Rhapsody (The Bellator Saga Book 5) (6 page)

“Think I got it, thanks.”

Natalie patted Caroline’s leg. “That’s because you’re super smart. Try to stop getting hit on the head, okay? And let me know if you have any more headaches like the one last night. I’m hopeful they’ll go away, but you never know. If they become a problem, we’ll find a way to deal with them.”

Caroline slid off the examining table. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

“If you need to call, you know where to find me.”

She spontaneously gave Natalie a hug. “Thanks.”

It was past midnight and Jack rolled over on the couch. He couldn’t sleep. The day had gone by slowly, with Caroline barely speaking to him on the walk back from the infirmary. He couldn’t tell whether her silence was caused by indifference, anger, or fear, and wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. She’d picked at her dinner again and said a weak goodnight immediately afterward.

He was normally restless, more so lately, and the old piece of furniture he was lying on didn’t make it much easier to relax. The door to his bedroom was open a crack and he thought he heard a noise coming from inside. He padded into the room. The lamp in the corner was lit. Apparently Caroline no longer liked the dark, because according to the staff she’d flipped out every time they turned off the light while she was in the hospital. He saw her flailing on the bed.

“No,” she mumbled, her face tightening. “Stop. Please stop.”

Jack touched her shoulder. “Caroline, wake up.”

“No, please,” she whimpered. “Please stop. Don’t hurt them.” She curled up in the sheets and started to scream.

Watching her like this was unbearable. He laid down next to her and tried to shake her awake. She continued to thrash, kicking away from him.

“Caroline,” he said, stroking her face. “Sweetheart, wake up.”

Suddenly, unexpectedly, her eyes flew open. She stared at him, her entire body shaking. Sweat was pouring down her face and she was breathing far too fast. She started wriggling in his arms.

“Get away from me!” she screamed. “Get away!”

He pulled her tighter. “It’s Jack. You’re safe. It’s just a dream.” He whispered into her ear, doing his best to think of soothing, comforting words, hoping she’d come to her senses. After a few moments she seemed to realize where she was and grabbed his shirt and leaned against his chest.

“Breathe, sweetheart,” he said. “Big deep breaths. Come on, now. Calm down.”

He could feel her heartbeat returning to its normal cadence. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “Jack?”

“It’s okay, Caroline. You were having a nightmare. Take a deep breath. Exhale. Again. Good.” He kept his arms wrapped around her until she gazed up at him and repeated his name again. “I’m right here,” he said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She closed her eyes, tracing her fingers along the stubble on his jawline. “Monty,” she whispered.

Jack wasn’t sure what it was that made him tip her chin up. He reminded himself that he was supposed to have boundaries. That she should come to him. That he wasn’t supposed to try a damn thing, even if he could practically taste her desire. He could see the passion in her eyes. The heat. The longing. He heard the desperate way she spoke her pet name for him. Her terror had faded, replaced with a refreshing blend of emotions he hadn’t expected.

Just one kiss. It wouldn’t hurt anything. They both wanted it. It would make her feel good. Make them both feel good.

“Caroline,” he said softly, and brought his lips to hers.

His confidence hadn’t been completely restored. Not yet. He half expected her to stop him but she pulled him closer. The kiss was gentle. Loving, but firm. He kept going and soon his kisses were insistent. He wanted more. Needed more. He teased her with his tongue and heard her moan his name softly. Fuck, there was no way he could stop after that. Her lips parted and his tongue merged with hers.

It was as if no time had passed. Their bodies fit together perfectly as they lay side by side, and he drew himself on top of her, starting to get aroused. Not that it took much anymore. He generally sported a raging hard-on the instant she got near him.

“I love you,” he said. “God, I miss you so much.” He caressed her neck, trailing kisses along her jawline and toward her collarbone.

She curled her fingers up in his hair, her eyes closed, softly calling out to him, caught up in the moment. Her voice was like music. She clung to him and his kisses grew deeper, stronger, more intense. Almost by reflex, he slid a hand under her shirt. But when he drifted his fingers up her abdomen and felt a jagged scar under her ribcage, he knew he’d made a mistake.

Caroline froze momentarily before speaking. “Stop.” She shoved him in the chest. “Don’t.”

Jack rolled to the other side of the bed. He’d tried not to picture what those men had done to her when she was being interrogated, afraid his imagination would be worse than reality. She’d been slashed open and crudely stitched back together like a rag doll. He seriously underestimated her captors’ depravity and didn’t want to think about what else she could be hiding. He swallowed hard, trying to focus on the positive. Although whatever had happened between them in the past few minutes appeared to be crumbling apart. 

She was shaking like a leaf. Dammit, he’d really fucked up. He reached for her, wanting to provide her some measure of comfort. “Did I-”

“Don’t start,” she said. “What the hell was that for?”

He paused. “We were kissing. You weren’t exactly stopping me.”

“Well, I’m stopping you now.”

Jack ran a tired hand through his hair. Goddammit, she ran up and down so fast he didn’t even know what he was doing anymore. It didn’t matter that trying anything had been a terrible idea. He’d done it and there was no going back.

“I was half asleep,” she said. “You took advantage of me.”

Now, that was an unfair accusation. But he couldn’t let his temper get the best of him. Not yet. “You pulled me toward you. You whispered my name. You kissed me back. You wanted it as much as I did.”

Caroline drew the covers around her. “Please leave,” she said icily.

He was done with leaving things unresolved. “No. You’re not going to be alone.”

“Fine. Then stay as far away from me as possible.” She turned and scooted as far away from his side of the bed as she possibly could, wrapping herself in the covers again. “Good night,” she mumbled.

She was going to make it as difficult as she could, wasn’t she? “Caroline-”

“Leave me alone,” she said. “You can stay in here but that’s it.”

Jack flopped down on the pillow next to her and lay there brooding. After a few minutes he could hear the unmistakable sound of her crying. Amazing how quickly his anger could fade, leaving only the guilt behind. He sat up and placed a hand on her back. “Sweetheart-”

“Leave me alone! Just leave me the fuck alone.”

She kept saying that like she was trying to convince herself that she could make a go of it on her own. “Please, Caroline. I want to help you.”

“No!” Her voice was tearful. “Leave. Me. Alone.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” he said, his voice breaking. “You shouldn’t be doing this by yourself.”

Caroline rolled over to face him. “I don’t want you to be the one helping me. How much clearer do I have to make it? Get out.”

He knew she was tired. He knew she was scared. But dammit, those words wounded him more than they should. Jack sat up, cradling his head in his hands and rubbing his eyes. He sat there for a moment, feeling completely and totally useless.

“Okay,” he said quietly, and stood up and left the room.

Jack was cranky the next morning. Sleeping on the couch had left him sore and annoyed and he’d tossed and turned most of the night. At some point in the early morning, Caroline closed the bedroom door. He didn’t bother checking on her when he awoke. In fact, he had little desire to see her at all. She emerged from the room shortly before noon. Evidently she hadn’t slept all that well either. She also hadn’t expected him to be there and when she saw him she started to turn around.

Oh, that was how she was going to play it. “Are you going to avoid me all day?” he asked.

“If it works for you, it works for me.”

“It hasn’t ever worked for me, but my opinion doesn’t seem to matter to you.”

Caroline made a face and sat on the couch. “Okay,
Commander
.” She used the term as a pejorative. “What would you like to talk about?”

He glowered at her. “It’s hard for me to have a conversation with you when you speak to me that way.”

“How else am I supposed to act? I can’t believe what you pulled last night.”

He felt his temper rising, the same way it had the night before. “I didn’t
pull
anything. I kissed you. You responded. You
liked
it. And then you acted like I assaulted you. Don’t rewrite what happened.”

“You shouldn’t have done it.”

Was there anything he was allowed to do anymore? “Then I’m sorry. I’ll try not to express my feelings for you. I’ll try not to care. I’ll let you scream your head off when the next nightmare comes and you can thrash around in my bed for hours while I sit by doing nothing. I won’t comfort you, I won’t hold you, I won’t calm you down, I won’t do anything to show you how much I love you. Is that what you want?”

Caroline didn’t say anything, but shifted so she was facing away from him. How goddamn fucking predictable. He could set his watch by her behavior.

“Well?” he asked. “Is it?”

She remained silent, and something snapped inside of him. Jack seized her arms. “Is this what it takes to get you to respond to me?” he asked. “Grabbing you? Scaring you? Intimidating the hell out of you? Is that how Morton treated you?”

“Don’t talk about him,” she said.

Of course she wouldn’t want to talk about her dead boyfriend. Well, fuck her. Just thinking about them together sent his stomach churning.

“No,” Jack said. “I’m sick of walking on eggshells around you. You’ve been raging at me for months and all I’ve wanted is to hold you, talk to you, let you know how much I’ve missed you. You’ve tried to hurt me as much as you could, pushing me away, making it clear to me that I am worthless…maybe even less than worthless in your eyes. You give me these bits and pieces of you then yank them away again. You’ve been shutting everyone out, but I’m the one you seem intent on hurting the most. Why is that, Caroline?”

She tried to shake him off. “I don’t have to tolerate this kind of treatment. I’m leaving.”

Answers. He deserved answers. And he’d keep pushing until he got them. The die was cast. “The fuck you are.” He held her tighter. “Did you like it when he touched you?”

Caroline closed her eyes. “Don’t do this, Jack.”

“Why? Because the memories hurt?” She tried to get away from him, but he dug his fingers into her arms. “Look at me,” he snarled.

She shook her head back and forth. Oh, she thought that would work? That she could act like a petulant child refusing her medicine? Enough of her games. Enough of her avoidance. He’d reached his breaking point.

“Goddammit, look at me!” he yelled.

She flinched and her eyes flew open, but she didn’t say anything. Fuck it, he was diving in. She was going to know what she’d put him through.

“Did you whisper his name into his ear?” Jack asked. “Murmur to him while he kissed you, caressed you, made love to you, worshiped you? Did he stroke your scars, tell you how beautiful and brave you were, how remarkable you were, how it felt to be inside you? Did his hands explore you the way mine did?”

Her lip trembled. “Stop,” she whispered.

“No,” he said. “I won’t. Did he move with you, fuck your brains out and leave you begging for more, give you everything you ever wanted? Did he make you wet with the sound of his voice, bring you to your knees, cater to your every fantasy, taste you, make you wail with desire?”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “Please stop.”

God, was she thinking about Morton? She was. She had to be. What else could she possibly have going on in her mind?

“No,” he repeated. “You have to hear this, no matter how much it hurts. Tell me, did he do anything to make you feel like the woman you are? Or was he rough, uncaring, unfeeling? Did he soothe your nightmares or let you scream yourself to sleep? Was he kind, generous, and giving, or did he throw you away? What did he do for you, Caroline?” He couldn’t control himself anymore. His reactions were not his own. He started shaking her. “What was it he gave to you that allowed you to do and say all those things with him that you refuse to do with me? What does he have that I don’t?”

Caroline hung her head. “What do you want from me?”

Jack released her and leapt off the couch. “I want you to
let me in
. You’ve been here for months, avoiding me, yelling at me when I confronted you, telling me all the horrible things you possibly could in order to push me away. Every time I tried to get you to let me in you pushed me away again. What have I done to make you detest me as much as you do? Do you want to be completely alone? Is that it? Do you want everyone to let you collapse inside yourself, wasting away until there’s nothing left?”

She wiped her face. “Why do you care?”

Did she mean to imply that she didn’t deserve his affection, or that he wasn’t capable of giving it to her? “Because I
love
you. That has never changed.”

Caroline rose to face him. “You want to know why I cared about Gabe? Because he helped me when no one else did. He risked his neck so I could live. He never gave up on me. He nursed my wounds and held my hand. He committed himself to me in a way that he never had to, because he knew it was what I needed and he’d seen what I’d gone through.”

Jack glared at her. She couldn’t have made it any clearer. She thought he was a jackass. But he damn well wasn’t going to let her get away with implying he didn’t love her. “Say it, Caroline. Say what you mean. You’ve used all these euphemisms, made your snide little comments, but you’ve never said what you really wanted to say since you got here. Spit it out.”

She scowled at him, fury in her eyes. “I knew Gabe would never leave me, unless it was involuntarily. But you wouldn’t know about that kind of commitment. Would you, Jack?”

He expected the accusation but it still hit him harder than he anticipated. Every planned response he had laid out in his head flew out the window. For all her glaring, all her yelling, all her silent, seething wrath directed at him, he had never, ever expected to hear her voice come out the way it had. Her tone was filled with an unforgiving anger that was not easily repaired.

Be careful when you ask for the truth. You just might get it.

Jack backed away from her. “You told me to leave.”

“I know what I did.”

She sounded so cold. Like it didn’t matter. “That night in the woods, you were mad, you were insane, and I saw the fear in your eyes. I had never, ever seen you look at me like that before. And I had no inkling what to do when you told me to go on alone.”

“You knew exactly what to do,” Caroline spat. “You
ran
.”

He locked his eyes on the floor. Hell if he was going to look at her. “You told me to leave,” he repeated.

“I remember.”

Didn’t she realize what was happening? What she was saying? Did he sound as lame as he felt? “You told me to leave!”

“Yeah, and I thought I was dying too,” she said. “Funny how that worked out. I spent a lovely few weeks being tortured and almost killed in a federal prison while you got to mosey on to Canada without me.”

There was no going back now. They couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle. Jack paced in front of her, furiously jerking on his hair. “You told me you’d never forgive me if I didn’t go without you. And you meant it. You know you meant it.” He couldn’t keep himself from bellowing at her. “And it was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do but I
did it anyway
.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You did something all right.”

*              *              *              *              *

Caroline clenched her fists, resisting a very strong urge to hit Jack. His pretending to be clueless, his heated demeanor, his attempts to tear her apart by reminding her what it was like when he touched her.

And that prison. That horrible, awful place. The Fed. The place she tried so hard to forget but could never block out. Those endless days and nights with nothing but her fear and despair. He had to know what he had done wrong. How could he not?

“You can’t blame me,” he said, before she had a chance to speak. “I did what you wanted me to do. You forced me to go.”

“I can blame you for anything I damn well want to.”

Jack looked like he was struggling for breath. Poor dear. “You can’t – I did what you wanted,” he said. “I didn’t want to do it. But you told me-”

“I remember what I said,” she interjected. “I knew I was dead weight. I knew I was useless. I knew you were the only chance we had left.” The volume of her voice rose to match his. “But you told me you’d come back for me, you fucking bastard.”

The anger climbed up her throat, like a powder keg ready to blow. And she couldn’t stop it, not anymore. Caroline was teetering on the edge of her emotions. He’d lied to her. Over and over again. He’d lied to her in the forest and he’d lied to her for months, oblivious to the damage he’d done.

“You told me you’d come back,” she said, her voice breaking. “Why didn’t you come back?”

Jack closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Another self-serving apology. Her rage consumed her and she moved toward him, her vision blurred by her tears. She blindly swiped at him as he put his hands over his head. “You promised me! You promised me you’d come back!” she screamed. “I waited and waited and waited for you and you didn’t come back.”

Jack lifted his head up. Of course he wouldn’t say anything. What could he possibly say? Caroline pounded on his chest, punctuating her words with her fists. “I spent weeks in that wretched place, holding out the slimmest of hopes that you would find me, that you would rescue me, that you would save me, that you would do whatever you needed to do to get to me, and you
never came
.”

“I did what you wanted me to do,” he said softly. “I didn’t know.”

“You promised me.” She couldn’t pretend to be strong anymore. Her voice was a whimper, muffled against his shirt. “You promised me you’d protect me.”

Jack let her beat against his chest until she collapsed against him. “Caroline,” he said. “I didn’t-”

How many times could he apologize? Could his suffering even compare to what she’d gone through? Her resentment bubbled to the surface and she pushed away from him, reaching up to slap him across the face as hard as she could. He stumbled backward and turned away from her, holding his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Sorry wasn’t good enough. He still had his sharp mind. His perfect face. His unscarred body. He had his
life.
He could try to convince her that she belonged in it but she knew better. Her hands trembled but her voice was clear. And trembling hands could still be used as weapons. “You fucking asshole! I hate you. I really hate you.” She ran at him again, pushing and punching at him as hard as she could, wanting to hurt him, wanting to hear him cry out. “I hate you!” she shrieked, tearing at his shirt.

Jack wrapped his arms around her. She tried to squirm away but he held on. “You don’t hate me,” he said.

Forever arrogant, he was. “I do.”

He slackened his grip and pulled her chin up. His eyes were red. There was a small trickle of blood running down from the corner of his lip, but he made no move to wipe it away. She’d hit him harder than she thought.

“You don’t hate me,” he said. “You couldn’t.”

“I do.” Caroline shoved against his chest but he stood firm.

“You don’t.”

Presumptuous, insufferable asshole. She wanted to wipe that conceit off his face forever. “Fuck you,” she said, and reared back to punch him.

At first she thought he was going to put his hands around her throat. That sure as hell looked like what he was going to do. But instead he placed them securely around her wrists.

“You can keep trying to push me away, Caroline,” he said. “But I’m not going to let you do it anymore.”

She squirmed as he attempted to pin her arms at her sides. Fucking bastard. She deserved to get a few more shots in. It was only fair. “Let me go!”

“Not until you calm down. You can rage and scream and attack me all you want, but you will never make me believe that you hate me.”