Fighting Fate: Book 2 of the Warrior Chronicles (23 page)

If she tried and put all her effort into it she could have shut out his sensual appeal. No matter how hard she tried though she’d never be immune to his kindness and his understanding. Jesse was one hell of a man. She liked him. She respected him. She sure as the earth revolves around the sun, wanted him. She just wasn’t about to contemplate wanting him forever. The thought of seeing him like this every day for the next three and a half months thrilled her. Surely she’d get Jesse and his unprecedented appeal out of her system in that time.

“I’m not pretending.”

“Liar.”

Taryn’s chin jutted up, but since she was lying she changed the subject. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me. Like you want to eat me.”

His eyes crinkled deeply and his smile flashed strong white teeth. “I do.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Just stop it.”

“Stop what, exactly? I aim to please and I’ll stop doing what I’m doing if it offends you, but I believe it’s what you really want.”

“Stop trying to seduce me with your eyes and your-”

Taryn gestured to all of him and his semi-nakedness that was more appealing than it should have been. Jesse was wearing more than any of the male beach bums who hang at the lakefront in the summer, all of whom look pretty wonderful in surfer shorts and quick smiles, none of whom she wanted to do more than smile back at or possibly wink.

“-near naked…
maleness.
”

Jesse pushed away from the counter and stood so close she could feel his body heat. “No. Not now. Not ever. I’m not going to change the way I look at you or the way I feel every time I look in your eyes. The way I look at you is
never
going to change. Not when you are fat with my babies. Not when you are ninety-nine and you have to put your teeth in a jar every night before we go to bed.”

Jesse picked her up and sat in her chair with her in his lap. She really was going to have to tell him how much she hated it when he picked her up. She’d get right to that as soon as she told him how dictatorial and demanding he was being, other traits she didn’t appreciate. She decided to wait until he was done spewing his absurdities and then she’d set him straight, one ridiculous statement at a time.

“As for my near-naked-maleness…” Jesse lowered his head whispering in her ear. The effect was so intimate she shivered. “Get used to it, sweetheart. I’m going to be as close to naked as I can get around you from now on. I’m going to touch you every time you’re near, whether we’re in a crowd or alone. I’m going to give your body and your heart everything you need whether you want it or not every time we make love. Every time, Taryn. Until there’s nowhere left for you to hide.”

Jesse stood in one swift graceful movement then set her back down and stepped away. Taryn felt the loss of his heat immediately. She felt the loss of something else as well, but he didn’t give her time to focus on it. He kept talking and his words became spear pricks to her heart.

“You never have to be alone again, Taryn. I’m right here. All you have to do is reach out and touch me.”

Taryn visibly shuttered. He’d used the one word that resonated through her mind, heart and soul, and made her body shake with the effort to keep it in…
alone.
Why it should frighten her now made little sense to Taryn. She’d always been alone, even when her parents were near she’d felt a sense of aloneness. That separate feeling wasn’t scary or disconcerting until now. Jesse took a step away from her and Taryn felt it like a rift in the fabric of her universe.

“You can
pretend
that the only thing making the air sing between us is sex. You can
pretend
that the way you melt around me doesn’t matter. You can even
pretend
to hate me for the way I make you feel. But sooner or later,
love
, you will come face to face with the fact that all your
pretending
won’t save you from what you feel for me.”

Jesse stared at Taryn’s tortured expression, wondering if she knew how clearly every emotion she felt showed in her eyes and on every line of her lovely face. He doubted it. She visibly shook when he said the word ‘alone’, and her eyes flashed when he mentioned children, something he hadn’t given much thought to until now. He’d take her with or without them, but now that he’d said it he liked the idea.

Taryn was going to fight him. Worse than that, she was going to fight herself and what she already felt for him. For the life of him, Jesse couldn’t think of one good reason why. Then it hit him like a water balloon falling from the sky, startling and bone-chilling. She felt exactly as he had at fourteen when Reed found him. Afraid. Afraid to risk the existence she now had for something that could be a world better or could crush what was left of the small seed of hope her heart nourished for a happily-ever-after life.

That he understood. He also understood how to get around the fear and nourish that seed at the same time. He’d learned from Reed, and the patient way she inched into his heart, one kindness at a time. And, he’d learned from Jordon how to never give up on what is fundamental to the identity of the soul…
love.
Of course Jordon also taught him that no path to that goal, no matter how nefariously plotted, was beneath a man whose quest was to gain a woman’s love. It was a lesson Jesse learned well and now planned to utilize, shamelessly and with great enthusiasm for the effort.

Jesse moved so that the morning sun streaming through the kitchen windows framed him in golden light. He didn’t want Taryn to miss an inch of what he was unveiling. His hands moved to his jeans, which he unzipped slowly. Not so much for the show, although the look in Taryn’s eyes said she appreciated it, but because he hadn’t bothered with his boxers and he was fully aroused.

He didn’t take his gaze away from her for even a second. He eased the denim over his hips, exposing the phoenix that twisted around his hip, letting the fabric fall to the floor. Jesse stood before Taryn and flexed. He looked good and he knew it. He didn’t train to look good, he trained to train, but he was grateful for all those painful hours. Taryn couldn’t look away from him and he’d use that every damned day of the week if it would further his cause.

He let her get her fill of him before turning away, smiling at her quick inhalation of breath.
This time, honey, if you want what I can give, you’ll have to come to me.

“I’m taking a shower. You are welcome to join me.” He said, walking away without a backward glance. His smile grew when he heard the clatter of dishes and the scrape of the chair as Taryn violently pushed away from the counter and what was left of her soggy breakfast.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

She came to him in the shower, knelt and took him in her mouth. She stroked his arms in her sleep as she reached for him and sighed her contentment at simply having him near. When she didn’t think he was paying attention she undressed him with her eyes, but more devastating than that, she allowed her heart to shine as she surreptitiously pulled him to her with the invisible waves of longing that rode her. A longing she refused to acknowledge even to herself outside the throes of her passion, while he was making her come.

Jesse ran both hands through his shower damp hair. He would have cut it, it was just long enough to get in the way, but Taryn touched it whenever she could and made that little…
umm…
noise every time she did. Jesse wasn’t about to get rid of anything about him that gave her pleasure. He needed every advantage he could get.

Giving his now sated and sleeping bride a long glance, he headed out the door as silently as he could. He had work to do that he couldn’t risk doing when she was awake. Jesse headed toward the room Ram referred to as the game room. It was the only room in the castle that was completely inaccessible to anyone who didn’t have the access code. It held no games. What it contained was a computer system specially designed by Ram’s stepson while he was a grad student at MIT.

In giving Jesse the code to the game room, Ram had given him the key to Taryn’s e-mail and so much more. He didn’t much like snooping, but, and it was a platinum coated but, he’d do anything to keep Taryn safe, even if it pissed her off, which when she found out about it, this would.

Jesse punched the code into the keypad and the game room clicked open and immediately clicked closed behind him. There was a separate keypad and code to get back out. Ram took his tech seriously. Jesse crossed to the keyboard and in seconds he’d accessed Taryn’s e-mail, Facebook and Twitter accounts. She’d listened to his warnings and hadn’t posted since she went to his home. It didn’t look like she’d accessed her e-mail either, and that surprised him. In the future, when her life wasn’t at stake, he’d be more trusting.

She had a number of e-mails, some junk, some advertising, some from fans and historians and those interested in archeology and anthropology. Two were from her aunt. One was from Mary Campbell. The ones that stood out were the seven from Lauren MacBain. As he read them, Jesse’s eyebrows shot up and an unreasonable jolt of juvenile jealousy burned through him.

Darling, where are you? You haven’t answered my calls. Aren’t you supposed to check in with your employer when you arrive on site? Four more days until tape rolls. Call me, Taryn. Missing you. Yours as always, Lauren.

“Daaa…rrr…ling…” Jesse mocked in a light-loafered voice that bore no resemblance to MacBain’s deep, but still British tone. “I m…i…sss you…”.

The next six e-mails weren’t as saccharine or as patient, making Jesse smile. “Not so smooth after all, are you, you limey bastard?”

The seventh e-mail ended without an endearment.
Taryn,contact me immediately. Your father’s work needs to be carried on with the attention to detail it deserves. If you can’t do that, I’ll replace you with someone who can. I didn’t send you to Britain to honeymoon.

MacBain’s terseness and unveiled hostility toward Taryn’s marriage lightened Jesse’s mood considerably. Taryn may be merely pretending, but MacBain didn’t know that, and with a little luck, he never would.

Jesse’s fingers flew over the keyboard, typing a short response he left unsigned.
Script memorized. In Glastonbury tomorrow. Ready to film. Honeymoon absolutely…
Jesse’s fingers stilled as he searched for just the right word. …
orgasmic. Thanks for asking.
Jesse hit the send button whistling Heart’s
Crazy On You
to the walls.

Then he sent a message to Shay about what he’d found out so far and asked Shay to meet him at Sacred Springs Cottage tomorrow with whatever weapons he’d be able to procure. When he finished, Jesse sent an encrypted e-mail to Potter’s Woods, setting out everything he knew so far and what he planned. The e-mails he’d sent to MacBain and to Shay weren’t encrypted, but then that was the point.

Jesse turned to leave, but something stopped him. A tingling feeling at the back of his neck, one he knew not to ignore. Unsure why he was doing so Jesse did an online search, the kind Ram’s stepson had taught him, finally coming up with Mary Campbell’s e-mail history. One subject line stood out among the others. It was from the Mayo Clinic, Department of Oncology.

Mary’s determination to see Taryn firmly ensconced at Potter’s Woods suddenly made sense to Jesse. Taryn was going to need him and their family more than ever now. That was just another reason he wouldn’t be letting her go.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Taryn looked at her bracelet again, twirling it, liking the way the silver and gold jingled on her wrist, unsure where to begin trying to decipher its meaning. There should be some clue, some ‘ah-ha’-ness to the process.

She’d felt Jesse’s attention as they drove from Rhia Macleod’s castle to Taryn’s inherited home at Sacred Springs Cottage. The compact diesel that mysteriously appeared at the castle was like everything else in her life since she’d met Jesse Mohr, it was just there making life seductively easier, and more frustrating. The man could have arranged for a vehicle that didn’t force her to eat her knees, but then again, he drove a first generation Prius, so it probably never occurred to him to put comfort first. Her husband was truly a study in contrasts and contradictions. If she had a lifetime she didn’t think she’d figure him out.

“You’ve been jingling that bracelet for the past twenty minutes like it’s made of tin sleigh bells. Aren’t you afraid you’ll damage something so intricate and rare, something made especially for you from someone who loved you?” Jesse spoke like he was just curious, but Taryn knew enough about him to know he was a man who took gifts very seriously when they were given, and even though he’d had many things made especially for him, he cherished each and every one.

She stopped jingling. She’d never known the depth of feeling he put into a scrap of worn cotton. He was right. This was the last thing her father had given her. It mattered to her more than her mindless jingling suggested.

The more perverse parts of her wondered if it was a gift for her or really a gift for him, to ensure she carried on his legacy after his death. James Campbell was a good man, better in later life than in earlier, but a good man nonetheless. Still, Taryn didn’t hide from the fact that he was always driven: driven to find the latest and greatest treasure of the ancient Celts. Driven to un-earth and decipher the most relics. Driven to be the most eminent scholar in his field. Driven to unlock the spiritual gates and
know
the ultimate truth of the Celts.

Taryn jolted upright and smashed her knees into the glove box. “Son of a bitch.”

“What did I do?”

Taryn glared at him, rubbing her knees. “Stop the car.”

“I can’t stop the car, there are no passing places. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re on a one lane road in the middle of sheep country.”

“Stop. The. Car. Pleeeaaase.”

Jesse stopped the car.
It always pays to be polite. The Code of Bushido; number Four also known as REI. See, Sensei, I did learn something. I put it into practice and it worked.