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In a moment of weakness I’d told Jack about the body I’d found in my parents’ bunker behind their house in the Poconos. The same body my father had so casually called amistake.
I shook my head because I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to go back there. I wanted to pretend I’d never found the body or taken the boxes my father was looking for. I wanted to pretend I wasn’t J.J. Graves, mortician ofthe damned. I wanted to start my life with Jack and live with the illusion we were white picket fence kind of people. But I couldn’t, and we weren’t.
“You know we have to, Jaye. It’ll haunt you forever if you don’t see it through. We need to bury the past before we can move to the future.”
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. The past was far from buried and it made the future impossible.
“And after we get that taken care of, maybe we could make this arrangement more permanent.”
I tried to laugh it off, but it cameout as a nervous croak. My blood ran cold and my skin went clammy. I had a feeling I knew what he was going to say—he’d hinted at it a time or two—but I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it.
“It seems to me that we’ve got here is pretty permanent.”
“I want to marry you, Jaye. I want to be a family. For it to be binding and permanent. I think after everything we’ve been through together that we both need that. I need it. I want you to be my wife.”
I felt the constriction in my lungs and realized I wasn’t breathing. And this time when I told myself to breathe my brain didn’t listen.
“Jesus, Jaye. I’m not asking you to join a cult or commit murder.Breathe before you pass out.”
I sucked in a deep breathand felt the tightness loosen in my chest. “I’m fine. I’m good,” I wheezed out. “You just took me by surprise.” The exasperation on his face was plain to see, and it reminded me of a similar look I’d seen from my father just hours before.
“I love you. And unless something has changed you love me too. This is just the natural progression of things. I’ve never said I love you to a woman before. Never wanted to spend my life withanyone or even think about marriage. Not until you.”
My heart did a long, liquid roll inside my chest and I sighed at the sweetness and sincerity of his words. I knew he spoke the truth. I didn’t want the magic of the moment to end between us, and I tried not to think about the future—about the possibility of Jack changing his mind once I told him the truth. But for now I could enjoy the fantasy—and be loved just a little.
“I’ll marry you,” I said, hoarsely.
I felt his relief and saw the quick flash of his smile. “I was hoping you’d say that. I didn’t want to have to resort to torture techniques.”Jack rolled us so I was on my back and he leaned over me, and the hardness nudging my thigh gave me a good idea what he had in mind.
My eyebrows raised at the feel of him. “It feels pretty torturous to me.”
He cracked out a laugh and I couldn’t help but grin, shifting beneath him so he fit more comfortably between my thighs, my ankles curling easily over his calves. I explored his skin with my hands—over taut muscles and scars, up his chest where the coarse chest hair curled around my fingers, and across the flat discs of his nipples that went rigid beneath my touch.
“God, you’re pretty.”I cupped his face with my hand and watched the uncomfortable embarrassment flash across his features. He looked like a man more suited to making action movies in Hollywood instead of reigning herd on citizens in bumfuck Virginia.
He hada chiseled, angular face and sensuous lips that constantly distracted me. His eyes were so dark they were almost black and thick brows winged above them. A thin scar slashed through his right eyebrow, giving him a somewhat disreputable appearance. And since it had been my cleat that had connected with his face while I’d been sliding into home, the mark made me feel somewhat sentimental. His hair was dark and cut close to his scalp, and over the last year or so his beard had become flecked with the occasional strand of silver.
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he grinned. “And since you’ve decided not to tell me what’s bothering you, maybe I should go ahead and show you my interrogation techniques.”
I gasped as his hand cupped my breastat the same moment he slid deep inside me. My legs came up to tighten around his waist and my blood pumped with excitement. My nails dug into his shoulders at the abrupt invasion, and Jack held still as he waited for me to adjust to the intrusion. I was morning soft, but hardly prepared to take something of Jack’s size without a little preparation first.
He kissed me then, his teeth nipping at my bottom lip so he could drink in my sighs. His tongue danced with mine, stroking, soothing, until I’d relaxed beneath him and my hips began to lift on their own, meeting his as he began to move in long, slow strokes.
My hands roamed down his back and his buttocks, feeling the muscles bunch beneath myfingers and the dampness of sweat on his flesh. Soft sighs and the rustle of sheets filled the air and my skin tingled as I felt the beginnings of an orgasm gathering deep inside of me. Jack always knew just where to touch—where to kiss—to make me go liquid beneath him.
The climax rolled through me like a wave and I shuddered beneath him as he took me higher and higher, prolonging the sensations until I wasn’t sure I’d survive it.
“I can’t—”
My hands slid limplyfrom his back and to the mattress and my breath labored while my heart thudded in my chest. I felt Jack’s heart beating against my breast—the same thumping rhythm in perfect sync with my own.
“Yes, you can,” he whispered against my ear.
He stopped moving, kissing me softly as I continued to spasm around him. He was still hard inside of me and I shifted a little, watching his jaw clench as he tried to stay in control. Thoughts of exhaustion evaporated and I felt the need surge inside me once again. I was insatiable. But only with Jack. It had never been that way with anyone before, and I knew there could never be anyone after.
“My turn,” I said, pushing against him so he rolled onto his back and straddling him. The angle was different—sharper—deeper—and I sucked in a breath as he hit a spot that made my eyes cross.
“Jesus, Jack.”
