Chapter 10
10
Roger Hillman’s words still dripped their venom into Ella’s system as she sat on Jake’s couch. She tried to recoil from them, from the ugliness of them, but they persisted.
“Put these on.”
Ella looked up to find Jake holding something and it took a couple of moments to realize it was clothes. The air-con in the office blew on her wet T-shirt and she felt cold all over. Her nipples were pebbled, her brain function sluggish and she was rubbing at the raised goose flesh on her arms.
Relieving him of the items, she kicked off her shoes then stood, grabbing the hem of her shirt. Pulling it over her head, she absently registered the surprise on Jake’s face before he turned his back and headed to his desk.
She supposed she shouldn’t have done it but hell, the man wasn’t exactly a stranger to bras. Hers included.
Given it was also wet, she whipped it off, pulling what she realized was a Founder’s jersey over her head. His? Or just some old merch he had hanging around? Her skirt hit the floor next, and, with her underwear mostly dry, she stepped into a pair of baggy gray sweatpants.
“You can look,” she said, smiling at Jake’s propriety as she sat and huddled into the layers of the jersey.
Turning slowly, he plonked his ass against the edge of his desk and regarded her. “Roger Hillman is a giant asshat. Always was, always will be.”
Ella nodded slowly, the pain of Roger’s words a dull ache now. “I know. I just wasn’t expecting it… it’d been such a great day.”
“Yes.” It was a bleak acknowledgment. “It was.”
She stared at her fingernails, tuning into the muffled bass of the jukebox, the throb the perfect backbeat to her troubled thoughts. “Do you know how many years it’s been since a guy spoke to me like that?” Ella locked her gaze on his. “ Looked at me like that? Like I was a… commodity?”
Ella swore she could hear his teeth grinding as he said, “I’m so sorry.”
The impotency she’d been feeling started to ebb as pure mortification took over. How many people had heard his ugly inferences? Had Simon? Had Pete? What about the people on the dance floor around her?
“Nineteen. Nineteen blissful years. And that” – Ella searched for an expletive worthy of Rosie and failed – “ moron gets to throw the past in my face?” A crushing sense of unfairness pressed in on her and Ella hugged her knees.
“Forget about him,” Jake growled.
Ella shook her head. If only she could. But if living in Trently had taught her one thing, it was that there was always another Roger Hillman. She’d just allowed time and distance to lull her into a false sense of security.
“How long, Jake?” she demanded, standing suddenly as anger replaced inertia. “How many years does it take? Until I get to be plain old Ella Lucas? Not Rachel’s daughter?”
She glared at him. It wasn’t his fault, she knew, but right now she wanted someone to vent at and he was it.
“I vowed when I left there I’d never look back. And here I am hundreds of miles away but everywhere I look lately there are reminders of Trently. Cam. Roger goddamn Hillman . ” She huffed out a breath, her eyes locking with his. “You.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I know.”
His quiet acceptance took all the puff out of her sails. This wasn’t his fault. And he did know. But she wondered if he truly understood where she was coming from?
Sighing, she sat again, pulling her knees up and placing her chin on top. “Roger Hillman and his cronies, they used to… ask me my… price.”
Ella’s voice cracked as all the old feelings of revulsion and fear swamped her. The gossips of Trently had called her haughty but so much of that had been a front to disguise her anxiety. She’d never quite been sure if one of the boys wouldn’t try something on.
They may not have been men back then but they’d been experts at playing grown-up games.
To her horror, a tear leaked out of one eye and she brushed it away but not before Jake saw it. “Ella,” he whispered before closing the distance between them.
Throwing himself down beside her, Jake pulled her into his arms as a strangled sob tore from her throat. Ella didn’t want to be this person – the weepy woman – but another sob followed and another until her face was buried in his shirt and she was crying like she hadn’t cried in a long time.
She’d wept two years ago as the orgasm he’d given her had tapped into the grief of her mother’s death. But even then, she’d refused to give into soul-deep grief.
Not now. Now she was letting it all out. Crying for her lost childhood and Cam’s. And Jake’s chest was so big and warm and he smelled of deodorant and beer.
Or maybe that was her.
But she felt safe here with this man who knew all her secrets, so she cried until there were no more tears left to shed. Until there was nothing left inside. Until she was utterly exhausted.
And then she slept.
Jake drew the cue back and jabbed the white ball into the cluster of colored ones, picturing Roger Hillman’s face on the front of it. The satisfying smack was like music to his ears and his gaze tracked the blur of color as balls flew around the table. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been playing for, but it was his third game and he wasn’t done with smashing snooker balls just yet.
Pete had stayed to help him clean up after closing, hovering like a mother hen, challenging him to a game. But Jake had ordered him home. His self-appointed role as Jake’s guardian was amusing and Jake usually indulged him, but he was in no mood for Pete’s wisecracking tonight.
He’d wanted to be alone in his anger.
Every time he thought about Ella – two bright stains of color in her chalk white cheeks – it tore at his gut and a silent roar of rage ripped through his chest. The urge to wipe Roger Hillman’s face all over the bar resurfaced.
He wanted to pound on him, make him pay, make him hurt.
It had been such a great day until that son of a bitch had ruined it with his despicable inferences.
Jake inspected the table now the balls had settled into place and chose the longest shot, sending the white flying across the felt, smashing the yellow into the distant pocket.
The clink of balls as he set about annihilating the table was a good distraction from the echo of Ella’s tears.
It was the second time she’d cried in his arms but it had been different this time. Two years ago, she hadn’t allowed herself to wallow. She’d ruthlessly suppressed her grief and channeled it into their sex, screwing him through it.
This time she hadn’t held back any of it and in every tear, he’d heard the echoes of his own lost childhood.
Jake stared at the last ball remaining, lining it up briefly before smacking it hard. It thunked heavily into the pocket and he wondered if Roger Hillman’s face connecting with his fist would make the same sound.
Reaching under the table, he pulled the lever that released the balls and they thundered into the return slot. Plucking them out, he set up another game. He had no idea how long Ella would sleep but he had no intention of waking her up.
Ready to go again, he drew back his stick and set the game in motion, the chaotic careening of balls oddly satisfying.
“Is this a private game or can anyone play?”
Jake started, squinting into the gloom. He’d turned all the lights out except for the one directly above the pool table.
“You’re awake.”
“What’s the time?” she asked as she moved into the stream of light spilling over the table.
There was a slight puffiness around her eyes that hinted at her crying jag and her hair was sleep tousled, but she looked better than she had.
Jake checked his watch. “Three-thirty.”
They stared at each other for a moment, the silence stretching between them. Silence that seemed out of place in a bar where only an hour and a half earlier music had throbbed into every corner.
“Have you got any change for the jukebox?”
Wordlessly, Jake laid his stick on the wooden surround of the table and fished into the change pocket of his jeans. He pulled out some coins and deposited them into her outstretched palm. She smiled at him before ambling to the jukebox.
He picked up his stick, returning his attention to the table. Or trying to, anyway. Hard when he could see her out the corner of his eye, hunched over the jukebox, the jersey she wore – number eighty-seven, his number – slipping off her shoulder.
Her bare shoulder.
Forcing himself to focus on the shot, Jake jabbed the white toward the target.
It missed.
Harry Ryan, his first coach as a rookie, had always said that women ruined men’s focus. He’d always been a wise old bastard.
The opening beats of Tracey Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’ filtered out before Ella made her way back. Jake attempted another pocket ball, slamming the white hard but it missed again and he cursed under his breath.
“Bummer,” she murmured, her hands sliding onto the edge of the table, her fingers caressing the wood grain.
Jake took a steadying breath then straightened. “Your turn.” He reached for the nearby cue rack and grabbed one, offering it to her.
“Oh. No.” Ella shook her head. “I’m hopeless. Rosie’s the one that you need. Rosie can beat a bar room full of bikers.”
Jake pushed the stick closer, hovering it just off the center of her chest. “I don’t want to play with Rosie.”
Her eyes widened a little at the innuendo but the haunting acoustics relaying a tale of small-town escape had set up a reckless kind of beat in his blood. And if he didn’t do something with his hands, he was going to put them on her which was wildly inappropriate considering she’d cried herself to sleep not that long ago.
“Which ones am I supposed to hit?” she asked as she took the stick.
The action caused his jersey to slip off her shoulder and Jake’s gaze dropped to the exposed flesh drawing attention to her braless state. Involuntarily, his gaze moved lower to where her erect nipples tented two spots.
“Don’t worry about that,” he dismissed, his voice husky as he dragged his gaze to her face. “Just go for the easiest.”
“Alrighty then.”
Choosing the closest ball – a green – she drew back the cue, botched the forward motion and missed the mark, grazing the side and barely budging the ball. “Wow.” Jake blinked. “You really are hopeless.”
Her stance was awful, her cue positioning terrible and her aim shocking. Ordinarily Jake would give someone this bad a few pointers, especially if they were an attractive woman. He’d be up there behind her, invading her space under the pretense of showing her how to hold the cue.
But he didn’t need that kind of temptation tonight.
“You want me to point out the mathematical patterns on this table or work out the probabilities of each shot? I’m your girl. You want me to sink the ball? Not so much.”
Jake chuckled. “That’s okay. I’ll just play really badly and let you win.”
Setting the butt of the cue on the ground, she shook her head. “I know this may be a revelation to a jock like you, but I actually don’t care about winning.”
He snorted. That’s what she thought.
“Yes, you do.” Jake leaned over the table, setting up a shot that even Cerberus could make. “You just need the right incentive. Like a high school?” She’d fight to the death for Deluca and they both knew it. “Red into the center pocket.”
Ella glanced at the indicated shot. A beat passed then she sighed, leaned over and smacked the white with her cue. The red bounced off the edge and ricocheted to the far side.
Jake winced. “Too hard.” He strode to the other side of the table and positioned himself to line up another ball. “Sometimes you have to go softly.” Gently Jake nudged the white to cozy up to a yellow that was sitting square with the pocket.
Lifting his eyes, he found her watching him intently and every cell in his body hummed with an electrical charge.
“Sometimes you need a slow hand,” he murmured as her blue eyes locked on his. “A gentle touch.”
For damn sure he wasn’t talking about snooker now. But Tracey Chapman was crooning about city lights and being someone and heat flushed through his system and throbbed through his groin and it suddenly felt like every moment they’d ever had together had been leading them to this one.
Breaking eye contact, she righted her cue and Jake moved the hell away as Ella came around to take the shot. But if he thought distance would help with the heat situation, he was wrong. It only intensified as she leaned across the table in his too-big jersey and it slipped from her shoulder again, the neckline gaping a little.
There was no way in hell Jake could stop his gaze from drifting south to the swell of her breasts. To that creamy rise of flesh he remembered too well.
He drew in a shaky breath as he remembered how good her breasts had felt in his hands. Remembered how good she’d tasted.
His dick, predictable as ever, joined in the walk down memory lane and he knew there was no way it was going away while she was braless beneath his eighty-seven.
As if she could read his thoughts, Ella’s eyes lifted from the ball and met his. There wasn’t any doubt that she’d caught him looking down her top. She didn’t object though, or call him out on it, she just took the shot.
Without looking at the ball. Or the table.
Just looking at him as she pushed the cue and Tracy Chapman promised things would get better.
She missed the yellow completely although it took her straightening before Jake registered it. And breathed again.
Clearing his throat, he said, “You should keep your eye on the ball when you’re shooting.”
Jake forced himself to peruse the table, to get the game back on track. The snooker game. It had been a tumultuous night. A tumultuous few weeks. It would be dumb to read too much into what was happening right now.
“Here, try this one.”
He maneuvered the white into another good position and they played on, the jukebox pumping out easy tunes as they played the longest game of Jake’s life. Between her hopeless aim and that damn jersey, he was fighting a losing battle with his temper and his libido. He talked her through the moves, giving her pointers as they went, demonstrating with his own stance, his own cue, but Ella was stubbornly uncoordinated.
Which should have made a difference to his dick, but it didn’t. He preferred sporty women, ones who enjoyed this type of recreation and could hold their own. He especially loved the ones who could whip his ass. But his erection didn’t seem to care how bad she was as long as she kept bending over, her tits flashing, her ass snuggled nicely into his old sweats.
The game finally came to an end when he potted the black with a resounding thud. It was 4a.m. He was tired. And horny. He needed to get the hell away from her. Maybe he could dig out his little black book and ring one of a dozen women who would welcome a booty call even at this hour.
“Another?”
Jake opened his mouth to say no.
No way. No how. No siree . There was Alicia and Candice and Jennifer – three women he could name off the top of his head.
“A proper one. I think I’m getting the hang of it.”
His jersey slipped off her shoulder again and his honey, you have so not gotten this was snatched away as the brain in his pants took over.
“Sure.”
Jake cursed himself as he retrieved the balls and racked them up in the triangle.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“Can I break?” she asked as Roberta Flack started singing about a guy who sang a good song.
“Yup.”
He stepped back a pace as she stood at the head of the table with him. Bending over, she balanced the tip of her cue between her second and third knuckles just as he’d taught her and he waited for her to take the damn shot and move away.
But she didn’t. She straightened and turned until she was facing him. “Thank you,” she said. “For before. For rescuing me from Roger. And being so… nice, in your office. I seem to make a habit of saving my meltdowns for you.”
Jake felt like a complete asshole, thinking with his dick while she’d been working herself up to this. “Of course,” he dismissed. “I’m just sorry you had to be exposed to his crap. I should have kicked his ass out the second I saw him.”
“Oh yeah?” She smiled. “On what grounds?”
“Being a dickwad.”
“You’d have to kick out half your clientele on that basis.”
They both laughed then and she looked so carefree the urge to lean in and kiss her rode him hard. He didn’t and the opportunity passed as she turned to line up the break shot.
Which she, naturally, screwed up.
Jake sighed as he hauled his gaze off her ass, so beautifully rounded and so very, very near. “Why don’t we try that again?”
Using the triangle, he mustered the couple of balls that had managed to escape during the most pathetic break he’d ever witnessed. And then, because a part of him couldn’t bear to watch her screw it up again – but mostly because he was weak – he leaned over her as she bent again to take the shot.
“Let me show you,” he offered.
He half expected her to protest. To displace him. But she didn’t, so he fitted his body snuggly against hers, his stomach and chest pressed along the length of her back, his crotch lining up with her ass like they were made to fit together even though he deliberately kept his distance down there.
“Like this.”
Jake forced the tremulous tone from his voice, determined to stay business-like even though the silky caress of her hair and the aroma of warm hops wafting off her skin were digging seductive fingernails into his resistance.
“You don’t have enough control of your stick,” he murmured, feeling like a total hypocrite. At the moment he was damned sure she had better control of hers than he had of his.
“You have to slide it like this.” Jake demonstrated the motion, gliding the cue between her knuckles, smooth and easy.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Jake thought he heard something remarkably like a whimper reverberate in the back of her throat and his hand tightened on the cue. Her smell was intoxicating and it took all his willpower not to drop his head and bury his face in her neck.
“See what I mean?”
A second or two passed before she answered and even then, she only managed a breathy kind of, “Mmm.”
“Let’s do it together,” Jake suggested, his voice husky.
She shifted against him slightly, bringing his crotch into full contact with her ass, causing his breath to practically strangulate in his throat.
His voice a veritable rumble now, he murmured, “Pull back. Then drive the tip of the cue into the center of the ball.”
He punched the cue’s tip into the white and it sailed down the table, hitting the cluster with a resounding smack, sending the balls flying around the table in a satisfying spider’s web of color.
Which was their cue to move – but neither of them did.
Balls careened crazily around their joined hands, narrowly missing them but they didn’t move. They were still standing plastered together as the balls eventually settled, the air heavy with anticipation.
She pushed back into him then, her butt cheeks grinding against the full force of his arousal, dragging a groan from the depths of his soul.
“ Ella .”