Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Summerville
They never did have that big Christmas meal Caroline had planned.
After the crying storm, Caroline had fallen into the deepest sleep of her life, almost a coma. When she woke up alone in her bed, it was pitch black outside and she had no idea how long she’d slept.
It was dark, the only light coming from the hallway outside. Caroline lay in bed, staring at the black ceiling, sorting through her feelings, so mixed it was impossible to know which was the strongest—shame, embarrassment or relief.
There was some shame, but not much. It was true, she should be feeling ashamed for crying like a baby on Jack’s shoulder—a man she barely knew, even if they had had sex.
And she did feel ashamed. Then there was embarrassment.
That wild crying jag after—no, even while coming—wow, that was beyond embarrassing.
But there was also such a great sense of …
peace. It was as if the tears had washed away something black and foul inside her, leaving her depleted, exhausted, empty—but not sad.
The sadness was gone. Sadness had been her constant companion for years now, and she almost didn’t recognize herself in its absence.
She felt rested, refreshed and … hungry. A quick trip to the bathroom to put a cold compress on her eyes, a quick shower, pulling on cherry red sweats, and she was out the door.
Caroline was halfway down the staircase when Jack appeared suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, though she hadn’t seen him move.
When their eyes met, her heart gave a massive thump in her chest.
His dark eyes checked her over quickly, impersonally, like a soldier checking a comrade for wounds. Then his gaze turned warm.
“Hi.” His deep voice was calm, quiet.
“Hi.” Caroline’s voice sounded breathless to her own ears.
He started up the stairs, taking them two at a time until he came to a stop on the step below hers. It put her face almost on a level with his.
His face was fascinating—so deeply unequivocally male. “How are you feeling?” His eyes searched hers.
“Better, believe it or not.” She shook her head slightly. “Though a little embarrassed at bawling all over your shoulder.”
“Any time.” That hard mouth lifted in a half smile. He took her right hand, lifted it to his mouth, placed it on his left shoulder. “Consider my shoulder yours.”
It was an interesting notion. It was an interesting shoulder.
Caroline kneaded the hard muscle under the soft cotton of his sweat suit.
She’d held him in her arms a couple of times now and it never failed to astonish her—the absolute iron feel of him, as if he were made of something harder than mere human skin and muscle.
Her hand danced lightly from his collarbone to the huge ball of his shoulder, and remembered very vividly the feel of him naked under her hands. Without the softening effect of clothes, he was almost frightening in his power, the strongest looking human she’d ever seen.
She watched his face as she smoothed her hand over the broad, deep muscles.
It was a mystery how a man who wasn’t handsome could be so attractive.
He was wearing his long, black hair loose instead of tied back and it framed that strong, narrow face, softening its harsh features.
It was almost impossible to guess his age, though she suspected he was about her own age, though without the benefit of moisturizer, which she used religiously.
The skin was weatherbeaten, with faint white lines fanning out from the corners of his dark eyes.
He’d shaved this morning—she’d heard the electric razor buzzing—but he already had a five o’clock shadow. Had he grown a beard in Pakistan? Most of the photographs of the men guarding the President showed them with beards.
What was his background? Jack Prescott—it was a perfectly ordinary name for an unordinary man. His skin and eyes were so dark, there must have been Hispanic or—considering his high cheekbones—Native American blood somewhere in his ancestry.
She could stand here for hours, one step above him, looking at him. His face was so fascinating. She’d never met anyone even faintly like him and yet she couldn’t seem to shake the feeling of recognition each time she studied his face.
She could only imagine that it was the sex. They’d short circuited the normal getting-to-know-you phase and the hot sex had imprinted her with him, so that she felt as if she’d known him forever. Déjà vu sex.
“Let’s go down,” Jack said, placing a strong arm against her back. Caroline wondered what he thought about her standing and staring at him. She’d make dinner memorable, to compensate.
“What would you like for din—” Caroline cut herself off.
Something was missing. The were walking down the stairs and something was missing.
Something should have—“The steps! You fixed the steps! Oh my gosh!” She turned and threw her arms around Jack’s neck in a rush of gratitude. “Thank you thank you thank you!”
It was on her urgent to-do list. Item number 476 on her super-urgent to-do list. Call carpenter to fix stairs before someone breaks their neck. But she knew she could get around to it only when she had some spare cash. Which meant never.
His arms had gone around her immediately, holding her tightly against him.
“If I’d known I’d get this reaction, I’d have fixed all your stairs.
They creak a little. I did, however, fix your shelves in the bathroom, repair the banister and fixed the loose doorknob to the study. What do I get for that?”
He was teasing her. She had no idea that was in him. He actually had … well, not a smile exactly, but his eyes crinkled and his hard mouth curled slightly upwards.
“My hero,” Caroline said smiling, and reaching up on tiptoe, gave him a big wet smack on the mouth.
He tensed. She could feel his muscles becoming even harder under her hands, his big hand between her shoulder blades pressing her forward.
His mouth settled over hers.
This kiss was different from the other ones.
Maybe he had a whole repertory of them? This was warm, possessive, right from the beginning.
He didn’t coax her mouth open with his to test her with little forays of his tongue.
Her mouth was already open to him, to the slick feel of him licking inside her mouth.
She was still on the step above his and it was wonderful being almost at the same level, so she didn’t have to stretch up to kiss him.
She slumped against him, heart beating wildly as he kissed her nearly senseless.
Every stroke of his tongue sent shooting darts of fire all through her, but particularly between her legs.
He cupped the back of her head tightly and changed the angle of his mouth so he could delve more deeply inside her and this time when his tongue touched hers, her vagina fluttered.
Oh my god, he was making her contract her vagina with his mouth alone!
She pulled back and gazed at him wordlessly, almost frightened at the power he seemed to exert over her body. Caroline had always been so slow to arouse, and here she was having the prelude to an orgasm with a mere kiss.
She had the same effect on him. Under the deep tan and his naturally dark skin, deep red slashes of red rode his high cheekbones and lower, she could definitely feel what she’d done. His penis lay like a column of marble against her belly.
Nervously, Caroline licked her lips. He followed the movements of her tongue closely, breathing hard. When she wet her lips again, his penis surged against her stomach.
Which growled.
Caroline lifted startled eyes to his, blushing furiously. “Sorry,” she gasped, mortified. Her body was making parallel demands—for sex and food—and her head couldn’t keep up. “I guess that’s a sign for me to go cook our dinner.”
“I have another idea.” He bent to kiss the corner of her mouth.
“Don’t cook. Why don’t you put some stuff on a tray and bring it into the living room?
I’ll light a fire and we can have a Christmas picnic.
” He bent again to her, lightly brushing lips and teeth along the skin of her neck.
“I don’t want you spending hours in the kitchen cooking. I want you spending hours with me.”
Oh God, when he did that, she melted. Caroline’s neck arched and she found herself smiling.
How could anything so simple feel so good?
He was barely touching her with his mouth and yet it sent pleasure zinging through her body.
“Sounds wonderful, but I used up all the wood yesterday. If we want a fire, I’ll have to—”
Jack frowned down at her. “I’ll go to the garage and stack some wood.
Then we stuff our faces.” He took her hand and started back down the stairs.
Caroline grasped the banister, which had been dangerously loose, and made a point of shaking it.
She couldn’t move it at all, it was solid. Jack watched her, smiling faintly.
“You did a good job.”
He nodded his head. “Got an advanced degree in stair and banister repair. Aced the classes.”
Maybe did he have a degree in stair and banister repair. Boiler repair, too.
She was almost certain he had a degree in something, he was surprisingly well-spoken and seemed somehow very knowledgeable about the world.
Part of that was the travel, even if to places where sandbags and machine guns played a more important role than museums. They did say that travel was broadening.
He had been an officer, she was almost sure he’d said that. And didn’t officers have to have a college degree? And what was his degree in?
She was suddenly desperately curious about this man, who’d appeared out of nowhere to give her amazing sex and repair her house. “Where did you—” she began, but he was striding away.
“Hurry up with the food, I’m starving too.” His deep voice floated in from the mud room, and a second later she heard the door to the garage open.