dribble of fluid from his flaccid penis along her upper thighs.

He pulled her close, and she nestled into his side. She sighed softly, and she asked, “Are you sure about this?”

“Which part?”

“Working with me.”

Jackson gave her a wicked smile. “I am hoping it comes with perks.”

“Oh, you.” She gave him a little slap on the arm and laughed. “I am sure it will, but not in the lab because, you know, conditions.’

He roared with laughter. “Okay, so we might have to build a room for unclean conditions.”

Their laughter drifted toward the ceiling. Jackson ran a hand across her hair in a long, soothing gesture. He said, “For real, I want this. I want to do the work with you. I know by this time next year you will have made enough strides to get a new grant, and by then I will probably have gotten solid ground under the idea that I have in there. I don’t want to sell it off to rich pharmaceutical companies any more than you do, so that will never happen, and the good news is I am already rich, so they can’t tempt me like that, and you do not care about money.”

“Jackson, the good news is that if you donate the money, the university only gets to keep part of the revenue. You would get the bigger portion. It is how investing works, you know.”

He looked surprised. “Okay then. I don’t care about that though.”

“I know.” She did know, and it was why she loved him. “I have to ask: why was Robert so impressed by the sale of your video game?’

He laughed. “You really don’t know?’

“No.”

“Because I sold it for close to a billion dollars.’

A billion…with a B? Her brain froze. She choked. She could not even find air to breathe. He added, “Oh, and it had four games already operational that went with the sale, so there was that.”

“Oh…um…uh…well then.”

Jackson laughed loudly. “You see now why I don’t mind putting five mil into this?”

“Yes, but…” Her lips were numb. “But you don’t act like a guy with that kind of money.”

He gave her a broad smile. “And I never will.”

“Thank God,” she said.

Their mouths met again. Hope let go, surrendering to the man who believed in her and who made her believe in herself.