Chapter 8
ELLIE
Ican’t remember the last time I felt this relaxed.
My entire body feels boneless and satisfied as I lie there stretched out on Jonah’s bed.
I’m afraid to break the spell by opening my eyes to look at the man lying next to me, his head propped up on one bent arm while his other hand brushes featherlight touches across my belly.
“Your skin is so fucking soft,” he mutters, sounding a little awed. “Like silk.”
I shiver. His skin is nothing like silk. In fact, his hands are calloused and hardened by work. But I find the contrast incredibly erotic. He could touch me with those big working man hands all night and I’d be a happy woman.
“You make me happy, Ellie,” he murmurs, as if reading my mind, and I finally allow my eyes to pop open.
He’s staring down at me with an expression that takes my breath away.
He looks so content, so satisfied. But there’s something else shimmering there in the depths of his chocolate eyes that has me clenching my thighs. He’s looking at me like he owns me.
I probably shouldn’t like that so much.
Somewhere in the front room, a cell phone chimes with a text alert. My entire body goes rigid as it all comes crashing back. The reason I’m in this house in the first place. That damn box on my porch.
And the little boy I left behind with my cousin.
“That was my phone,” Jonah tells me, the hand on my belly tightening to keep me in place. “No one is trying to reach you, darlin’.”
“I should probably check in, though,” I whisper, guilt gnawing at me. I can’t believe I just left Lucas like that. I can’t believe I spent the last hour here in Jonah’s bed when I should have been at home with my kid.
Jonah sighs next to me, lifting his hand.
I can tell he realizes that I’m not going to be able to switch back to the relaxed, post-coital bliss of a few moments ago.
“Why don’t we go back out to the living room.
You can text Trisha while I get us some water.
” He fixes me with a determined look. “And then we can talk.”
I groan, knowing exactly what he wants to talk about. I also know there’s no way to avoid the conversation I don’t want to have. The man already knows too much for me to pretend like everything is fine.
“I’m going to need something stronger than water for that conversation,” I mutter, and he flashes me a quick grin as he pulls me into a seated position.
“Then it’s a good thing you came home with a bartender.”
When I reach for my jeans, he brushes my hands aside, insisting on dressing me himself. He pulls his discarded t-shirt over my head, that same flash of possessiveness lighting his eyes when he sees me in it. Then he pulls on his boxers and an undershirt and leads me by the hand out of the room.
I didn’t get a good look at the house when we came inside, seeing as how I was freaking the hell out.
Now I let my gaze wander as I follow him to the kitchen.
The place has a cozy feel, with throw blankets and pillows dotting the couches in the living room.
There are framed pictures on the wall in the hallway, shots of five hulking tall men in front of the Low Bar and out on a fishing boat.
Shots of what I assume to be those same men as teenagers, still tall but slightly less massive than they are now.
I notice a girl in a few of the shots as well but he pulls me along before I can get a good look at her.
The kitchen is outdated, with mustard yellow appliances and scuffed linoleum floors, but it’s every bit as tidy as the rest of the house. There aren’t even any stray dishes in the sink.
“Do you live here alone?” I ask, looking around the bright room.
“Nah. Sawyer and Lawson live here. And Jules did, too, up until a few months ago.”
It’s ridiculous to feel a stab of jealousy at the mention of a woman’s name.
For all I know she’s one of his brother’s girlfriends—maybe the one in the photographs.
But I still don’t like the idea of another girl living here.
I wonder if she’s responsible for the throw pillows and the garden out front.
Jonah catches my expression and gives me a smug little smile, clearly catching on to my jealousy.
“Julianna is our little sister. She moved in with her boyfriend in June.” He goes to a cupboard and pulls out two glasses.
“That’s who I texted to keep an eye on the house, by the way.
Jules’s boyfriend, Nick. He’s ex-military and observant as hell.
” His eyes are soft when he looks at me. “I’d trust him with my life.”
Something about that statement has a lump coming to my throat, so I merely nod at him, hoping it’s enough to convey my gratitude.
Jonah holds up the empty glasses. “What would you like? I have wine, beer—”
“You have any whiskey?”
His eyebrows go up, but he doesn’t say anything, merely walks to another cabinet and pulls out a bottle of Jack Daniels. He pours a generous measure in each glass then nods toward the living room. “Your purse is on the coffee table.”
I sit on the couch and rummage through my purse until I find my phone then send a quick text to Trisha, checking in. She responds immediately with a picture of Jonah sitting cross legged on the floor in front of a jigsaw puzzle. A rush of warmth goes through me at the happy expression on his face.
“Everything good?” Jonah asks from the doorway, two amber-filled glasses in his hands.
At my nod his eyes drift to the spot next to me on the couch, right where we were sitting when I shamelessly threw myself at him. I try to hide my blush at the memory of my brazenness as Jonah hands me my glass then sits down close enough that our thighs are touching.
Then he looks at me and my stomach drops in dread. I know exactly what he’s going to say before he opens his mouth.
“I need you to tell me about him, Ellie.”
I stare down at the amber liquid. “I really don’t like to talk about it, Jonah.”
“I understand that, darlin’,” he says, and I can hear the strain in his voice. Like he has to fight to keep control. “But I need to make sure that you—and Lucas—are safe. And that means I need to know.”
God, it’s so tempting to believe him. To let myself think that he really could take care of us.
But that’s silly—whatever he said about our connection, the truth is that he barely knows me.
Why would he insert himself into a complete stranger’s drama?
Clearly Jonah is a decent guy, so it makes sense that he would want to make sure we’re okay after what he saw in that box.
But I can’t allow myself to get carried away and believe that it goes beyond that.
“I met Kevin when I was seventeen. He was twenty-five. He used to come into the restaurant where I waited tables.” I shrug.
“It’s your basic story—charming older guy sweeps the young, naive girl off her feet.
” I don’t tell him that I was probably more susceptible to that kind of thing than other girls.
My childhood was lonely, my parents dying in a car wreck when I was only twelve.
My grandmother did an amazing job taking care of me, but she had to move around a lot to find work—no easy, restful retirement for her shackled with a kid—and that made it hard to make friends.
“I got pregnant a few months later. Then we got married.” I’ve always wondered if I would have gone through with it if Granny wasn’t so sick at the time.
The cancer came fast, seeming to change the indomitable, strong-as-hell matriarch I knew into someone frail and weak overnight.
Her biggest worry as she got sicker and sicker was me—who would take care of me without her.
Me marrying Kevin had provided her comfort there at the end.
Thank God she didn’t live long enough to see how things would turn out.
“He was controlling right from the start, but I was too young to really see that.” I snort out a laugh.
“I thought it was romantic that he was so jealous and possessive.” Any thoughts of romance would dry right up the day he slashed my tires to keep me from going to work.
He thought my boss had a thing for me. When I begged him not to make me quit, he hit me for the first time.
“Then he got violent,” I say in a wooden voice.
No sense in going into the specifics. “I was too afraid to leave. He was a police officer in our town and it seemed like he had everyone on his side.” His brother was on the force, too, and about half a dozen of his closest friends.
“He always told me he would take Lucas away if I left.” I shudder at the thought.
“Sometimes it seemed like he really did love me. I thought if I just tried harder I could make him act like that all the time.”
I jump a little at a sharp thud, looking over to see Jonah has slammed his glass on the coffee table in front of us. “Keep going,” he grunts out, not looking at me. His entire body looks tense, like it’s taking all his control to keep still.
I shrug again. “Not much more to say. I don’t know how long I would have stayed.
But then…” I swallow, bile rising in my throat.
“He couldn’t get ahold of me one day. I’d let my phone die and he was pissed.
That was one of his biggest rules.” He had to be able to reach me at all times.
I knew that. It had been so stupid not to pay attention to my phone’s battery.
“There was no one home when I got there, but there was a note.” I can close my eyes and see it perfectly, every sharp spiky letter of his angry handwriting. He’d pressed so hard into the paper that he broke through in several places.
“He said Lucas fell down the stairs and hurt his arm. They were at the hospital.”
Jonah goes completely still. “It wasn’t an accident,” he grits out.