He didn’t know what she was asking so he couldn’t respond. She looked at him again.
“How many others have you paid off?” she asked. “How many other times have you gotten involved in my life?”
“Twice before.”
She sucked in a breath. “The ones who just disappeared? Who broke up with me for no reason?”
“I guess. I wasn’t involved in the details.”
She stood and faced him. “Of course not. Why would you bother when you have a staff? It must have been desperately uncomfortable to be so close now. Distance makes things tidy. You don’t have to deal with emotion.”
She put both her hands flat on his chest and shoved him hard. He didn’t move.
“Damn you,” she cried. “I hate this. Do you know how much I hate this? I wasn’t even a person to you. I was a project. You couldn’t be bothered to get involved yourself.”
“It wasn’t like that. I wanted you to be safe. I didn’t want you with the wrong guy.”
“And you know who that is?”
“Yes.”
She dropped her arms to her sides, then stared up at him with tears in her eyes. “So who’s the right guy? Or does he exist?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not you.”
She wasn’t asking a question, but he answered it anyway. “No. I’m not him.”
“Just the devil?”
“I’m not that bad.”
“You are to me,” she said and turned away. “You shouldn’t have done it, Jack. It’s a zero-sum game. All or nothing. You can’t hide in the middle. Hunter would be disappointed, and so am I. It would have been better to just disappear. At least that would have been honest. I could have respected that.”
“I don’t need your respect,” he said, then realized that maybe he did. For some reason, Meri’s opinion mattered. As did Hunter’s.
He started to leave, then paused at the door. “I didn’t know how to be there for you, Meri. I didn’t know how to look at you from across Hunter’s grave and tell you I was sorry. I didn’t know how to be what you needed. So, yeah, I left. But you were never alone. I was always looking out for you.”
“That wasn’t much consolation when I sat by myself in a dorm room on Christmas Eve, with nowhere else to go,” she said. “And it was more than feeling guilty about Hunter’s death. You hated that I had a crush on you.”
He thought about that afternoon when she’d turned seventeen and had cried her heart out.
“I didn’t know how to help. I couldn’t be the guy you wanted me to be.”
Her mouth twisted. “Tell the truth, Jack. You couldn’t stand me because I was fat and ugly.”
Her pain had grown until it threatened to suck all the air out of the room. He felt it and ached for her. He’d always had a rule of never letting anyone get close. Never letting anyone see the truth about him-not the emptiness of his heart or the darkness of his soul.
He walked over and grabbed her arms, forcing her to face him. “Did it occur to you that I liked you a lot? That I saw the woman you would become and knew that I would never measure up? Did you ever once think that by letting Hunter down I knew I’d lost both of you forever?”
Tears filled her eyes. “Don’t be cruel. Don’t pretend I mattered.”
“You did matter. We were friends. Could there have been more as you’d gotten older? I always thought so. Until it was impossible because of what I’d done. I let him down. I let you down. I knew it and I couldn’t face either of you.”
He turned away and walked to the door. “I lied to you before. About Hunter. I think about him every damn day.”
He reached for the door handle but instead felt something warm. Somehow Meri had gotten in front of him. She touched his face, his shoulders, his chest.
“Jack, you have to let it go. You didn’t do anything wrong. Hunter would never want you to suffer like this.”
“I don’t know how else to make it right,” he admitted.
“So you’re going to punish yourself forever?”
He nodded slowly.
“You’re right,” she whispered. “I am the bright one in this relationship.” Then she leaned in and kissed him.
He told himself to resist. That being with her was the last thing he had the right to do. But her mouth was soft and insistent, and her hands urged him forward. She was beautiful and caring and sexy and smart. How was he supposed to resist her?
She touched her tongue to his bottom lip, then nipped at his flesh. Fire shot through him. Fire and need and the knowledge that for a few minutes he could forget the past and live only in the present.
“You’re a hard man to convince,” she murmured as she grabbed his hand and placed it on her breast.
He caressed the curve. “But at least I’m hard.”
Eleven
Meri laughed softly as Jack swept her into his arms, then carried her to the bed. He set her down, bent over her and kissed her with a hot need that made her want to forget everything but the moment, the man and how he made her feel.
His mouth was firm, his tongue insistent. He touched her everywhere, his hands tugging at clothing, pulling it off until she was naked. He stroked her body, caressing her bare skin, arousing her with a quick touch of her breast, fingers teasing the curve of her hip, dipping between her legs, then moving away.
It was like being attacked by a sensual, marauding beast who took what he wanted in sneak attacks. A tickle at the back of her thighs, a quick lick on her nipple, a puff of hot breath against her neck. Over and over he touched her, then moved on before she could get lost in the moment.
She writhed beneath him for several minutes, alternately laughing, then moaning. She finally drew him to a stop by wrapping her legs around his hips and holding him in place on top of her.
He braced himself above her, his dark eyes bright with passion, his mouth tempting.
“You’re playing with me,” she murmured.
One corner of his mouth turned up. “Tell me you don’t like it.”
“I can’t.”
“Meredith.”
He breathed her name like a prayer. The sound caught her off guard, seeping inside of her, making her strain toward him. But for what? Sexual release? Or something far more dangerous?
Before she could decide, he bent down and kissed her. She parted for him, welcoming the stroke of his tongue and the arousal his touch brought. She reached between them and tugged at his shirt. She unfastened the buttons and he shrugged it off.
His jeans went next, and his briefs. He’d walked in barefoot. When he was as naked as she, he leaned toward her nightstand and opened the drawer. The condoms she’d bought were under the book she’d been reading.
But instead of putting one on, he dropped the protection on the corner of the nightstand, then shifted onto his side. He bent down and took her right breast in his mouth, at the same time reaching between her thighs to tease the most sensitive part of her.
She parted her legs and tried to catch her breath as he explored her swollen center, then dipped inside. He mimicked the act of love with his fingers before easing up to that one important spot and circling it.
He rubbed her gently, then harder and faster. He moved so he was kissing her mouth, even as he continued to touch her there. Around and around, taking her higher with each stroke, keeping ahead of her somehow, so she was the one chasing him. Chasing the sensations that made her body tense and promised a release that would shatter
