Chapter Fourteen
Jack ignored the sun burning a tattoo on the top of his head through his hair. Ignored the heat eating up through the soles of his tatty trainers, ignored everything physical. Walked and let his mind run free, let the ideas and scenarios play themselves out on the screen behind his eyes. Not for the first time he found himself thinking about home, not the apartment in LA but real home. The farm on the moors, the acres of rain, the sound of water racing. His head spun with the urge to go back. Go home. Is it really that simple? Just? . . . leave here and go back? Leave all this fame and fortune shit way behind and go back to the quiet life? And why do I even want to? But he knew why. It was all because of Skye. Skye who reminded him that life could be simple and calm, that it didn’t have to contain these high-octane, high maintenance lifestyles. A scarred girl with a gentle smile, who hated the manic and the overblown — everything that his life had become.
But Skye wanted Gethryn. She believed she knew him, understood him, although all she really knew were the words that Jack had given him. Which meant all she really wanted was the body. Which, Jack had to admit, was pretty spectacular. He’d seen Geth striding about in the buff more times than he cared to remember and he knew it was the kind of muscular, toned thing that the girls went for. A butt like two footballs and a six-pack you could have got a tune out of if you’d hit it with a stick.
Not like me. For the first time in a very long while Jack wished he’d inherited his da’s ability to talk to women, not just his spare frame and a way with words. Really talk , about the things that meant something, the things that hurt and the things that healed. The ability to have a relationship that didn’t just skate along the icy surface, but smashed it and explored the depths beneath. Or even to have that twinkle that had so enthralled his mum, kept her giggly and girlish until the day she died. He’d got none of it. And now, for the first time, it mattered .
He’ll ruin her. He’ll take that lovely naivety and strip it back until she’s chilly and hard. He’ll play on her insecurities, make her feel worthless and unlovable, he’ll take her to bed and? . . . Jack stopped suddenly. Am I jealous? Is that it? He played the thought of Skye touching Gethryn, stopped and rewound it, let it play out again, but every time it got as far as her taking her clothes off Gethryn would disappear and be replaced by a shadowy figure and the POV would switch until he was watching her strip through his own eyes. So. It’s not that I want to save her. I want her to want me.
He pushed his hands into his pockets to distract himself from the loop, which now had Skye tugging off the last of her clothes with an inviting smile, and shook his head. Knowing now that it wasn’t saving Skye that was really on his mind, that keeping her from Geth wasn’t about preventing a tragedy. This was all about saving himself. Jack Whitaker, the heartless, the emotionally invincible, was actually beginning to feel something. And it hurt.