From This Day Forward (6 page)

The embrace should have been awkward. Between the champagne in his hand and her big, bulky camera bag, they couldn’t get as close as either wanted, but it was enough. The hot, tongue-twisting kiss in the sand was enough.

And then his tongue swept deeper into her mouth, his arm wrapping around the back of her neck, and it was no longer enough. Not
nearly
.

She needed more. She needed all of him.

Jason pulled back slowly, his eyelids heavy as he looked down at her. “Spend the night with me, Red. Just one night. I won’t ask for more if you don’t want to give it.”

It was the moment she was dreading and the moment she’d been longing for, all mingled into one glorious second of time.

In the end there was only one answer.

She lifted her hand to his face, her fingertips tracing his full bottom lip. “Take me.”

T
hey reached for each other even before the door of his hotel room had clicked shut.

Their mouths were hot and hungry as their lips met and clung, their hands ripping at each other’s clothes.

It had always been like this with him. From the very first time they’d locked eyes, she’d
known
. Known that there would never be anyone who could make her feel this frantic, so full of
need
just by looking at her.

When they were both breathless from the kiss, Leah stepped back slightly, and then turned slowly so that her back was facing him. She gathered her long hair in one hand and glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows lifted in invitation.

Jason’s hands immediately went for the zipper of her dress as he stepped close and pressed a warm kiss to the side of her neck before sucking her skin between his teeth and slowly drawing the zipper down until he reached the small of her back.

He pulled back, bending to place his lips at the base of her spine, just above the edge of her panties, before moving his mouth back up, giving her goose bumps as his bottom lip dragged wetly along her hot skin. He paused at her bra clasp, flicking it open with skilled fingers before gently pushing the dress off her shoulders.

Leah shimmied out of the dress and bra, but when she started to turn toward him, he stopped her.

Jason’s palm found her stomach as he pulled her toward him, his hard chest firm against her back.

Teasing fingers stroked along her belly, the edge of his little finger skimming just under the edge of her underwear before pulling back, his thumbs rubbing along the underside of her breasts, testing their heavy weight without giving her what she needed.

Teasing. He’d always liked to tease.

In response, Leah arched her back, rubbing the curve of her butt against the hard ridge of his cock, smiling when he swore roughly.

Two could play at this game.

She let her head fall back on his shoulder, even as her hands slid up the front of his thighs, her nails digging into the firm muscles, only to skate away before touching the part of him that was hard and ready for her.

His big palms closed over her breasts, and they both moaned as his hands lifted them, his fingers plucking at the peaks just hard enough so that she cried out with a sharp moan.

“You feel so good,” he said against her neck, pinching her nipples lightly. “So fucking good.”

Leah was panting now, needing more. She gripped his wrist, trying to pull it downward, but he resisted with a soft laugh. “Not yet, baby. Not until you’re begging.”

He turned her around then, bending his knees, his eyes locking on hers as he gave her nipple a quick flick with his tongue, only to pull back and blow gently.

Leah gasped, and he grinned evilly as he moved forward again, pressing soft kisses everywhere but on the tip until finally, she gripped his hair and guided him where she wanted him.

“Yes,” he whispered before she pressed the tip of her breast into his waiting, wet mouth.

Her breath caught as she glanced down. His eyes had closed, his eyelashes impossibly dark, his cheeks forming little hollows as he sucked her.

She’d missed this.
God
how she missed the way they were. It had never been just touch with them. It had been the sights and the sounds and the very essence of the other person.

Jason repeated the same loving treatment on the other breast as her fingers continued to tangle in his soft, dark hair, whispering words of encouragement as he worshipped her.

His hands rested on her waist as he lowered all the way to his knees, his fingers hooking on the edge of her thong but nothing more, as he once again met her eyes.

Leah nodded, but he only lifted his eyebrows. “Say it. Out loud.”

She groaned. “Jason.”

He moved his hands slightly, his thumbs stroking the seam of her through the soaked satin of her panties. “You want me to take your pretty panties off, Leah?”

She nodded.

He slipped a thumb under the lace edge, just barely. Teasing her. “You want me to touch you right here?”

“God. Yes.
Please
.”

His finger disappeared and she moaned. “Still waiting to hear it.”

She swallowed and looked down, meeting his eyes. “I want you to take my panties off.”

“Good girl,” he said, running his index finger over her wet slit. “And then what?”

Her want made her brave. “Touch me. Lick me.”

It was all he needed. Rough hands jerked her thong down, but when Leah would have moved to step out of them, he slid a warm hand around to palm her ass, pulling her forward against his waiting mouth.

Leah cried out as his tongue found her center, licking her with wet, slick strokes, up and down. He slid a finger into her, then a second, his fingers pumping in exactly the right rhythm as his mouth closed around her clit, sucking it gently as he worked it over with his tongue in short, perfect strokes.

Her orgasm came so fast, so strong, that she didn’t have a chance to prepare mentally or physically before she was bucking against his mouth, her cries mingling with his quiet groans of encouragement.

Just when her knees would have buckled, he stood, wrapping a firm arm around her waist before guiding her to the bed.

He pushed her down.
Sit
.

She did, watching as he quickly tugged off the tie she’d already loosened and peeled off his white dress shirt.

He watched her the entire time, his eyes locked hungrily on her naked body.

“Don’t you move, Red,” he growled as he stripped off the rest of his clothes. “Don’t you dare move.”

She shook her head. She wouldn’t. She was here tonight, all the way. Tomorrow . . . tomorrow was a different story.

But
tonight
, she wanted this. Needed this one last night with him.

Then, perhaps, she could let him go.

Jason kicked his pants aside before standing tall and proud before her, his cock as hard and long and as perfect as she remembered.

He started to move forward to place a knee on the bed beside her, but she stopped him with a hand against his hip.

Her eyes met his as she dipped her head forward, placing a soft kiss on the velvety tip of his cock.

Jason swore, his hands tangling in her hair.

Leah dragged her tongue down one side of the shaft, then the other, loving the way his breath came in shallow gasps.

She wrapped one hand around his base, the other lightly cupping his balls as she drew him forward. Leah parted her lips, resting the tip of him just inside her mouth.

And then she waited.

Remembered how he liked to be in control in this moment. How he liked to push forward and watch himself slowly sink into her mouth.

For a moment, neither of them moved, and for a terrible moment, she worried she’d remembered wrong. Or perhaps his tastes had changed; maybe some other woman had—

“Red,” he said, reverently, his fingers touching her cheek briefly.

And then his fingers crept to the back of her head, and his hips eased forward until he was seated as deeply in her mouth as possible.

“Christ. Christ. You remember that I like fucking your mouth?”

She nodded, just slightly, her mouth full of him, and he swore again, his hips pumping gently as he rocked in and out of her.

Leah let him use her.
Loved
the way he used her. The way he alternated his strokes between fast and shallow and long and slow.

His grip on her hair was tighter now, and just as she prepared herself to taste him, he pulled out of her mouth with a wet sucking noise.

“
Fuck
,” he muttered.

Jason bent to kiss her mouth, roughly, before moving to the corner of the room, rummaging in his bag until he came back with a condom.

He’d already ripped open the wrapper by the time he made it back to the bed.

“Scoot back,” he said, rolling the condom on with one hand, his other tweaking her nipple. “Spread your legs for me.”

Leah whimpered with need as she obeyed, moving back to the middle of the bed, biting her lips as she shamelessly let her knees fall apart.

He followed her onto the bed, surprising her when he dropped his mouth between her legs once more, laving her in hot wet strokes until she was on the brink.

“No,” she managed to gasp. “Not yet, not like that. Not without you—”

He understood.

Jason moved up her body, his hands finding hers on either side of her head. His fingers linked with hers in the exact moment he slid forward, joining them in a slick stroke that filled her to perfection.

Their eyes met, and she saw the same confused emotions on his face that she knew he was seeing in hers.

It was too much. It was
everything
.

“Leah,” he said, kissing her softly. “My Leah.”

Her eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected tenderness in his voice, but before she could analyze it, he started to move, sending all rational thought out the window, and centering every single fiber of her being to the throbbing spot between her legs, where he stretched and stroked her in exactly the right way as he pummeled in and out of her ready body.

Jason’s grip on her hands tightened, his breathing growing even more ragged, and she lifted one leg to wrap high across his back, creating the perfect angle for his pelvis to drag across her clit.

“Come for me, Red,” he said against her neck. “Come with me.”

It was all she needed. Leah cried out and arched up toward him at the same moment he tensed and bucked above her. Her needy, desperate fingers clutching at his as they rode their orgasms together.

He collapsed on top of her, and Leah welcomed his weight, their fingers still linked as both gasped for air.

Eventually, as her heartbeat finally slowed, Leah managed to open her eyes, staring blindly at the ceiling, relishing his warm breath against her neck, even as she tried not to freak out about what she was feeling.

It was both everything she remembered, and more. Somehow it was more. More intense than it had ever been, and somehow more important, too.

Because it was good-bye?

It
had
to be good-bye.

Didn’t it?

“S
o are you going to tell me what the hell’s got you so irritated this week, or am I going to have to guess?”

Jason glanced over to where his sister roamed around his studio, touching everything he’d asked her a million times to let alone.

Kathleen was a nurse and, as was the case more often than not when she stopped by, was still dressed in her magenta scrubs, which were not nearly baggy enough to hide her ever-increasing baby bump.

The thought made him smile. He was going to be an uncle.

“You’re going to get your fingerprints all over it,” he grumbled as he saw her pick up one of the lenses he’d stupidly left out, even though he knew she was coming over.

Kathleen rolled her eyes and set it down. “See what I mean? Irritable.”

“Do I come to your work and touch your shit?”

“Well, no, but I work in a hospital, so that’d be highly creepy and I think illegal.”

He and Kathleen hadn’t grown up together—they didn’t have all those sibling squabbles and childish “don’t touch my stuff” arguments as kids.

Didn’t matter. Because they had them
now
.

“Great,” he mumbled. “So I’m being punished because I work from home.”

Jason had a two-bedroom apartment in Hoboken, a city in New Jersey just across the Hudson River from the west side of Manhattan. It wasn’t a bad deal. The commute to the city was longer than some people liked, but he’d never minded. Plus, it was a hell of a lot more affordable than the city and enabled him to have enough space for a separate bedroom
and
a studio. In Manhattan, he’d be lucky to afford a place big enough to put his bed.

“What are you working on?” Kathleen asked, coming over and propping a hip on his desk as she glanced at his screen.

He rubbed his hands over his face and gave up on getting any serious work done until after his sister left. Jason shifted in his spinning chair so that he could better face Kathleen.

Pregnancy suited her, as did marriage in general. Her blue eyes were happy, her dark hair shiny in its high ponytail.

They didn’t look alike, not really. Just the same shared dark hair that a billion other people had. But it still made him proud to know that this feisty, vibrant woman was related to him. Somehow she’d come out of the same shit-faced foster system that he had, but whereas he’d spent years being bitter, she’d managed to make the most of it—managed to be grateful for the strength it had afforded her.

Then she’d gone a step beyond, found herself a guy who worshipped the ground she walked on and let him knock her up on their honeymoon.

She’d done well for herself, seeking out her happiness when it didn’t come directly to her, and her happiness made
him
happy.

Kathleen pointed a finger at him. “Oh no. Not that face. Don’t get dippy on me.”

He batted her hand aside, and she turned her attention back to the screen. “Holy crap! That’s the president. Former president. Whatever.”

Jason shrugged. “I told you I worked that wedding.”

“Right, right. I think I was half-asleep when you called to tell me. Last weekend, right?”

He nodded, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

One week.

It had been one week since he’d had the best sex of his life, with the only woman he’d ever cared about, only to wake up at three a.m., naked and alone.

She hadn’t even left a fucking note. She’d just been gone.

You could call her
, the devil on his shoulder prompted.
You could be an adult and initiate an actual conversation.

Right. He could call her. But just like last time, he didn’t want to have to chase someone down. Just once he wanted someone to care enough to stick around long enough to give him a fucking chance. Why should he go running after Leah when she’d been the one who’d left with no warning?

“Okay, scroll through; I want to see,” Kathleen said, motioning with her hand and jerking his attention back to the present. “I’d do it myself, but you’ll just do that ‘don’t touch my stuff’ tantrum again.”

Jason obeyed, obediently scrolling through the photos, smiling as she pointed out a half dozen faces that she recognized from the news.

“Wait, go back,” Kathleen said, her eyes narrowing. “Who’s that?”

Jason did, and then tensed when he saw the picture his sister was pointing at.

Leah.

There was one of her about every fiftieth picture or so. When he hadn’t been able to stop himself from capturing her smile.

He’d remove them all before he sent the finished photos to the Prestons, of course. But he wouldn’t get rid of them.

They were all he had left of her.

He tried to scroll forward, but his sister swatted his hand way from the mouse. “Hold on—I
know
her. But I feel like not from the news? I don’t think she’s in politics.”

“Drop it,” he snapped, his tone sharper than it usually was with her.

Kathleen gave him a startled look. “Hold up. Is
she
the reason you’ve had a stick up your ass all week? Did you sleep with her?”

He didn’t respond. He would never lie to Kathleen, but he stopped short of actively confirming details about his sex life.

“So that’s a yes, then,” she said in amusement. “Could it be that the pretty redhead didn’t call you back? That’d be a first, wouldn’t it? No, actually make that a second. There was that redhead from last year—”

Kathleen broke off, and Jason cursed as her eyes went wide as she put the pieces together. “
That’s
how I know her. That’s the woman that came over and freaked out when I opened the door!”

“Yeah, because you were fucking wearing my shirt,” he exploded.

“Okay,” she held up a finger. “It is so not my fault that the stupid travel mug you lent me was booby-trapped so that I spilled coffee all over my dress! It was either your gross clothes or a first-degree burn or whatever.”

Jason pushed his chair back and stood up, locking his fingers behind his head and going to the window. “Can we not talk about this? It’s not exactly a good memory.”

“Nope. We’re talking about it,” Kathleen said. “What’s going on? Why do you shut me down every time I ask about that morning? I can see how this woman might jump to the wrong conclusion, but didn’t she chill out when you explained I was your
sister
?”

He said nothing, and Kathleen let out a low exaggerated groan. “Jason Adam Rhodes. You didn’t tell her?”

“She wouldn’t let me,” he snapped. “I fucking chased her all the way down the street, but she was already on the PATH by the time I caught up.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we live in the age of phones. And email. And Facebook. And Twitter. And texting—”

He spun around. “You think I didn’t call?”

His sister crossed her arms and eyed him closely. “How many times?”

Fuck
. “I don’t know. Ten? She never picked up.”

“And she just ignored all your voice mails?”

He ground his teeth, and Kathleen just shook her head. “You
moron
. You gave up! You could have just fixed this with a simple text saying, ‘Hey, false alarm, that was my little sis,’ but you let her believe I was one of your million flings . . . Why?”

He lifted a shoulder. “She saw what she wanted to see.”

Kathleen stood up and crossed to him, her eyes annoyed. “Sure, which was another woman in her boyfriend’s home. Can you blame her for jumping to conclusions?”

He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. “Why is it that I’m supposed to be okay with everyone’s assumptions about me being for shit?”

Kathleen frowned. “What are you talking about?”

He spun toward her, angry now. “I’m talking about the fact that people have been deciding who I am without my consent from the day I came out of the womb. About the fact that every time there was a fight in kindergarten, they assumed it was the drug addict’s kid. Every time someone’s lunch money went missing, it was the foster kid. There wasn’t a single girl in high school whose daddy would let her go to prom with me because I drove a beat-up car that I bought on my own. Fuck, even in the military, people got it in their heads that I was the loose cannon to keep an eye on.”

Kathleen’s eyes had gone soft, and she rested a hand on his arm. He checked the urge to shake her off, but barely. It was more than he’d ever said out loud, to anyone, and he felt uncomfortably exposed.

“I know you’ve had a crap time of it,” his sister said gently. “But you’re so strong. You’ve never let it bother you.”

“Yeah, well, this time it bothered me,” he grumbled.

“Why?” Kathleen pressed. “Why with
this
woman did her lack of faith cut so deeply?”

This time he
did
shake his sister off, as he circled, feeling like a caged animal. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

“Damn it, Kathleen!”

“Damn it, Jason!” she shot back.

He opened his mouth to roar at her, but instead he let his hands drop to his sides. He lifted his palms helplessly, only to let them drop once more. “Because she mattered, okay? She mattered a hell of a lot, and I wanted her to just . . . believe. To trust.”

To love.

Kathleen came to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, trapping his arms against his side. “I know, big brother. I know. I want her to have trusted you, too. But to play devil’s advocate, did you ever give her any reason to believe that there wouldn’t be a woman fresh out of your bed on a Sunday morning?”

“What do you mean?”

Kathleen pulled back. “I mean, did you ever tell her that you cared enough to stop your whole playboy act? Did you ever tell her you loved her?”

“I didn’t say I—”

His sister held up a hand. “Please. Don’t insult either one of us by denying how you feel about this woman. You have creepy pictures all over your computer screen, and come to think of it, you’ve barely gone out with a single woman since that whole fiasco last year.”

Jason shook his head, indicating the topic was closed. He hadn’t had time to think about how he felt about what happened between him and Leah in the Hamptons. Hadn’t had time to register the pain of realizing that she’d walked out on him again.

And that he’d let her go without explaining. Again.

He shoved that last thought aside. Just because Kathleen was determined to shove pesky thoughts into his head didn’t mean he had to pay attention.

“I need to work, kid,” he said, putting a hand on Kathleen’s head and ruffling her hair. “We’ll discuss this later.”

“Yeah. Sure we will,” she said with a snort. “Okay, fine. Work. I’ll make us sandwiches, and then I’m going home for a much-overdue nap.”

Jason settled back at his computer, trying to lose himself in his work, and succeeding, mostly, save for the jolt he got every time Leah’s red hair appeared on his screen.

Did you ever tell her you loved her?

He didn’t love her. Hell, they’d only dated for two months.

And yet it had only taken one weekend for everything to come rushing back. One fucking weekend, one night, really, for him to realize . . .

Shit.

For him to realize that she was the only one he wanted.

Jason made a fist and rammed it against the arm of his chair. His sister was right. He was a moron.

Sure, Leah had jumped to conclusions, but it was the exact same conclusion every other woman would have made, because he would have
wanted
them to. He’d spent his entire life making sure that women knew that he wasn’t a one-woman kind of guy.

It had been different with Leah, but how would she have known that?

He sure as fuck hadn’t
told
her.

Jason slumped back against his chair and swore softly as he tried to sort everything out. He dimly heard noises from the kitchen as his sister made what was apparently the most complex sandwich on the planet.

Heard a knock at the door, and his sister’s chipper “I’ve got it!”

He barely registered any of this until he heard Kathleen holler for him. “Damn it, Jason. Get your ass out here now!”

He was so deep in troubleshooting mode that it took him a second to register the urgency in his sister’s voice, and he was out of his chair in a heartbeat.

Only he moved too fast. His bad knee that was okay most of the time twisted, sending a shooting pain radiating down his leg. “Fuck,” he muttered, as he half ran, half limped out into the hallway. “What is it? You okay?”

Kathleen was staring at him wide-eyed. She pointed to the open doorway. “Go.
Now
.”

He frowned. “What?”

“Go!” she said, jumping a little in her urgency. “Don’t let her get away again!”

Her? Who was her?

It hit him then. A sickening sense of déjà vu.

Her
was Leah.

Leah had come by. She’d wanted to see him.

The surge of joy was snuffed out almost immediately by the realization of what Leah would have seen. Not only was it another woman opening the door all over again. It was the
same
woman. Only this time, she was clearly pregnant.