CHAPTER SIX
Skye
Present Day…
I dabbed an extra amount of concealer under my eyes, hoping it would do the trick. One look in the mirror told me it didn’t stand a chance. I still looked like the walking dead.
After Jake left the bar, I felt so sick to my stomach I thought I would vomit. Somehow, I held the bile down and made it home. There, things got worse. I stayed up all night, wondering just what Jake’s reentry into my life meant. Was Jagger supposed to know him? Could that really be the case, considering that Jake stormed off just minutes after I told him the truth?
Was this all some cruel experience concocted by a higher force? Payback for past sins? I desperately wanted to believe everything happened for a reason — a good reason — but some days it could be hard to stick with that idea. I could tell Jake was in pain just by looking at him. The last six years hadn’t been kind to either one of us. But why? Was there something we had to learn from it all?
My phone buzzed, making me jump. Apparently, fatigue caused me to be super on edge. I snatched the phone from the top of my wardrobe. The message was on Facebook… from Jake.
My heart beating in my throat, I hastily pulled the note up.
I’m sorry about last night. Can we talk?
The message ended with his number and address. Before I let fear get the best of me, I punched in his number, willing my hands to stop their shaking.
“Hello?” came that warm and deep voice.
“It’s Skye,” I blurted, “I’m sorry about last night too. I was… it was just, you know...”
“It’s fine. Can you meet?”
My heart began to hammer. “Now?”
“Is now good?”
I glanced at the clock. Cadence and Jagger had already left for the farmer’s market and I had a catering gig in the East Village to be at in an hour. With a break from school, I’d taken to working more in order to save up money. That meant waiting tables four nights a week at a popular barbecue spot and picking up catering jobs whenever they were available.
Calling out an hour before work sure wouldn’t score me brownie points with the company’s manager, but if anything was an emergency, surely this was. Jake and I needed to talk, and I couldn’t wait another minute to do so. Every cell in my body would surely burst if I didn’t get this over with soon.
“Yes. I can do that.”
“Great.” He seemed relieved. “I’ll text you my address.”
“Terrific. I’ll be there soon.”
I called the manager up and told her I couldn’t make it in, stating that there was a family emergency. It wasn’t a lie. My son’s long-lost father had just shown up out of the blue. I’d never been faced with a more pressing issue in my life. Plus, if I had gone into work in my current state, I probably would have dumped a tray of drinks on someone’s head.
The subway ride to Manhattan was even worse than the walk I’d taken the day before. Jake had real reason to be mad at me, just like I did with him. I didn’t know what kind of maelstrom I was walking into.
Jake’s building was just as nice as I’d imagined it to be. Set on Fifth Avenue, it had a direct view of Central Park. Not only was there a doorman and a front desk receptionist, an elevator operator waited to whisk me upstairs. My heart hammered as the door opened onto Jake’s floor, and I stepped out into the carpeted hallway.
The place was immaculate, more like a five-star hotel than an apartment building. Tracking the numbers on the doors, I made my way to the end of the hall and gave Jake’s a knock.
The door opened after just a couple seconds, and there he stood, staring down at me, looking just as on edge as I felt. His pale face and tired eyes told me he’d also had a hard night, and the wicked part of myself felt happy about that. Good. At least I wasn’t the only one suffering.
I immediately felt bad for thinking that way.
God, I was a total mess.
“Hey,” he murmured softly, as if afraid speaking too loudly would scare me away. Maybe he was right. Even that soft word nearly made me jump.
“Hi.”
“Come on in.”
I silently followed him through his foyer and into a well-lit living room. On the other side of the floor-length windows, Central Park’s lush canopy danced in the wind. If Jake didn’t have the absolute best apartment in the place, he had one of them. Despite the luxury, the room was sadly bare. There was no art. No books. No sign that someone was building a life within the lavish walls.
“Have a seat.” Jake gestured at the long, black couch. “Would you like a drink? I just made coffee.”
“Sure.” Immensely uncomfortable, I eased down onto a cushion and folded my hands on top of my lap. While Jake disappeared into the kitchen, I took the opportunity to crane my neck and peek down the hallway. Just like the living room and foyer, it was also barren. It was like the Jake I once knew had never so much as stepped foot into this apartment. The Jake Truman I grew up with loved his things. Loved them to a fault, in my opinion. With him, it had always been about obtaining the next toy. The bigger and flashier, the better.
Jake’s footsteps announced his arrival, and I quickly snapped my gaze to my knees.
“Here you go.”
He set a cup of coffee on the table in front of me and took a seat two cushions away. My skin danced with electricity. Even after everything we’d been through, Jake’s presence was still magnetic. I came alive when he was close to me. It was simultaneously amazing and awful.
Jake rested his elbows on his hands and locked his fingertips. With his eyebrows pushed sharply together, he looked at me. “I’m sorry about just leaving like that.”
You should be, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. My anger was quickly dying. In its place was pity.
“It’s understandable,” I whispered through a dry throat.
“I knew all day that Jagger was… was likely my son… but hearing it straight from you.” His eyes searched my face, like the words he was seeking lived inside me. “It just blew me away.”
I pressed my lips together and blinked my eyes to stop the tears. “If you’d gotten in touch… just once… I would have told you. I wasn’t trying to keep him a secret from you.”
Jake sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling. “I know. Look, Skye, I want to be in his life if you’ll allow it. Despite all of the shitty things that have happened, he’s the most important thing now.”
“Right,” I agreed. “He is the most important thing in my life.”
“Does he know about me?”
I thought of all the questions Jagg was starting to have about his father and how I’d been able to sidestep them up to now. I’d been dreading the day when my little boy insisted on answers. I didn’t know what I was going to tell him. I didn’t want to lie and tell him his father was dead, but in a way, it wouldn’t have been a lie. The Jake Truman I knew no longer existed.
“No. He knows nothing.”
Jake bit his bottom lip and winced, and for some reason, just seeing him hurting over the news annoyed me. I didn’t owe him anything. It had been my right to tell Jagger only what I decided to.
“It would have hurt him,” I said, the defensive barrier firmly back in place. “A father who just left him before he was even born? He would have assumed, as any kid would, that you left because you didn’t want him. Doesn’t that sound like a shitty situation to you?”
“Yeah.” He nodded at the floor. “It does.”
I crossed my arms and glared at him. “I did what I needed to do.”
Those warm chocolate eyes gazed at me, and I had to look away. “I know. And I’m sorry you had to do it all on your own.”
I wanted to huff. To stomp my feet and yell at him. I was giving Jake shit and all he was doing was rolling over and taking it. This reunion was too easy. There needed to be some crying and screaming. There needed to be catharsis. A thousand times, I’d imagined just what I would say to Jake if I ever saw him again, and now here he was, just agreeing with everything coming out of my mouth.
But seeing him so sad like this also pulled at my heart strings. This was Jake Truman. The boy I’d loved for so long. The boy I’d made a serious mistake with. A mistake we’d both paid a heavy price for. Sympathy and something else — longing? — caused me to soften my voice.
“I could have gotten in touch with you, I guess. I knew you were at that base in California. I could have written a letter, but I figured even if I did that you might not respond. And I didn’t want you to feel trapped. And I…”
I was rambling and felt my bottom lip begin to shake. I bit down on it to keep it in check.
Jake looked at me, his eyes so sad it almost broke my heart. “If I’d known about Jagger I would have answered. But for anything else…” he pursed his lips tightly together, “I wouldn’t have.”
And with those words, another piece of my heart broke off.
Apparently, it didn’t matter how much pain a person had been through before. If there was an opportunity to suffer more, the universe would make it happen. The hurt always felt just as deep as the first time.
What I always suspected was true. Jake didn’t want me.
I pressed my hands together, watching the skin turn white from the pressure. “You didn’t care for me,” I whispered, needing the truth to be said out loud.
Jake’s sharp inhale filled the room. “Jesus, Skye. You know it’s not that.”
I looked up at him, my fury rearing its head again. “Oh, really? And how can I know it’s not that? You told me to forget about you, Jake. You made it pretty clear that you wanted nothing to do with me ever again. That doesn’t sound like an act of love to me. Or even like. Or friendship.” My voice was cracking, but I went on. Nothing would stop me. “We were best friends. I needed you… more then than I ever had.”
Jake watched me, but his eyes were now like steel. “I would have only hurt you.”
“That’s your story?” I laughed but stopped as the edge of hysteria crept into it. “Is that what you keep telling yourself? But that doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“It’s true.”
I threw up my hands. “God, you’re hopeless.”
“I know.”
We sat there in silence, the wall between us unbreachable. Steam rose from the surface of my coffee, the wisps disappearing, much like my hope. I felt frozen by pain and desperation. I wanted so badly to make things right, but I didn’t even know what that meant anymore. For a few years, I figured it meant having Jake back. And then I figured it meant never seeing him again. Now, I didn’t know.
I could feel Jake’s eyes studying me. Slowly, I turned to face him. “What?”
“I just… I think I see some of the old Skye in there.”
I scoffed. “I highly doubt it. You’re not the only one who has changed a lot.”
His eyes crinkled. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s true.”
I cleared my throat and composed myself. Being so close to Jake still brought on an onslaught of emotions. It was hard keeping my head straight. “You’ve changed. I can tell.”
His expression was flat. “You have no idea how much.”
There were so many questions that remark brought up for me, but I was afraid of delving in that direction. So I brought his attention to something else and gestured at the room around us. “Look at this place. There’s nothing here. This doesn’t look like the dream bachelor pad the old Jake used to talk about.”
He jerked his face away, staring out one of the floor to ceiling windows. When I followed his gaze, I could see the ghost of his reflection. It was a metaphor if I’d ever seen one. What he said next confirmed it.
“The old Jake is dead.”
I swallowed the ball of fire in my throat. “Who is the new Jake?”
His jaw ticked and he pressed his fingertips together. “Fuck if I know.”
I sighed and rubbed my tired eyes. “I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for Jagger.”
Lie! a voice in my head shrieked. Such a lie!
“I’ll be good for him,” Jake promised, running all ten fingers through his hair, rumpling it even further. “All of this shit… not just stuff between you and me, but my own personal stuff as well. I won’t bring it to our relationship. I won’t hurt him.” He ducked his head and looked straight into my eyes. “Or you.”
As the seconds passed and he held my gaze, I found myself believing him more and more. A wave of warmth washed over me. Somehow, I knew Jake was making a promise he would keep. Or would at least try to. I had to give him that chance.
“All right,” I agreed and stretched out my hand as if we had just concluded a business deal. “If that’s your promise.”
That playful smile tugged at the right side of his mouth as his palm connected with mine. The electricity between us burst to life, and I felt the same tug toward him that I always had. My face burned with the weight of emotion, my throat clogging with everything still unsaid.
His eyes grew wet too, and his hand turned until our fingers threaded together. This. I remembered how it felt to touch him. To be near him. To have his eyes soften as he looked at me, as he was looking at me now.
I’d missed it. Missed him. Missed this.
“If I break my promise, you can send the mafia after me,” he joked and the moment was broken.
A short laugh burst from my chest at the old joke, but I followed his lead. “You think I know the mafia?”
“Why would I not think you know the mafia?”
Jake grinned, which made me do the same. “You’re right,” I agreed and pulled my hand away. “Maybe I do. After all, everyone could use a swim in the river in concrete shoes every once in a while. It’s good for building character.”
Jake chuckled. “That’s the girl I’ve been thinking about.”
The sweetness in his voice stole my breath away, and the electricity between us began to build again. “What do you mean?”
His smile faded but the light in his eyes didn’t dim at all. “I’m talking about your fiery side. That’s what I meant when I mentioned the old Skye. She’s the girl who lived for a thrill.”
“And you were the boy who lived for danger,” I reminded him.
Those beautiful eyes clouded again. “Yeah, that didn’t work out too well for me.”
We fell into another heavy silence, all the things we couldn’t bring ourselves to say pressing in around us.
“I thought of you,” he murmured. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I was glad for it. His confession had my heart rate picking up and my breathing becoming labored. “Through all the hard times, I thought of you, Skye. Your face kept me going… and haunted me. Every time I came close to fucking anything up, I thought about you. I thought of how disappointed you must have been in me.”
My eyes stung. “There,” the word came out strangled, “you’re doing it again. You’re putting words in my mouth. I never said I was disappointed in you, Jake.”
His eyes connected with mine, the misery living in them so incredibly heartbreaking to witness. “You should have been.”
“I wasn’t.” I dabbed away a tear. “What do you mean, thinking of me kept you going?”
His chest rose with a deep inhale, and he slid closer to me, reaching up to wipe a second tear away. “There were some days when it seemed there wasn’t anything good in my life. During those times, I thought of you, and I became happy. It was kind of cheating, and I knew it. I figured I didn’t really have any right to be thinking of you. Hell, I thought I’d probably never see you again, so having you on my mind should have only made me sad… but it didn’t. It made me stronger and reminded me to keep myself in check.”
I slowly shook my head, unable to believe everything coming from his mouth. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
Not a muscle moved in his face. He didn’t believe me at all. I wanted to convince him he was worthwhile, but the other side of me wondered what the point would be. Jake had abandoned me. It sounded like he had also abandoned himself. It would take more than words to soothe the pain so clearly festering inside him.
Maybe allowing our son to build a relationship was the most I could do at the moment. Beyond that, time and destiny would have to play itself out.
But that wasn’t what I wanted. Even through the abandonment, I wanted Jake. I could still picture us living happily ever after as I’d once dreamed as a girl. I wanted to help him be whole again, no matter the price I’d personally pay.
I couldn’t.
I wasn’t that same girl. I had a son to think of. A son who needed a strong mother to protect him. To pick up the pieces if this went… bad.
And I couldn’t be strong within the same room as Jake Truman. The pull was too strong. The love…
No. I couldn’t go there.
I jumped to my feet. “I should be going.”
Much more slowly, he rose to his feet too. “All right.”
But neither of us moved.
My fingers itched to reach out to him, so I twisted them together instead. “Let’s talk about when we can get together with Jagger. I’ll wait to tell him about you until you’re there, if that’s what you want.”
He took a step closer to me, and all the oxygen left the room. “That sounds nice. Thank you.”
I tucked some loose hair behind my ear. Jake’s eyes followed, his gaze as real on my skin as fingertips. My fingers shook, and I quickly dropped my hand to my side. I couldn’t stop my eyes, though, from making their way to Jake’s. He stared back at me, pupils dilating as if he was in a trance.
As if a hand was on my back, I leaned toward him. He leaned toward me too.
There was no room inside of me for thoughts. I was nothing but emotions. Pain. Need. Relief. I probably wouldn’t be able to unpack all the feelings, even if I spent the rest of my life trying.
Jake’s lips parted as if in slow motion. “Skye,” he whispered. There was an edge to his voice, making it sound like he was about to chastise me. Maybe chastise himself.
He didn’t have the chance.
Our lips crashed together, and the years melted away as Jake’s hands went to the sides of my head, and his lips swept across mine. Our lips were a perfect fit, locking together as if they’d been designed for each other.
This was it. I remembered this.
It was a feeling of coming home, of finally finding something you didn’t even know you were searching for. I would have cried with relief had I been able to do anything but kiss him. Hold him. The way I’d been longing to do for so many years.
Jake’s arms went lower and wrapped around my back, and I shifted my weight toward him, melting us together. Then I was off my feet and back on the couch, straddling his thighs as our mouths said everything we couldn’t.
Jake changed positions again, lying down until I covered him completely, his hands deep in my hair as our lips and tongues made up for the lost years.
I knew this was stupid.
Deep inside me, a voice screamed for me to stop. To leave. This was dangerous, I knew. But I was never one to walk away from a little danger. At least the old me hadn’t been.
The new me seemed to be getting braver by the second.
My insides burned. My heart swelled. As Jake pushed my shirt up and peeled it over my head, an even deeper surge of desire swept through me. Just the need itself made me groan. Twisting his fingers through my hair, he brought my face back down to his. I tore at his shirt with trembling fingers, crazed with a need to feel his smooth muscles underneath my palm.
What was happening? Was this what I wanted?
The questions were surfacing and resurfacing in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t give them any attention. There was no place for them. There was only room for me and Jake in this moment. We had a score to settle. Amends to make. Forgiveness to deal. Curses and blows to exchange. Love to remember.
Our kiss broke again as I pulled Jake’s shirt off. Taking charge once more, he locked his hands on my hips and flipped us around. With me now on the bottom, he got to work removing my pants in record time, practically ripping them from my body. My underwear slid off and hit the floor, exposing the hot and needy spot between my legs to his gaze.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, and stood to rid himself of his pants. I held back the gasp as I witnessed the scars on his chest and shoulders for the first time. He was still beautiful, the marks giving him a dangerous look that shouldn’t have been sexy, but was. When his cock popped free from his boxers, it drew my attention, and I licked my lips, remembering how he tasted, how he felt on my tongue as if we had last been together only yesterday.
He lowered his head and kissed my knee, my thigh, one hipbone, then the next. He nuzzled his nose in the soft curls on my mound and I heard him inhale, breathing me in.
“I remember this smell,” he murmured, the words vibrating on my sex.
My fingers went into his hair as his tongue washed over me, before his teeth closed over my clit. I pulled at his shoulders. I wanted this, but I wanted him more. I wanted the heat of him filling me, making me his.
Understanding my need, he crawled up my body, his tongue tracing a path to my breast. I cried out as he nipped at one nipple before moving his attention to the other.
“Please,” I begged, my legs wrapping around his thighs.
He kissed my shoulder. My neck. My jaw. My nose. When his lips found mine again, his cock nudged my entrance.
“Shit.” His breath was a hot blast against my face.
I blinked up at him, my body writhing as the very tip of his cock spread my opening. “What?”
“Condoms. I don’t have any condoms.”
I lifted my hips, trying to impale myself on him, not caring about anything else. “Pill. I’m protected.” I’d gone on the pill a year after Jagg was born, hopeful I’d one day need it. Looked like the day had finally come.
His hands grasped the sides of my face, clamping my head between his palms. The tip of his cock slipped through my wet folds, then between them to nudge my clit, sending delicious sensations through me.
“I’m clean, Skye. Look at me. After my last injury, I was tested for everything.” I gazed up into his chocolate eyes. “Do you trust me?”
I’d never trusted anyone more. Or anyone less.
He was giving me an out, I knew it. A last chance to push him away. To hurt him as much as he hurt me. The thing was… I didn’t want to. God help me, I didn’t want to.
We’d made love as kids. I wanted to make love as adults.
I wanted to know if what I remembered about the experience was as powerful now, in reality.
Jake had been my first lover. My only lover.
I’d not let a man get this close to me since.
And he was so very close.
The hard length of him sliding against that bundle of nerves. With a lift of my hips, he would be inside me, filling me. Connecting us by body as much as I knew I was connected to him in my heart.
“Make love to me,” I whispered, knowing I’d have to deal with the aftermath of our lovemaking later. But it was worth it. Anything would be worth it, I knew.
Apparently, he knew it too.
In one strong thrust, he was inside of me, his mouth crashing back down onto mine as our bodies slammed together. I cried out, but he swallowed the sound and all the ones after it.
Our bodies shouldn’t have fit together so perfectly. We shouldn’t have been able to move this way. He was so big, so powerful. He could crush me, tear me in half if he wanted to. But he didn’t. Even as he began to move inside me, stretching and filling me to the edge of pain, I felt his restraint, the sheer magnitude of the power he held back. But I didn’t feel threatened. I felt safe.
“Skye…” he whispered my name against my lips, then said it over and over as his body picked up speed. I wrapped myself around him tighter, watching his face, our eyes connected as we lost ourselves to each other.
Each stroke took me higher, toward a peak I wanted to reach, but not yet. I didn’t want this to be over. I wanted to stay locked in the cocoon of his arms, in the warm bubble of our breaths as we whispered words that meant nothing and everything.
Please.
Yes.
Mine.
At some point, I began to cry and he kissed away the tears I’d fought so hard to keep at bay. Then he was crying too, our bodies rocking together as we connected on a plane that was so much more than physical. All I could do was take it, absorb it, until it all became too much and I exploded beneath him, shattering the carefully built wall I’d held in place.
“Skye…”
My name again. A curse or a prayer, I didn’t know.
With a last stroke, I felt his body spasm even through the white-hot pleasure of my orgasm, and he buried himself deep inside me one last time.
Jake broke our kiss as he gasped for air. His lips still grazed mine, his breath entering my mouth, mine entering his as we calmed, giving each other life.
Pain and pleasure filled my chest as I held onto the man above me as if he was the only thing that could save me from the ocean of emotions trying to pull me under. What happened between us was both so right and so wrong, but it didn’t really matter. I had no power to stop it. Jake and I were being swept away. We were part of a destiny we’d never chosen. At this point, we were just hanging on and trying to survive the ride.
With his face nestled into the crook of my neck, I stared up at the ceiling and listened to our haggard breathing.
Dread was already creeping its way into my heart. I was afraid of letting Jake go, afraid of meeting whatever was to come next for us. I’d come over with the intent of letting him into Jagger’s life… and now he was back in mine. If what we’d just done was a mistake, it was one I didn’t want to face.
I forced myself to loosen my grip on Jake’s neck. He slowly sat up, and I followed. He stood and walked from the room without a word. Leaving me. Again.
Frozen, I sat there, knowing I should move. Willing myself to move. But even as my mind screamed for me to go, my muscles were locked in place.
Then he was back, looking so incredibly beautiful my heart squeezed as I watched him step closer. He held a washcloth. With a gentleness that should have been impossible from such a big man, he pressed its warmth between my legs, cleaning me. Caring for me. When he caught me watching him, he grinned. The boyish quality of the look made me want to sob, and I couldn’t understand why.
“It’s all right.” I wiped away a bead of sweat trailing down his temple. “I… um… I should go.”
And just like that, a wall came up between us.
He nodded, his face carefully blank. “I understand.”
But he didn’t. Hell, I didn’t. I just knew I couldn’t remain here. I couldn’t lose myself to him completely.
It was too soon.
Before I could question my decision, I stood and reached for my clothes. It felt like an eternity passed as I slipped on my panties and pants. My fingers were trembling too badly for me to hook my bra, and I cursed as I kept missing the hooks.
Jake stood and came up behind me. I could feel the heat of him before his fingers closed over mine and finished the job. His warm breath was in my hair, and all I’d have to do was lean an inch or two backwards and I’d be touching him again.
I desperately wanted to touch him again.
Instead, I pulled on my shirt and turned to face him. “I’ll text you about when we can talk with Jagger.”
Jake looked down at me, and now there was sorrow in his face. “Skye… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t.” I held out both hands, as if the gesture could halt the assault of the words I knew were coming. “Please don’t say how much you regret being with me.” I couldn’t look at him and instead watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed hard. “Again.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
I read the message between the words. The message that said he didn’t want me.
Blowing out a shaky breath, I smiled. “I’m a big girl now, Jake.”
His eyes flicked down to my lips. “I know, but I’m still sorry…”
Sorry for not wanting me in his life past what we just shared. Past our son.
“…it won’t happen again.”
How could a person still be alive when their heart was so completely savaged?
I wanted to beg him to want me. Beg him to love me. Beg him to not leave me.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t make him want any of that. And I didn’t want him to stay with me out of guilt.
So, I smiled. If the only thing I had control over in this moment was my dignity, I’d latch onto it with every last fragment of strength. “We’ll talk soon.” I was proud of how steady my voice was. I was proud of my legs for turning me and walking me toward the door. I was proud of my hand for reaching for the doorknob, for turning it, pulling it open.
I was proud of my eyes for not filling with tears as I stepped into the elevator and nodded to the operator.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been proud.
Maybe I wasn’t crying simply because I didn’t have any tears left.