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Where most people would be still and pensive with worry, Jack was not. The more agitated he became, the more he craved physical release. He needed a punching bag to get his emotions out, and there wasn’t one on his plane. Just me.
He was changing the way I reacted to stress, too. If I had a hard day, Jack was the sole person who could take my mind off it. We were addicted to each other. Some turned to drinking or drugs for comfort. We turned to one another.
I recrossed my legs, trying to quell the errant pulse in my core. Jack’s gaze flitted to the hem of my dress, absentmindedly smoothing his finger over his bottom lip. He leaned back in the leather seat, his arousal growing in his jeans. The ever-present tether between our bodies hummed through the air, tantric and desperate.
I stood, walking across the cabin toward him. I took his hand, giving him a tentative smile. His hooded eyes met mine, pupils dilated.
“How is it you always know what I need?” he rasped, tightening his grip on my wrist. His features were indifferent, but shadows danced behind his green eyes like monsters lurking in an enchanted swamp. I was desperate to rid him of them, if just for a moment.
“Because I pay attention,” I answered. “I watch, I listen, I learn. When necessary, I react.”
He tilted his head, the intensity of his scrutiny enough to make my thighs tremble. “When necessary?”
“We have ten more hours in the air and the pilots are locked in their cabin.” I ignored his question, straddling his lap. His gaze dipped to my cleavage, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “Tell me exactly what you need, devil of mine.”
“You, dove.” Jack explored the bare skin at the base of my spine with his fingertips. He cradled me against his chest, his nose tracing warm circles behind my ear. “I’ll always need you.”
* * * *
When the elevator deposited us into the Upper East Side penthouse, Shannon was seated on the huge sectional in the living area. At the sound of our arrival, she stood at once. Or, she stood as quickly as a woman in her third trimester could.
“Have you heard anything?” she begged, holding her arms out.
Jack crossed the room with purposeful strides, enveloping her in his embrace. I stood behind them, the knot in my stomach growing from nausea to a cold, immutable pain.
Shannon melted while Jack held her, her fingernails embedding into his biceps as if she’d fall if he let go. Her eyes were closed, but her wayward red locks and blotchy features told me she had been fretting nonstop.
Her stomach seemed to have doubled in size since I had last seen her. Three weeks ago, she’d been glowing, the type of woman who made carrying a child look simple. Now, she was too pale. Her belly jutted from her body like a foreign object had been shoved inside her.
Jack helped Shannon to the couch, glancing back to make sure I was following. I hesitated, deciding to make myself useful in the kitchen. Jack had this handled. As I turned on the burner and located some chamomile tea, I listened to their conversation, occasionally glancing at them from under the suspended cabinets.
“Any word from Kieran?” Jack asked.
“No.” Shannon’s voice broke. “It’s like Connor disappeared off the face of the earth! He would never do this to me. Not now.”
“I know, Shan,” he soothed, brushing her hair away from her face. “We’re going to find him.”
She put her head in her hands, distraught. “I can’t do this without him.”
“Don’t fucking think like that, okay?” Jack tilted her chin, meeting her watery gaze. “We will find him.”
It sounded like Jack was reassuring himself more than Shannon, but I kept my nose to the ground, grabbing mugs from the cabinet below the espresso machine. I’d been to the penthouse many times. Shannon and I had spent hours choosing paint colors and decorations for Charlie’s nursery. We fawned over organizing the changing table and hanging his miniature clothes in the closet. Sometimes I would just pop in after a shift at Roisin’s.
Connor was rarely home, but on the off-chance he was, he greeted me with a warm, if not tentative, smile. He was glad that Shannon and I had grown so close. At least, I thought he was happy about our friendship. Like Jack, Connor guarded his emotions from everyone apart from his wife. But whereas Jack’s aversion to exposing his feelings came from trauma, Connor’s was a business tactic. He was the family’s first line of defense, Kieran was the sweet-talker and Jack was the last resort. If a problem landed itself in front of the Emerald Devil, as Jack was often called, it didn’t resurface.
Or so I’d been told, both by Shannon and Luca Nic—
A hand brushed my elbow and I startled, nearly dropping the kettle to the floor.
Jack took the steaming pot of tea from my hand, setting it on the marble countertop. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Of course,” I replied without hesitation.
“I know we had a long flight,” he started, peering at me from under his thick lashes. It had been a long flight. A long, sleepless, toe-curling flight. “But can you stay here with Shannon for a while?”
Every muscle in my body twitched with fatigue, but I didn’t let it show. Shannon needed me. Jack needed me. The exhaustion I felt was nothing compared to what they were going through.
“Of course.”
