Chapter Thirty-One #3
He had been so single-minded for so long.
So fixated on himself, his goal of justice and revenge.
It was like a sweet breath of air, to think of someone else.
He had realized, standing on that staircase with Clem, that if he betrayed Cora to get what he wanted, he would never truly be free.
Leo and Rusty would still be dead. But Jack had been given another chance, to finally make one thing right.
Cora was giving him the opportunity to hold on to the better part of himself.
Just like she always had.
He rubbed the back of his neck and didn’t meet her eyes. She took a step toward him, and he braced himself against the nearness of her. In that dress that made him almost forget his own name.
“Jack,” she said, her lips a half-step from smiling, and he heard a thousand different things in her voice.
A shock of warmth rushed through Cora’s body. She was feeling lightheaded.
She didn’t need his photographs, and anyway she knew undoubtedly that hers were better. But that wasn’t the point.
“What if we could use these for both of our purposes?” she asked. “What if I give them to Mabel for the newspapers but you could confront Truman before they ran? We could play them against each other.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Jack said slowly. She saw the twitch in his jaw again, the one she’d glimpsed earlier. The hint of something more, something that was making him wary. “I’m starting to wonder if Byrd was more involved than I thought.”
She stopped short. “You think Truman Byrd was behind all of this?” she asked.
“At first I didn’t,” Jack said. “I knew he was broke back then. He didn’t have the money at the time to make those payouts to the other witnesses.
I thought someone was paying him off, too.
But now I’m wondering if he was more involved.
Deep enough that even blackmailing him wouldn’t be enough to get him to come clean. ”
“How deep are we talking?” Cora asked.
“One of the paintings from the heist that night was never sold. The only reason someone would hold on to it rather than take the money is because it had value of a personal nature.”
She searched his face. “What are you saying, Jack?”
“I think it’s possible that that painting is here.”
His eyes were blazing like coals, and she almost couldn’t catch her breath.
She was aware of how little space remained between them, how easy it would be to reach out and touch him.
She hadn’t missed the way he had looked at her when he came in the door and did a double-take at her dress.
It had sent delicate sparks shooting straight through her.
He took off his tie. Then he knelt and began to unknot his shoes.
“What are you doing, Jack?” Cora asked. She followed the smooth curve of his back. She told herself she shouldn’t.
“Someday,” he said, stripping off his socks, “I want to tell my future children I swam in this ridiculous pool.”
“Your future children?” Cora asked.
He grinned at her suggestively. She felt a zinging shock all the way through her body.
She saw the flex of his hands. Remembered the warm pressure of them on her waist, the way he had wrapped them around her rib cage.
This could not happen. There was too much history between them. And no possible future.
He stripped off his pants, down to his knickers, and she flushed as she saw the smooth definition of his chest. Traced down the hard lines to his stomach muscles. There was a bandage on his arm, covering the path the bullet must have left across his skin.
He eased himself into the water, his arms tightening, grimacing the slightest bit as the water reached the bandage. He took a deep breath and dove under the surface, reemerging a moment later. His hair was wet and dark across his forehead. Water dripped from his eyelashes. Cora’s mouth went dry.
“Water’s warmer than I thought,” he said.
He cocked an eyebrow. Like he was extending an invitation.
Cora felt something awaken within her. She kept her eyes on him as she parted the dress’s slit around her upper thigh and unstrapped her gun.
She laid it next to the camera he had brought.
It was healing an old, deep scar, that he had risked himself to help her, just as she had done for him all those years ago.
She reached down and, one by one, took off her heels.
He treaded water, hungrily watching her every move.
She rolled down her stockings, stripping them off her legs.
She looked at him as she glided her dress off her shoulder and stepped out of it, down to her slip, never breaking eye contact.
She could feel the satin clinging to her in the heat, and he made a sound like clearing his throat.
She padded softly toward him, the tile warm and slick beneath her footsteps.
He looked as though he were barely breathing by the time she reached the edge of the pool.
“This is how it’s supposed to go, isn’t it?” she asked. “We fight,” she began. She slipped into the warm water, feeling it slide up her leg like a caress, until it reached her thighs, her hip bones. “And then …?”
Jack swallowed hard. She saw the handsome angles of his face. His cheekbones and jawline. His black hair, his eyes darkening with something else. She smelled the familiar, beckoning scent of him.
His lips parted, sending droplets of water down the curve of his mouth, and all she could think about was everything this man had given up for her.
Everything she needed to settle her own future and even destroy his, if she wanted.
The waves parted around her waist and she felt the satin of her slip grow slick against her body. He had an almost inscrutable look on his face.
“You are gorgeous,” he said, and she flushed with pleasure because she sensed how deeply he meant it.
Her breathing hitched as she came to a stop in front of him.
He hesitated. Then he reached out to graze his fingertips across her face, as light as butterfly wings.
She closed her eyes and tilted her face toward him.
He swept his thumb over her cheekbone, her lips.
Her heart was beating hard and frantic beneath her ribs.
“Jack,” she said, faltering. She didn’t know if she could handle this. She had both wanted him and hated him for so long that she felt like she could crack.
He took a small step back. “We don’t have to do this,” he said gently.
“I’ve felt so many things for you over the years,” she said, trailing off.
His lips parted. “I believe you. You’ve confused the hell out of me this week,” he said wryly. “I came here wanting one thing. And now everything has changed.”
She could see his pulse beating furiously at the base of his throat.
“I’m sorry that I hurt you all those years ago,” he said, his hand flexing in the water. “I’ve always wanted to make it up to you. I know this doesn’t quite do that. But I hope you can forgive me someday.”
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, and he gave her a look that made her ache. She hadn’t known until that moment how much she had needed him to say those words. She felt an old, corroded part of her heart coming loose. And beneath it, she could feel warmth pooling in her body.
“I forgive you, Jack,” she said. “You’re free from what happened between us.
” She moved through the water toward him.
It was true—remembering Pelican was like touching an age-old bruise and finding the tenderness healed.
She stood on her tiptoes and brought her lips to whisper in his ear. “And now I’m free too.”
His hands tightened around her waist and her body ignited. He looked her in the eyes and smiled.
And then he kissed her.
His mouth was warm and soft, and she drank him in. Musk and mint, familiar and new. She felt the rough shadow of stubble on his face, the shock of heat that went through her. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
“You can’t even imagine,” he said hoarsely, “how good you feel,” and she felt dizzy as he sent glittering sparks across every nerve in her body.
He kissed her collarbone, setting off a fresh burst of fire that made her draw a sharp breath and sent a drop of water caressing a delicate line down the front of her slip.
Her thoughts were dissolving. All those years of tension and anger and want and confusion had built up and were now coming to a head.
She lost her footing in the water, accidentally pressing into him, and he made a dark sound that curled through her.
“I’ve wanted to do this since the night in the basement cellar,” he whispered, shuddering as she kissed all along his ear.
He slid his hand up the curve of her hip, yanking her slip back down to cover where it had ridden up her thigh, as though his desire to protect her and his want for her were warring inside him.
She drew his mouth back to hers, delicious and desperate.
Blissful and dizzy with want pulsing through her veins.
The thrill of feeling it reflected in him.
Jack picked her up and carried her to the edge of the pool.
The water lapped at the smooth skin of his stomach, the muscles that cut into them.
Pushing her gently up onto the ledge, he growled and urgently kissed along her jaw.
He stroked his fingertips along the tender skin at the back of her knees and set her alight.
Then he drew his hands back, where they weren’t quite touching her, and it drove her wild.
“Why did you stop?” she asked breathlessly. Her whole body was on fire.
“I don’t want to go too far,” he said, gasping. “I can’t be with you until I’m free.”
She pulled him toward her. “Jack,” she said in his ear.
“I love that,” he said, making a noise as he kissed her throat. “When you say my real name.”
She whispered it again and again. She wanted to stay there forever, knowing him and being known by him, glowing brighter and burning wherever he touched.