Chapter 30 #2
Jack felt the slight tremor in her shoulders, the tension in her spine—not resistance, but the kind of guardedness that came from too many years of being careful.
A guardedness he recognized in himself. He smoothed a palm over her back, tracing the curve of her waist with his thumb, trying to ease her closer.
She pulled back just enough for her breath to ghost against his cheek. “If you’re going to leave,” she murmured, voice low, “make it quick. I’d rather know now.”
She said the words lightly, almost with a wry lift at the corner of her mouth, but her eyes betrayed her—that flicker of old hurt surfacing before she could shut it away.
“What makes you think I will?”
Her gaze moved over him as if measuring the truth of him in the lines around his eyes, in the way his jaw tightened. “Because people always do.”
The air between them grew heavier, the waltz from the restaurant seeping faintly through the window glass, too slow for his heartbeat.
She unfastened one button of his shirt, then paused, her fingers lingering against his skin.
“You want the truth?” Ruby whispered. “I’ve been alone for so long I can’t remember what it’s like to trust a man not to take more than I’m willing to give.
I’ve survived by keeping the doors locked and the lights on—and I don’t know what to do with someone who isn’t asking for anything. ”
Jack covered her hand with his, feeling the slight tremor there. “I’m not asking for anything.”
She gave a faint, humorless smile. “Not yet.”
Her gaze held his for a long moment, weighing something unspoken between them. Then she exhaled, slow and deliberate.
“Then maybe,” Ruby said, her voice gaining an edge of daring, “I’ll be the one doing the asking tonight.”
The change was immediate—in her tone, in the set of her shoulders, in the glint in her eyes. She stepped back only far enough to reach to her side, tugging the zipper of her dress downward with a purposeful slowness, her eyes never leaving his.
Then he pulled her into his arms.
His mouth descended on hers with unrestrained passion as her arms slipped around his neck, her body pressing against him.
The spark that had been there for days now burst into a sizzling flame, sweeping through his arms and tingling into his hands as they roved down her backside, curling around the softness of her body.
Pushing her against the thick hardness of his length, he groaned as her sweet mouth parted for him, her tongue flicking against his.
When he kissed her, she answered with sudden fierceness, her fingers locking behind his neck as if she were afraid he might pull away.
Her body pressed to his with a desperation that wasn’t just about desire—he could feel it in the way her breath hitched against his cheek, in the tremor that ran through her shoulders.
Jack slid one hand to her lower back, the other cupping the side of her face, wanting to steady her and terrified of breaking whatever fragile thread had drawn them to this point.
She was delicious.
In every way a mesmerizing, breathtakingly gorgeous woman.
Maybe they didn’t have what they needed to have in common.
Maybe it didn’t matter.
He’d spent years running from anything that made him feel anything and, in a few short days, this woman had turned him on his head. Made his heart feel like life could pump through his veins again.
Like maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be alone.
“Ruby,” he managed, pulling away just enough to whisper her name. “God, Ruby—”
She smiled, taking his lower lip gently between her teeth. A soft nibble elicited a moan from his breathless lips. “Don’t make me regret you, Jack.”
“How do you know it won’t be the other way around, sweetheart?”
Somehow, as though he’d passed some test he hadn’t known he’d been taking, his words made her smile. A real smile.
The type he’d seen on that airplane.
He groaned again as her hands slipped from the back of his neck, then made their way to his shirtfront. Her mouth traced his jawline, then slipped onto the skin of his neck, tracing down his throat.
Her fingers undid the buttons of his shirt, trailing down one by one, her lips following the path she made to his bare chest underneath.
She stopped at his waistband, untucking the rest of his shirt, then knelt in front of him.
Jack drew in a shallow breath as she reached for his belt buckle.
This wasn’t love. He wasn’t dumb enough to believe that.
But comfort?
Yes.
Necessary?
God, yes.
He hadn’t allowed anyone this close in years. And for the first time in ages, he couldn’t remember why. She was sweet and kind in her own sort of way—and maybe, just maybe, she needed this as much as he did.
The belt loosened, followed by the button of his trousers.
How in the world could she look so innocent and so seductive at the same time, staring up at him with those big blue eyes and wet, parted red lips.
Ruby stood. When she stepped back, it was only to shimmy out of her dress. The fabric whispered down her body, pooling at her feet. The lamplight caught the pale sweep of her shoulders, the delicate line of her collarbone, and he couldn’t look away.
She’s so damned beautiful.
Jack’s pulse throbbed in his throat, mesmerized by her as she unlatched her bra and revealed full, spectacular breasts with large pink nipples, now hardened by arousal.
He brushed the back of his knuckles along her hip.
Her skin was warm, almost fevered, and she shivered under his touch.
She pushed his shirt from his shoulders, her nails grazing his chest. The rhythm of it—touch, glance—felt as intimate as their kisses had been.
Somewhere, a sliver of conscience tugged through the lust heating his body. He should walk away. Even still. Even after her mouth had consumed him the way it had.
But he wasn’t that strong.
And more than that—he wanted her. Wanted this.
The clothes came away in slow increments, each piece a small surrender. The soft rasp of linen as he undressed, the muted thud of a shoe on the floor, the faint shift of the mattress when she sat down and drew him with her.
When he finally lay beside her, she curled against him with the instinct of someone who’d forgotten how to do it but found it again in muscle memory. And for the first time in years, Jack didn’t fight the feeling that maybe—just maybe—he didn’t have to be alone.
His arm came around her waist, fingers brushing lightly over her skin, tracing lazy circles along the curve of her hip.
“I thought for sure,” she murmured, “that in that hallway you’d just…walk away.”
He turned his head, pressing a kiss to her hairline. “Are you nuts? I couldn’t in a million years.”
Her gaze lifted to meet his, and something earnest flickered there—not the guarded wit he was used to, but something unarmored. She held him there for a long beat, as though deciding whether to let him see more.
“Yes,” she said at last, her voice almost trembling.
“I’m nuts about you, Jack Darby. I didn’t expect you.
I never thought you’d be the sort of man you are.
” She swallowed hard, her fingers tightening on his chest as if needing to feel the steady beat beneath.
“I’ve been alone for so long … fending for myself, trusting no one. ”
He didn’t speak—just let her words hang there, watching her search his face.
“But tonight…” She gave the smallest, almost shy smile, her voice steadying. “I don’t want to be alone.”
The decision was in her eyes when she leaned in, her lips finding his. This wasn’t the heated kiss in the doorway—this one was deliberate, lingering. Jack returned it, cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing over warm skin. A sense of relief, unexpected and deep, washed through him.
Ruby didn’t reveal who she was easily, but there were tiny moments—snippets, really—when she offered something deeper. Let him in.
And tonight they were two lonely souls who’d somehow found each other amid the madness.
The kiss deepened gradually. Her hand slid from his chest to the back of his neck, fingertips curling in his hair. His mouth traced the curve of her jaw, the delicate hollow just below her ear. She tilted her head back with a soft sigh, her breath warm against his cheek.
He paused and she slipped her hands onto his chest, her palms warm against his bare skin.
“Please,” Ruby whispered.
It was all the invitation he needed.
The kiss deepened and Jack took his time, despite the urging of every fiber of his body. He wanted to taste those rosy nipples, devour the sweetness of her tender flesh, let the moment linger.
But when he slid inside her and she cried out with pleasure, his last sense of possible restraint vanished. He pushed deeper, harder, giving her body all the satisfaction he’d denied himself with a woman for years, until her cries were muffled into her pillow, her body throbbing around him.
He pulled himself out and let his own climax pour out onto the bedsheet then collapsed against her, chest heaving, his forehead pressed to the warm hollow of her shoulder.
Her fingers were still laced with his, not just holding but anchoring him there.
His awareness of the tiny movements grew—the slow flex of her fingertips, the soft brush of her thigh against his.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The world outside the shuttered window could have been a thousand miles away…the room filled with the sounds of their breathing, the faint ticking of the bedside clock, the slow settling of the bed beneath their weight.
He shifted onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow to see her face. Strands of hair clung damply to her temple. In the dim lamplight, her skin glowed, and the sight made something twist in his chest—something he didn’t have a name for.
She’s everything I didn’t expect.
“You all right?” he murmured, thumb brushing a faint trail along her cheekbone.
Ruby gave a breathy laugh, a curl of sound that was part satisfaction, part wariness. “That depends.” Her gaze flicked to him, eyes glistening in the low light. “You going to disappear on me, Jack Darby?”
He frowned, not expecting the question. “What makes you think I—”
“It’s just how it is for me.” She turned her face toward the wall, as if that might hide her emotions. “Men take what they want, then they’re gone. So I learned to make sure I leave first.”
Jack’s chest tightened. He’d seen Ruby bluff, tease, and lie without missing a beat—but this wasn’t that. The words were too bare, too stripped of the usual glitter she wrapped herself in.
It hit him harder than he wanted to admit, stirring a protective anger that surprised him.
He reached for her hand again, sliding his fingers over the delicate bones of her wrist, feeling the faint pulse there. “I’m not planning on leaving.”
Ruby’s lips curved, but the expression never reached her eyes. “We’ll see.” She rolled toward him and tucked herself against his chest. The faint scent of her hair filled his lungs.
Jack let his chin rest on the top of her head, one arm curved protectively around her back. Her heart still beat against his ribs, quick at first, then slowing as her breathing evened out.
He stayed awake a little longer, tracing the shape of her shoulder beneath the sheet, listening to the silence settle between them. And he wondered, not for the first time, which part of what she’d just told him was the truth—and which was just another way of keeping him at arm’s length.