Little Secrets. Maureen Child

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СКАЧАТЬ one hand across his face, rubbing his eyes as if he could wipe away the fear raised by the images still stamped in his mind.

      “Jack? Jack, are you okay?” Rita hurried into the room.

      “I’m fine,” he muttered thickly, jumping out of bed. Perfect. Just perfect. He’d woken her up and now she’d stare at him with either pity or fear and he didn’t think he could take either.

      He wore loosely tied cotton pants that dipped low on his hips and he was grateful he’d decided not to sleep naked since she’d moved in. Damn it. Jack needed a little time to get a grip. To shove those memories back into the dark corner of his mind where they were usually locked away. He needed to be clearheaded when he talked to Rita. Jack just didn’t see that happening anytime soon.

      He pushed one hand through his hair and looked at her as if she were a mirage. Jack had pulled himself out of a hot, dusty dream where the sound of explosions and gunfire still echoed in the stillness around him. Seeing her here, in the dark moon-washed confines of his bedroom, a world away from the scene that still haunted him, was almost too much to compute. “Sorry I woke you. Just...go back to sleep.”

      He turned his back on her, hoping to hell she’d leave, and walked out onto the terrace, welcoming the brisk slap of wind. Sea spray scented the air that he dragged into his lungs, to replace the dry dustiness that felt as though it was coating him in more than memories.

      “Jack?”

      Damn.

      She’d followed him onto the terrace and the touch of her hand against his bare back had him flinching. Every nerve in his body was firing, on alert.

      “What is it?” She stood right behind him, her voice soft, low, soothing. “Talk to me.”

      He whipped his head around to glare at her. “I don’t want to talk. That should be clear. Just leave me alone, Rita. You don’t want to be with me right now.”

      “Yeah,” she insisted and didn’t look the least bit cowed. “I do. Or I wouldn’t be here.”

      Gritting his teeth, Jack ground out tightly, “I’m on the ragged edge here, Rita. I need some space.”

      “No, you don’t.”

      He choked out a harsh laugh. “Is that right? And you’re an expert on me, is that it?”

      “Enough to know that you’ve had enough space,” she countered, stepping in closer. “Too much, maybe. Everyone backs off when you tell them to, but I won’t. I’m here, Jack, and I’m not going anywhere. You can’t use a nasty tone and a miserable attitude to shake me off. Talk to me.”

      His skin was buzzing, his mind racing and his heartbeat was still at a fast gallop. Jack had come out of that damn dream ready to fight, but there was no enemy to face. He needed to move. To fight. To do something, to expel the ghosts gathered around him, shrieking for his attention.

      “Damn it, Jack,” Rita said, tugging at his forearm until he turned to face her again. Her whiskey eyes were hot, burning with passion and fury and he wasn’t sure which had top billing.

      “I’m not deaf or blind,” she said. “I heard you shouting. I stepped into your room in time to see you bolt up in bed as if the hounds of hell were after you.”

      She’d hit that one on the head. Scraping one hand over his face, he muttered, “They were.”

      “Then tell me.” She held on to him, the heat of her touch sliding into his arm, moving through his bloodstream. “Let me in, damn it. What does it cost you to open the door just a crack?”

      He speared her with a hard look. There was no pity, no fear in her eyes. Only concern and curiosity and maybe that was worse in some ways.

      “You think it’s me I’m worried about?” He grabbed her shoulders, giving her a little shake for emphasis. “It’s you I’m thinking about here. I’m trying to save you, don’t you get it?”

      “Save me? From what?”

      “God, you won’t let this go,” he muttered thickly.

      “Not a chance.”

      He stared into her eyes. “Fine. I’m trying to save you from me. Okay? I don’t even trust myself around you right now.”

      “That’s ridiculous.”

      There was a response he hadn’t expected.

      “You’re not trying to injure me in some way, Jack,” she pointed out, her voice a little louder, her eyes a little more fiery. “You’ve done your best to simply avoid me at all costs.”

      “There’s a reason—”

      “Did I ask you to save me?” she interrupted, breaking free of his grip. The cold ocean air lifted her hair into a cloud of dark curls around her head and with the flash in her eyes, she looked like a pagan goddess. Even the nightgown she wore that was hot-pink with the image of a cupcake on it and the words SWEET THING scrawled across the top couldn’t diminish her. No, not a goddess, he corrected. Instead, she looked like a short, Italian Valkyrie. She was furious and her eyes were shot with sparks.

      She poked her index finger into the center of his chest. “I’m a big girl. I save myself when I need it. I don’t need a knight in shining armor, Jack.” She shoved her hair out of her eyes impatiently. “What I need is for my husband to tell me what’s tearing at him.”

      “You would have made a great warrior, Rita,” he said softly, gaze raking her up and down, from her bare toes with their purple-polished nails up to the eyes that were so incensed he was surprised she wasn’t actually shooting flames from them. “You are a Fury, aren’t you? Not afraid of anything.”

      “Not afraid of you, anyway,” she said, whipping her head back to shake her hair free of her eyes.

      How the hell was a man supposed to win an argument with a woman like this? How was he supposed to ignore her, ignore what she made him feel?

      “Maybe you should be,” he said, pulling her in close with one quick move. “And if I were a better man, I’d tell you to leave. Now. But I’m not—so if you want to run, now’s your chance.”

      She reached up, cupped his face in her palms and demanded, “Does it look like I’m going anywhere?”

      “No. Thank God.” He bent his head, and took her mouth in a kiss that was filled with the hunger and desperation he’d felt since she reentered his life.

      With the dregs of the nightmare still clinging to him, Jack held her tighter, his hands running up and down her back and down to her bottom. He pulled her against his rock-hard body and she wriggled closer in appreciation. Expectation. His blood ran hot and fast, his heartbeat raced and his mind was fogged by the want choking him. Need was alive and shouting inside him.

      The cold ocean wind wrapped itself around them, but he didn’t feel it. Nothing could vanquish the internal heat. One hand cupped the back of her head and held her still so he could completely claim her mouth. His tongue tangled with hers and her eager response fed the flames licking at his soul.

      There was no time for romance, СКАЧАТЬ