Missed Connections (25 page)

I’m going to sleep well tonight.
I smile.

Him: I should be going too.

Me: All right. Good night.

Him: Good night.

I disengage and take a long, long bath. I cannot believe I just had cybersex with a coworker. But when I brace myself for the shame that should follow, nothing happens. Blake made me feel too good for me to make myself feel bad about what just happened between us. It’s strange being so uninhibited and intimate with someone I haven’t even kissed.

But amazing too. It’s a whole new layer, a type of intimacy I’ve never had before, and I want more of it. Am I really in love with someone I’ve never kissed?

Yes, I really think I am.

So strange that this is my reality.

I’ve dried off and applied lotion when someone knocks on my door. Damn it. Who the hell is that at this hour? Thankful for my fluffy robe—which covers a hell of a lot more than a towel would—I pad over to the front door and peer through the peephole. As soon as I see his face, I throw open the door.

“Jack?”

He shakes his head and slumps against the door frame, eyes focusing on the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Did someone die? “Tell me what’s wrong. Is Pete okay?”

“Pete’s fine.” His voice is raw.

“Then what? You’re scaring me.”

He just shakes his head.

“What happened?” He doesn’t resist when I pull him inside my apartment and close the door, locking it behind him.

“There are things I have to tell you. Things I’ve done that I’m not proud of. You have to know I’m not this type of person. I’d never normally do something like this.”

This isn’t my Jack. The Jack Devine I know is strong, cocky, fun, and alive. He doesn’t stand like he’s defeated and look like this.

I step closer and wrap my arms around him, expecting him not to respond, but he clings to me, coming alive at my touch. Did he sleep with someone else? I’ve been in an online relationship while we’ve been seeing each other and didn’t tell him. He doesn’t owe me an explanation. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, Jack.”

He pulls back and strokes my arms and back like he’s memorizing my body. “Sarah, I needed to tell you—” He’s struggling to find the words.

“I’m here.” I’m the worst person in the world. Because I love Jack as a friend—and as way more than a friend. I’m awful because my body is still warm from what Blake and I did earlier, but Jack’s eyes are breaking my heart, and the only thing in the world I want is to make him feel better, to take away the stark loneliness in his expression. By any means possible.

“Sarah, I’ve done—”

“It doesn’t matter. That was the past. This is now.” Maybe it’s to assuage my own guilt at not telling him about Blake. All I know is that I can’t stand Jack hurting.

His eyes close when I palm his cheek and stand on my tiptoes to kiss him gently—so gently it’s more the idea of a kiss breathed against his mouth.

“I can’t find the words now,” he admits, his words almost lost against my lips.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to. Let me make you feel better, baby,” I murmur.

He gasps as though a live current zings through him at the endearment. His hands knead their way down my back and cup my ass as his kiss grows deeper, more urgent, aggressive, and I respond in kind.

Jack always knows just how to touch me to drive me crazy, to drive all other thoughts from my mind. As if I can absorb him if we are close enough, I press our hips together and wrap my arms tightly around him. Why is it never enough?

He scoops me up and holds me close, walking us through the hall and into my room. He sets me on the bed and keeps his gaze on mine while undoing the belt of my robe, parting the material to reveal my naked body. The shivers that dance across my skin are as much from the cool air as from the expression on his face.

“I’m going to make you come harder than you ever have before.”

I’m supposed to be making him feel better, but there’s no way I’m going to protest that. I nod.

Bathed in the glow of the light spilling onto my bed from the hallway, Jack decorates my skin with kisses and caresses. With each kiss, the broken sorrow in his eyes fades until it’s just me and my Jack in the room, his pain no longer the third party driving us together with dizzying intensity. His caresses turn from gentle to passionate, and soon he’s lighting my skin on fire with ruthless pleasure.

Shrugging out of my robe, I sit and he lets me strip his shirt from him, unbuckle his belt, unzip his jeans slowly. His throat is warm beneath my kisses, his chest warmer under my tongue. With a few sensual movements, he’s moved me up the bed and stretched out beside me, spooning my side, giving his hands access to
everything
.

His hands, his mouth, his eyes treasure me and claim me. He touches me like I’m his, and oh God, I am, but there’s a tension humming through his movements that makes me want to show him how much.

I reach over him and grab a condom from the nightstand and roll it down his cock. Kneeling over him, I position him right where I want him. The fleeting thought of Blake and my earlier actions flits through my mind but disappears as I lower myself onto Jack and watch his expression change as I push down, impaling myself on his hardness. He moans and grabs my hips, holding me in place as though us just being locked together like this is all he wanted.

“Do you feel that? How perfectly we fit together?” He pushes up and I gasp and nod, unable to form words. I trail my hands all over his abs and V-muscles and up his chest.

His gaze singes my skin. “What feels better than this, Sarah?”

“Nothing,” I moan.

His lips curl into a dangerous smile, and with firm pressure, he guides my hips around, proving me wrong.

Nothing feels better than
this.

I lean down and kiss him. Then I begin rocking up and down, back and forth. His hands roam all over my hips and thighs and breasts. Soon, I’m unable to maintain the slow pace, and my hips start circling wildly as I pump up and down, bracing myself on his shoulders, on the headboard, on the wall when he tells me to go harder.

He thrusts his hips up as I push down, cock rubbing a place inside me that slams my eyes shut and throws my head back.

“God, Jack, you feel so good.” My moans would be embarrassing if I didn’t feel so fucking right with him inside me.

He flips me over and drives into me hard, harder, and the sensation of new places being rubbed from inside makes my thighs tense as I brace myself. But his fingers find their way between us, and there’s no way to brace for the depth of the pleasure he pistons into me. “Who makes you feel good?”

I moan his name, pull him down to me for a kiss, bite his lip, and suck his tongue while I come. He stiffens and pounds into me a few more times before pulling me up so I’m sitting on his lap, moaning and shaking and smiling with him still inside me.

He grinds his hips in tight circles, drawing out my orgasm. My hips twitch and my belly flutters as he wrings every bit of sensation he can from my body, and when I don’t think I can take any more, he stiffens and comes.

“I’ve missed you,” I whisper.

“I’ve missed you so much.” He holds me tight, but the urgency that brought him to my door has eased, and I’m glad—though still curious.

After, we lie there under the covers not talking, taking in what happened. I’m still waiting for him to talk about what brought him here tonight. I don’t wait long.

He flips onto his side so we’re facing each other. “What are you most scared of?”

The usual glib comments—clowns and so on come to mind—but I answer with the truth since he’s trying to open up to me. “Something happening to my family. The people I love.”

“Because of your dad?”

Each of my dad’s heart attacks has been scarier than the last. “Yeah. You’d think they’d get easier to deal with because we’ve been through this already. He’s recovered every time and been okay. But it’s not like that at all. Every time it feels worse, like he’s a cat using up his nine lives, and
this time
will be the last. Like there are only so many narrow misses we can have.” And how it’s mostly because of stress that his heart’s bad. Whose heart will I break before this is over?

Jack presses a kiss to my forehead and snuggles me closer.

Death is final, but it’s not the only thing I worry about with my loved ones. “But not just them dying. I worry about Pete too, especially after that asshole followed him from the bar.”

Jack clenches his teeth. “I still can’t believe that happened.”

“I had a nightmare the other night that I hadn’t followed the guy out of the bar. That I hadn’t gotten in his way and forced him to stop following Pete. I—”

“Wait, you got in his way?”

Oh, right. I’d left that part out that night when I told him what happened. “Yeah.”

“Sarah, what if he’d hit you, hurt you?”

“I wasn’t even thinking about myself. I was trying to help Pete.”

He clutches me close. “God, you’re amazing. And reckless. And the best friend my brother could ever ask for, though he doesn’t even know it.”

“I never want him to know it either. As a woman, I get it. We’re taught not to walk down dark alleys. Don’t go out too late when you’re alone. Don’t let your guard down around strangers. Hold your keys like a weapon. Don’t leave your drink unattended. Always be ready to fight. Even when we’re okay, there’s always that awareness in the back of our minds that we could be attacked.

“Pete’s a guy, so he wouldn’t have that—but because he’s gay, if he runs into bigots, then he’s extra vulnerable. And if he’s walking around worried that someone’s following him to hurt him for something he can’t change?” I shake my head. “I don’t want him feeling that. Knowing what happened—what almost happened—at the club that night will do absolutely no good.”

“He’s been in some situations like this before, but not for years. Not since we were in school. The world’s a better place than it was even a few years ago. Or I thought it was.”

“All the more reason to let him feel like that’s firmly in his past.”

“I agree.”

He’s always been Pete’s protector, looking out for him, defending him even when Pete has no idea. How many other fights has Jack gotten into that Pete never knew about? Jack’s like Pete’s personal superhero, working from the shadows to keep his twin safe. I kiss his cheek, liking the way he’s letting me in. “What about you? What are you scared of?”

He stares at the ceiling. “Time.” He takes a breath like that revelation was taxing.

“You’re afraid of dying?”

“No. I’m worried that my time will run out before I get to do the things I want to. Not getting the chance to experience things I need to. The funny thing is, I haven’t even discovered what most of those things are yet.”

“So you’ll need time for that as well.”

“Exactly.”

Was that part of what freaked him out so much tonight? He got to thinking about time and how we’re all just zooming along in our lives, and it got to be too much for him all at once? Maybe he almost got in a car accident. He needed me to distract him for a while from the ticking of the clock in his mind. “Then I’m glad you’re wasting some of your time with me.” I kiss his nose.

“Time with you is never a waste. Lately it’s the only time that makes sense to me.”

His words creep from his lips into my heart and squeeze. Unable to speak, I kiss him again.

Chapter 28

My head hurts, and I have no appetite. Probably because I’m stuffed with the guilt of leading Blake and Jack on and not making a decision. Blake is usually the one I talk to about my problems, so it’s weird that my first inclination is to talk to him to sort this out, because I can’t.

Nor can I continue to drown in pleasure with Jack. It makes me feel amazing at the time, but when he’s gone, I crash and feel like crap again. And since Jack has been opening up emotionally, and Blake and I connected sexually, things are more confusing than ever.

Maybe we can move to a commune and all be hippie, happy lovers? Somehow, I don’t think Blake or Jack are polyamorous. I wonder if cheating is genetic. Either way, that’s no excuse.

“Are you planning on doing any work today, or are you going to just sit there looking stupid?”

“Excuse me?” Disbelief that Phyllis would say this at all, never mind in front of two clients in the waiting room, disintegrates any snappy comeback.

“You heard me.”

“I don’t feel like this is a discussion to be having right now.”

“Whatever.” She looks at her client. “Come right on in, Steph.” Steph follows Phyllis into her room, and the door closes.

What the hell? I try to compose myself and not make a scene in front of the remaining client, but I can’t handle this today. “Meryl? Will you come with me? I’ll get you settled into a room for Ziggy.”

Meryl follows me with a small smile. She’s one of Ziggy’s regulars, a regal, elderly woman who, Naomi told me, wears fur coats if the weather dips below fifty-five degrees, which I take to mean Meryl comes from money. That, and she’s got a boy toy, though he’s in his late fifties himself.

“Ziggy will be right in.”

“Sarah?”

I turn back to her. “Yes?”

“Don’t let her push you around. And don’t trust her as far as you can throw her either.”

“She’s not all evil. I think.”

Meryl laughs. “Girls like her never change. I’ll say no more. But I like you. You’re a hard worker and a lot nicer than the other girl they had working the desk.”

“Thank you.” This time I don’t have to force a smile. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that today.”

She pats my shoulder, and I leave the room. She’s right. Screw Phyllis—she was supremely unprofessional, and I’m going to talk to Ziggy or Fern about it the first chance I get. Grin-and-bear-it time is over. Fern saw the other day that Phyllis has an attitude with me. Maybe if I tell her about this, she’ll understand that wasn’t an isolated incident and Phyllis will get put on probation or something. It’s too much to hope that she’d be fired outright, but I can’t see Fern letting go of something that could potentially cost the business money. Phyllis and Fern seem close, but Fern cares about the business.