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Poppy shook her head. “That’s very kind of you to say, Jack, but we both know better. I was just saying. You should have taught me how to do it the way you like it.”
This was why she didn’t drink the bourbon often. It wasn’t that she didn’t have wicked thoughts or wasn’t brave enough to say what was on her mind. It was that, this was Jack. She was always so stressed out with emotions and a lack of confidence where he was concerned. He was her first lover. She hadn’t exactly found her footing there yet.
“I like it fine the way you did it,” he assured her again.
“You wanted to pull my hair and fuck my mouth,” she told him, certain of that. “You wanted to make me take that big dick and you were too worried I’d get scared.”
He seemed to stop breathing. His gaze shifted to a stormy gray, the color turbulent and hungry.
“Fuck. Goddamned Poppy,” he cursed, his voice strained as he wiped his hand over his face and stared at her with so much lust she could feel the heat of it licking over her body.
She wasn’t anywhere near drunk, but her inhibitions were more relaxed, and that false bravado she used to be so good at was able to step free.
“Really, Jack, you sound so shocked,” she said, hearing the quiver in her voice that would tell him she wasn’t quite as certain of herself as she pretended to be.
“Shocked?” Denial crossed his expression. “It’s not shock, baby. But you’re damned close to getting those clothes torn from you and my dick fucking that smart little mouth like you seem to want.”
“Well, restrain yourself,” she advised him, sipping at the drink again. “At least for a minute.”
“Restrain myself?” She could hear the disbelief in his voice. “You put a lot of faith in my ability to do that, Poppy. Far more than I have.”
She had a lot of faith in him, period. She’d always had a lot of faith in him.
“I want to make my memories,” she admitted to him, staring at the liquid in the glass rather than at him. “I know something bad’s coming, something I don’t know if I can face, and I want just a little of the fantasies I’ve had, for when it’s over.”
For a man who rarely allowed emotion to show on his face, the hollow, aching regret she now saw on it nearly broke her heart.
“Poppy…” he whispered, his voice low, echoing with regret.
“You know I love you, don’t you? That I’ve loved you since I was a teenager, loved you all these years…” She watched him, letting him see what she felt for him. “But I have a feeling, Jack, I’m going to be very, very angry with you very soon. Maybe I want to make a few more of those dreams I’ve had before reality destroys the chance for them.”
Jack felt something shredding inside him. Not in his chest where his heart resided, but somewhere deeper, in that place that had once been a hard, icy core, devoid of conscience or emotion.
Yeah, he knew she loved him. Hell, she’d loved him since she was seventeen and casting him those flirty glances. When he’d held her as she cried, the horror of having a man attempt to force himself inside her tearing at her mind.
And now, she had no idea the danger she was in, or the type of men being paid to abduct her.
Why involve her? he wondered, because Ian didn’t seem to have that answer.
“I’m sorry, Poppy…” he whispered. “Hurting you is the last thing I ever wanted.”
Poppy promised herself she wasn’t going to cry.
She knew he didn’t love her, and that was okay, because at least he wasn’t lying about it.
She could live with the rest of it, but he’d sworn to her, nine years ago, that he would never lie to her, that he would always tell her the truth.
“So.” Lifting the glass, she finished what amounted to two shots of bourbon, then sat it down heavily. “How much time do I have to make a memory before the world explodes around me?”
Jack lifted that second beer to his lips and finished it before replacing it on the table.
How long to make a memory? he thought. Not long enough. And though every second with Poppy was a memory, he knew what she was asking.
“I don’t know,” he answered, letting his fingers form into a loose fist on the table. “A little over a week, maybe two, maybe three.”
Resignation was evident in the curl of her lips. “Maybe a week, no more than three?” she whispered, playing with the glass in front of her.
She looked up at him then, and any illusion of liquid courage she may have presented moments before was dispelled by the look of sober, stubborn determination that came over her face.
