Eye of the Storms (Eye of the Storms #1) (16 page)

Halting at the end of the hallway, I took in Jack sprawled on the couch. Just like last night, he looked as if he had occupied that spot a hundred times over. Despite the angry sparks flying between us last night, all day long, sparks of a different kind had kindled between us. Our flirtatious behavior had been rampant enough that even Tristan, an oblivious innocent child, had noticed a couple of times.

Jack was quick with the one-line innuendos, and after being astonished and rendered speechless the first couple of times, I’d boomeranged them right back.

At the theater, he’d held the door open while first Tristan, then I passed through. His hand rested on my back as he followed– a hand that 'accidentally’ brushed my rear when he later let it drop to pay for the refreshments. As we watched the movie, his arm stretched across the back of Tristan’s seat enough to allow his fingers to brush my shoulder, caress my neck, and play in my hair.

Now, intermittent splashes and happy hums sounded from the bathroom. Our son was occupied, and before I could talk myself out of the impulse, I went with it. Ignoring Jack’s perplexed look when I advanced so quickly, I dropped to the couch. With first one knee, and then the other, I straddled him. Using my weight to hold him, I closed each of my hands vice-like on his upper arms.

“Mmh, Mariss, what’s up…?” In keeping with the surreal day, a day that felt like we were a couple, a family, the husky, sensual pitch of his words did not let me down.

“Paybacks.” Readily, I spoke against his lips.

My tongue traced his lips, teasing the corners, and my teeth tugged at his bottom one. A deep rumble in his throat drove me to deepen the kiss, and he remained compliant, participating without taking over. It was fun and fiery being the one to plunder, to pace things, and I kissed and kissed, staring into those dark eyes whenever our eyes blinked open at the same time.

When I was able to speak, I softly jeered, “You have fun by yourself last night?”

Surprise widened his eyes, but he didn’t miss a beat of this new verbal game. “Yeah. I did. Told you, I have a good imagination.” Studying my face in that heated way he had, he taunted right back, “You?”

“Me what?” My confused inquiry mumbled into the next kiss.
So good.
His tongue felt so good… “Mmh…”

The muscles in his arms jumped when I retreated from his mouth to taste the base of his throat, and instinctively, with last night’s teasing in the back of my mind, I held him fast, brushing my lips to a late evening rough jaw as he spoke.

“Did you pick up where we left off? Mariss?”

Indignantly, I straightened and then immediately dropped my imprisoning weight back to my hands. “I went to sleep!”

“Ouch! That’s cold…” He grumbled, and his eyes fell longingly to my lips.

“You’re cold.” My reply was chastising, but I couldn’t refuse the kiss he wanted, and I returned my mouth to his.

“I feel hot…” The whisper opened his lips, and my tongue seized the opportunity to slip through again.

This had begun as a game to leave him wanting as he had done me last night, but it was becoming impossible to pull away. When at last I managed it, whispering a mocking, “Goodnight Jack,” the biceps beneath my hand flexed. The amusement in his eyes, and his sudden movement had me thinking twice about the soundness of my plan.

No matter how quickly I released and attempted to get away, his reflexes would be faster. The sardonic light in his gaze, as he assessed my plight, confirmed this.

On a resigned sigh, I breathed, “You’re just going to grab me, aren’t you?”

“Damn straight,” his soft, husky answer rebounded, and a smile danced mischievously in his expression, not unlike Tristan’s when he had once gelled Bally’s hair into spikes.

Choosing that very moment in the hope he would not expect me to escape right away, I used my hands as a pivot point to leap from the couch.

With the swift reflexes of a tiger, he made a successful grab the second I let up. Like a gator, he promptly rolled, trapping me between him and the back of the sofa. Vice-like, he pinned me and while stealing a kiss, draped a leg over mine enough to continue the roll until he was on top. Wild heartbeats slammed into my rib cage. Already breathless from the struggle, I completely lost my breath when he continued this kiss.

“Let me up…” I shifted my mouth enough to speak, and unwilling to gracefully lose, bucked against him for good measure.

“No… Uh uh…” He spoke against my ear. Catching the lobe between his teeth, he teased it with his tongue.

“Mmh… now I see why you have a sex consent contract thing…” My shameless words were light, but he instantly brought his face back to mine.

“Mariss my honey, will you shut up about that stupid contract…”

‘My honey.
’ The endearment sounded so sweet from his lips, and I searched his face.

Tristan laughed in his playing, the sound echoing loudly from the tiled bathroom, shattering the spell and busting the brink we found ourselves on. Grudgingly, Jack moved. Sitting up, he stared reflectively into the stained glass shade of a lamp, and when he spoke, it was not anything I expected to hear.

“A while back, some girl claimed rape. Turns out, money was all it took to make it go away. She took the first measly offer.” Hastily, he assured when his eyes took in my face, “I didn’t. I swear.”

“I know…” The assurance easily emerged as I read his haunted look. Jack was persistent, and playful, but as I had learned the hard way last night, he had self-control. He was an ass, but he was no rapist.

Meeting my gaze, he went on, “I guess that’s the reason I acted like I did that day on the phone. When you told me you got pregnant, it felt like extortion all over again.”

“I knew it would.” Last night I had tried to explain, and now with the same words I strove for his understanding. “That’s why I didn’t tell you when it happened.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry, Jack. You’re right. It wasn’t for me to decide.” My fingertips lifted to his face, tracing the slight stubble I’d felt against my lips and face.

The kiss he laid on me was caring, tender, and forgiving, and the kiss I gave back was convincing, trusting, and fiery with love.

Love?
I pondered the word, wondering why it had popped into my thoughts. In my fantasies, I had been in love with Jack Storm forever, but this was reality, and I’d barely known him a week.

Tristan played loudly in the bathroom, and I knew his bathwater would be getting cold. Jack and I played bravely, hands and lips wandering until I was so hot I was delirious.

“Could I have more bubbles?” Our son’s voice drifted down the hall.

J
ack pulled his kiss from its current locale—inside my unbuttoned blouse—and the abandoned nipple, hard from the heat of his mouth, remained hard when the air cooled it. He promptly cupped his hand warmly over it, playing a different game and brought his lips to mine.

“So when is Tristan’s next Tylenol dose?”

“Why?” I managed the playful inquiry, despite the current tug of his fingers.

“You know why…” The question was a hot breath into my ear, eliciting a shiver.

“Thought you liked it better by yourself.” Brazenly, and still slighted by his actions the previous night, I provoked, despite all that had gone down so far tonight.

“The hell!” His growl was immediate, and my lips curved.

“You’re a jackass for doing that last night…” My words were light and airy, even using his name as a pun in the curse, but his response was no longer playful.

His motions stilled, and he locked his gaze onto mine. “No, you are. What you did last night was bitchy beyond belief.”

So he
was
mad about last night. Maybe some part of him had tried to understand when I walked out the door, or maybe he had never been accepting. Ultimately, he was mad.

“You mean going out? I didn’t think you would care…”

“No. You were testing to see if I cared. At least that’s what it felt like. And I do care.” His weight left me as he leaned against the back of the couch. “Do you know how hard it was to play with our son like nothing was wrong while you were out with some douche?”

Hot fury blazed in eyes, which only minutes ago had blazed with hot desire. Mentally, I revised last night’s assessment of failed ‘Phase One.’ It was looking like it had carried off better than I hoped. I didn’t like him being mad at me, and yet it was titillating to find he was.

Unsure where to take the phase from here, I abandoned any thought of games, and let my feelings lead.

“Probably about as hard as the shoe on the other foot.” My mumble was intelligible enough to catch his attention.

“What are you talking about?”

“You partying in LA while I’m sitting around here with our sick kid.” The words were part of the plan at some point, but to actually say them broke my voice. Speaking them aloud also embarrassed me. We were simply parents joined by circumstance, and I was acting out as if we were a real mother and father with a relationship. Mortified at my outburst, I was about to look away when something in his expression changed.

“Momma, Mom, Mom, Mooommma!” From down the hall, the growling chant began.

Jack’s steadfast gaze never left my face, and he incredulously denied, “I wasn’t!”

His indignant astonishment threw me, and again, I reflected on the internet picture and what it portrayed. “It seemed like you were. Creeping around with your ex and all!”

“My ex?”

“The 'lingerina.'” When he continued blankly contemplating the made-up word, I huffed with all the haughtiness of Tristan when he had to explain himself. “The underwear model!”

His laughter was abrupt, and just as abruptly his mirth dissipated. Quietly, he studied the frown I felt on my face, and I made an effort to relax those muscles. I wasn’t sure what or why I was feeling whatever this was, and I damn sure didn’t want him privy to these confused reactions.

Watching me button my blouse, he replied, “I’m not dating her, never have.”

“Momma!” Tristan was no longer practicing the screamo growl, so I knew the water had cooled and the bubbles evaporated.

Swinging my feet off the couch, I sprinted to the bathroom, wrapping his slight body in a towel and helping him with his pajamas. Directing him to bed, I promised to send in Bally and that Jack would be in to say goodnight. However, it wasn’t that simple to pick up my conversation with Jack.

“But, do I get a snack?”

Containing my aggravation at the timing, I replied, “Of course, sweetheart.” And a big dose of Tylenol, I crazily thought. Because, this discussion with Jack, no matter how it progressed, was ending with phase two. Of that, I was determined.

Phase two was
S–E–

“Mom? I get a snack, right?”

X.

“Want to eat in your room and watch tv?”

“I wanted to eat with Jack and watch tv.”

“What do you want for your snack?” Following the tiny boy as he swung on his crutches into the den, I met Jack’s eyes, and he stood, automatically clearing a path of shoes and toys to Tristan’s chair.

“Hey, buddy. I was thinking about an orange. Is that what you want?”

Tristan nodded, and while I cleared the taco trash, I watched astounded as Jack puttered around the kitchen and shortly returned with a paper towel of peeled and sectioned oranges.

The moment Tristan was in bed with a dose of Tylenol down him, we adjourned to the kitchen after a story read by me, and another by Jack.

Again, fascinated, I watched, finding him already familiar with the location of utensils and food items. Retrieving the alcohol from the top of the fridge, he began to mix drinks. He asked many more questions about Tristan’s physical limitations, and wondered how quickly in the future these would be a thing of the past.

When it got quiet, I curiously observed as he divided one of Tristan’s juice boxes between the two glasses of orange juice and vodka.

“Don’t knock it till you try it.” Revealing the slight dimples that fluttered my stomach, he passed the finished mixture over. Taking a long sip of his, he turned, leaning a hip against the counter in the sexy stance I remembered so well from the tour bus. Indicating my drink with a tip of his head, he inquired, “Okay?”

Obligingly, I swallowed a sip and nodded in surprise.

Dark eyes quickly honed in on the movement of my throat. Thrown into the past and provoked by this attention, I tilted my glass for another.

A comfortable silence stretched, and finally, he ventured, “Mariss, I’ve never dated her.”

Searching his earnest eyes, I quietly refuted, “That’s not what Perez Hilton says.” Although I had clicked through the famous blog to some unremembered gossip site, I nevertheless used the name I remembered to make the point.

If possible, his face was as dumbfounded as earlier when I first brought up this supposed ex. “You stalk me online?”

“Just once. The other night. And stop looking at me like that!” The last part I yelled when he seemed entirely too pleased with this new revelation.

Taking a couple of steps, he came to a stop before me. “Her name is Randi Gavin. We’re friends. I go to her publicity crap, and she goes to mine. Some of this stuff is planned out for months, and the events require RSVP names way ahead of time for background checks. It’s easier to bring someone who is already on file.” He paused for a few sips of his beverage and then wryly continued, “Besides, I learned, the hard way. The person I’m dating might change by the time whatever is happening actually happens. And it sucks to be stuck with someone you can’t stand by that time, or going it stag.”

“You’ve never been more than friends?” Doubtfully, I asked, as if I had the right to be this inquisitive, but he didn’t seem to care.

“No.”

“You’ve never banged her?” Why couldn’t I shut up?

“I told you, we’re friends. That’s it.” Skillfully, he eluded the query.

“You’ve banged her.” Conclusively, I nodded.

“Marissa, what does it matter?”

It shouldn’t. I had no right to ask—or care. I wasn’t sure why I was fixated on her when she was one of dozens, probably hundreds he’d been photographed with.