Chapter Thirteen
The ride from the shop was a quiet one. It wasn’t awkward. Instead, it was peaceful. I’d put off talking to Devin, because I didn’t want him to feel the rejection I had. I didn’t want him to turn into the sort of person I’d become when Jordan had told me he didn’t want me. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Knowing now that Jordan wanted me even as he’d told me the opposite, didn’t take that pain away. It was still there, as were the scars left behind from what happened after. I could look at him now, though, and not feel the blame or anger that I’d kept tucked away in the dark parts of my soul.
It surprised me when he reached out and took my hand. His long, rough fingers were warm and soothing. When I squeezed them gently, he brought my fingers to his lips. Even through all that pain, I still loved him. Maybe one day, Devin would remember that he still loved me as well. Maybe one day we could go back to what we used to be.
“What are you thinking?” The deep timbre of his voice was soothing.
I held my breath for a beat. “I was thinking about love. How many people I have in my life that love me, that I love…how I really don’t deserve their love.”
“That’s bullshit.” He made an annoyed face that told me exactly how much he disagreed with the last part of my statement.
“No, I’m a liar,” I assured him, the weight of all my sins straining my voice.
“Again, that’s bullshit,” he growled, driving right through annoyance to anger.
“I told him no, I told you no…I lied.”
“Yeah? How’s that, Raelynn?” He didn’t turn into my driveway, instead swung into his own.
“That it had nothing to do with you. That you weren’t the reason I couldn’t love him. It wasn’t true. Because you will always be the reason I could never love anyone else. Not Devin, not Ca—”
He turned to me in the dark. The truck idled loudly, reminding me of where I was and who I was. I couldn’t stop, I’d already started. If I stopped now, I’d keep it locked away forever. My thoughts, my feelings, would smother me.
“We’ll never be only friends, Jordan. I can’t. That’s why I left, because I knew I couldn’t. I came home because…because I couldn’t remember why I’d left in the first place. When I saw you? It all came rushing back. Even then I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to be near you. I couldn’t get you out of my head. You are always there, right on the edge of my thoughts. It was always you, it will always be you.”
For a long time, he was quiet and still, so still. By the time he said anything, I’d started to worry. “And you think it’s any different for me?”
He twisted in his seat, leaning across the space between us. He pressed his lips to mine. Gentle, soft kisses, that lingered long enough to make my heart sigh. Jordan kissed me like I was something to be cherished, worthy of being loved.
He kissed my lips, my cheeks, and my eyes when I closed them. All before pulling me close.
“I think I’ve wanted you to do that for my entire life,” I whispered breathlessly as I clung to him. Jordan Slater was my port in the storm, always had been.
There was a war raging beneath his dark lashes. That turmoil was illuminated by the dash lights. My body didn’t respond with fear, though. Instead my skin warmed and my nipples hardened.
His thumb traced slowly across my bottom lip, when I pulled it into my lips and sucked, I earned a groan from across the seat. Jordan’s tongue flicked against his own lip, his eyes darkening further. My breath caught. The taste of his skin fueled my own arousal, leaving my heart to thunder in my ears over the rumble of the engine.
The moan on my lips was stolen by his kiss. This time he wasn’t soft or sweet. Magnetic, indulgent. I couldn’t not touch him. My hands immediately went to his chest as his tangled in my hair. He tasted of summer and man, an irresistible combination. His muscles, taut and strong beneath my fingers.
His lips, his tongue, and even his teeth drove me wild. I forgot everything, everything except for that moment. I pushed against him. I wanted to crawl into his kiss and take what I craved.
A keen awareness made every brush of his fingers grip me with an intense sense of urgency. Urgency that sent me writhing against him, climbing into his lap. I couldn’t get enough of Jordan, never would be able to get enough of him.
“Rae…” Jordan groaned against my lips as I pressed against his chest. Distinctly, the wall of muscle pressed against my breasts, teasing my nipples, and I ran my hands up to knock the hat from his head.
His fingers swept under my shirt, the skin on skin contact making me want more…so much more. I couldn’t get enough.
“Raelynn.” His hands had stopped moving and held me now, gently pushing me back.
I was panting, my heart thumping so hard in my chest that I was sure he could hear it. His face was softly lit by the moon. I’d expected to see that storm of desire that I’d seen in his kitchen, that dangerous glint in his eyes.
Instead, I was met with a sleepy want, a patience I hadn’t expected.
My heart rate intensified for a different reason then. I didn’t know why he stopped me and in truth, I didn’t care. I cupped his face in my hands, and relished the scruffy feel of a face that would need a razor by morning. Then I kissed him.
I kissed him with all those emotions I had pent-up inside but was too scared to say.
He gave it all back to me, matched my kiss with his own. Quiet and sweet, holding his desire at bay so he could give me what I needed. This…this kiss made me want him with every part of my being.
When he pulled free again, he whispered, as if the sound of his voice would break whatever spell we were under. “When you kiss me like that, everything stops.” He caught my bottom lip between his teeth and nipped it. “Nothing else matters.”
I did the only thing I knew to do, I kissed him like that again. I learned every line of his lips, every inch of his tongue, while my fingers traced lazy circles on the back of his neck. I savored the taste of him, the flavor of his kiss, while desire fanned out across my skin.
His hands never strayed from my sides, sliding up and down the length of me, causing me to shiver and wish he’d touch me more. When the kiss grew, I got my wish, his thumbs sliding out to brush against my nipples, teasing them until they strained against my bra.
I moved against his body, molding myself to him, the steering wheel digging painfully into my ass. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered, but the way he was touching me.
Beneath me, he hardened on a groan of desire against my lips that slid across my tongue.
“Rae,” he breathed as his touch grew more demanding. He cupped my breasts and forced me to arch against him. How many nights had I wanted nothing but this? How many times with Caleb had I imagined Jordan in his place?
Thinking of Caleb at the height of my own arousal stopped me completely.
Self-doubt, self-loathing, and a good deal more had me jerking away from Jordan. When he reached for me, panic-gripped memories overcame me. I could almost smell Caleb’s expensive cologne. Almost taste the liquor on his breath.
Shaking hard, I scrambled from Jordan’s lap and to the other side of the seat.
He didn’t reach for me as I fought to open the passenger door and fell out of the truck onto the gravel.
I clawed at my throat, breaking the chain that had hung there. I gasped for breath that wouldn’t come as memories I’d been running from rushed in.
Jordan knelt in front of me, but didn’t touch me. If he’d touched me, I’m not sure how I would have reacted. Instead, he calmly said my name. “Raelynn.”
When I brought my eyes up, there was Jordan and not the memories. For that moment, I had a center, I had my reason for coming home. I wasn’t running from anything.
I’d been running toward Jordan.
“There she is.” He ever so gently took my fingers into his hands and pulled them from my throat.
Cupped in his much larger hands, mine were like a child’s, small and delicate. No matter how dark my tan grew, my hands paled in comparison to the caramel color of his skin. He held both of mine in one of his and reached for my neck, tracing the claw marks gently.
“Oh, Raelynn, baby.” When I finally met his dark eyes, I was met with a knowing that was as strong as the danger I’d seen before.
Self-loathing and shame replaced my fear. I hadn’t outrun the victim I’d become. I couldn’t face Jordan, so I ducked away, hastily jerking my hands free.
I twisted my fingers together, nervously.
I moved quickly. Growing up with an older brother and a little sister who had been a head taller than me before she’d been a teenager, I’d learned to be fast. Pride kept me from running across that driveway, but shame kept my steps quick.
Even still, with all that, he was faster.
“Raelynn!” He was in front of me, the width of him blocking my path. A thin gold chain dangled from his fingers.
“I need to go home.” It would fall on deaf ears, but I said it anyway.
“No, not until you tell me what is going on.” His eyes searched my face. “What was that?”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I tried to sidestep him, only to find him in my path again.
“Please,” I whimpered. He couldn’t see me like this, he couldn’t know. If he knew, everything would change. He’d never look at me the same.
“No, I can’t let you walk away from me like that without an explanation.” His face contorted into a helpless panic that I’d never seen before.
His panic calmed my voice, but not my heart. “It’s none of your business, Jordan.” It wasn’t any of his business, but his emotion had tempered my desperate need to flee, given me a moment’s hesitation.
“The hell it isn’t.” That moment was all he needed. He reached out this time, taking hold of my shoulders.
I didn’t flinch, I didn’t shy away, because I had never been afraid of Jordan. I saw him for the man he was. That man wasn’t Caleb.
Jordan’s signature black ball cap was gone, it was an odd thing to notice at that moment. It was intimate to see him without the brim of the ball cap shielding his eyes. I studied his face too, as his eyes slid down to my throat.
Shame burned bright and I broke. I would tell him everything, anything, so I wasn’t alone anymore. How many times had someone else handed him their burden? He would want to fix what had happened to me, make it right.
I didn’t cry, I didn’t fight against his hold, I didn’t do anything. Instead, I whimpered again. “This isn’t something you can fix.”
“How do you know if you don’t let me try?” His voice was thick with emotion.
I thought of Devin, of the crushed way he’d looked at me. I don’t know why I thought of him then, thought of how I’d rejected him. But I did and it reminded me of the night Jordan did the same to me.
“It wasn’t that long ago that you stood right here and told me to leave.” I stared at his chest, unable to bring my eyes up to his. The wide expanse of muscle shifted with the soothing rhythm of his breathing.
“I was wrong then. Now I’m asking you to stay.”
“Please, Jordan,” I begged. I still thought of escape, I even dug down into the dredges of my mind to find something to be angry with him about. None of it had been his fault, there had never been the smallest need to blame Jordan, not even when Caleb’s fingers had tightened around my throat.
Once I’d known that his love for Devin was the reason Jordan had turned me away, I could never blame him.
He pulled me to him and encased me with the strength of his arms. I seemed so small, so fragile when he wrapped around me. I hated the feeling because I needed it, needed him. I always would. Ever so slowly, I softened in his embrace. The trembling of my body began to ease.
“Keep your secrets, Raelynn, but stay here with me.” He kissed my hair in a way that only he ever had. When he stepped away from me, he took me gently by the hand. He’d already started walking us to his house before I knew I was moving. I’d grown so numb that I couldn’t argue anymore.
“It wasn’t you,” I told him, remembering the panic on his face.
“What wasn’t?”
I gestured to his truck and shook my head so that my hair fell into my face, offering me a place to hide. “I needed you to know, it wasn’t you.”
He relaxed beside me and brought my knuckles to his lips. His silence spoke volumes.
Jordan led me through his house, past the kitchen where he’d kissed me stupid, through the living room that looked as if it had never been lived in, and into the one room I’d never entered. Never not even as a child, had I dared find myself in Jordan’s bedroom.
“I’ve never seen your bedroom,” I mused as I took a nervous look around. When had I traded my need for escape for nervous excitement?
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. He emptied his pockets, sending change and an assortment of bits and bolts onto the dresser. “One of the old man’s rules was no girls in the bedroom. I guess I’ve stuck with it. Kept things simple.”
“Wait…” I was shocked. “So, I’m the first?”
His rueful smile sent a tingle across my skin. “In here, yeah. Not my first, but the first girl in my bedroom.”
If seeing him with his hat off had been intimate, being allowed in his inner sanctum was so much more. With a reverent touch, I slid my fingers across the dark glossy wood of the chest of drawers. Everything was clean to the point of perfection. I couldn’t help but grin, the TV in that room was bigger than the one in the living room.
The bed was made neatly, when I’d left mine I’d left it in a tangled ball of sheets. Yet, the neatness didn’t diminish the sheer masculinity of the room. From the smooth lines of the furniture, to the framed glossy photos of his car, the room was all male and all Jordan.
Even his room is a turn-on.
If it weren’t for the hatred for who I was, for what I believed myself to be, I would have found that funny. That his room, this quiet place that was his alone, somehow was attractive to me. It was a place, not the man, but still…
“What are you thinking?” He was leaning back against the dresser, watching me.
I forced a lie, though teasing. “I’m wondering if you’re going to fit on the couch.”
“Nuh-uh.” I raised a brow in challenge, but didn’t say a word. He sat on the bed to pull off his shoes. “I’m sleeping here and you’re sleeping with me.”
“Jordan—”
“Something has you spooked, Rae. You don’t want to tell me, I get it. I’m not going to force you to tell me anything. I know what it means to keep secrets. I know how the fear of someone else knowing them can change you. I’ve got a pretty good idea what you’re hiding, I’m not stupid. Maybe I don’t want to hear them tonight, either.” His dark eyes seemed to grow darker. “But, you’re going to sleep here with me. I’m going to show you that if nothing else, you can trust me.”
I was at war with myself. I wanted to sleep with him, the thought of feeling those big arms wrapped around me was thrilling. But…I didn’t deserve the care and kindness he was offering me. Nor was I sure I could be that close for that long.
He spoke of trust, like I had something to fear from him. I blinked back the emotion that stung my eyes and pulled at my heart.
“I promise you there isn’t a man in the world that wants you as badly as I do, Raelynn. But, I won’t touch you. Not tonight, not ever. Until you tell me to.”
The room plunged into semi-darkness as he flipped off the overhead light. “Here.” His voice was as soft as his movements as he stood and pulled a white t-shirt from a drawer. Just like that, he’d cut off that line of discussion. I hadn’t even realized he’d done it until I was tucked into his bathroom and changing into the shirt he’d given me.
“How do you—” I stopped talking as soon as I stepped out of the bathroom.
I’d never seen Jordan with his shirt off, ever. I gave myself credit for not standing there with my mouth agape. Even if I was awestruck, my mouth going dry and my cheeks warming.
His chest was wide and corded with thick muscle. He was built in such a way that made me want to climb all over him. I blinked once, and saw that he was covered with scars and a massive tattoo. The letters were tall, black, with vines of Cherokee lettering accenting each letter across his chest. I’d seen tribal tattoos before, but nothing quite like this.
“What happened?” I went to him, without thinking, brushing my fingers over the discolored skin. The scars were so old, that’s all they were now, skin several shades lighter than caramel skin everywhere else.
He caught my fingers and nudged me toward the bed beside us, ignoring my question completely. “You look dead on your feet.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you scared?”
He gave me a harrowing look. Years ago, it would have shut me up, but not tonight.
“Tell me,” I urged him as I put one knee on the bed. I didn’t crawl in. Doing so would mean I was in his bed, with him towering over me. The thought was too thrilling for me to do it. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of anything, I needed to right myself, to find myself on even footing with him.
“Rae—” He sighed and shook his head. “I just—” He climbed onto the bed and pulled me down with him with a grace and ease that his size belied. There was a rush of clean, masculine scent as he pulled the sheets over us. “You have your secrets, kid, and I have mine.”
“Touché.” I didn’t ask again. How could I when he wrapped those strong arms around me and pulled me against his chest? He was warm, safe, and helped me forget all those things that I tried to put behind me.
Of course, I wanted to know his secrets and maybe a part of me wanted to tell mine as well. Those scars gave me a tether, a tether to someone who had been hurt but wasn’t weak. Someone strong enough to hold me and my demons as I fell asleep.