Ultimate Fear (Book 2 Ultimate CORE) (CORE Series) (23 page)

“I’m sorry if I’m holding you up,” she said, then ran the water from the sink. “If you need to get out, it’s not like we haven’t seen each other naked.”

What the hell kind of crap was she pulling? He ran his head under the water and finished rinsing the soap from his hair. She’d been the one who in no way had wanted to spend the night stuck in a hotel room with him. She had been the one who’d been adamant about how they’d work out the sleeping logistics to ensure there would be no touching of any kind. And now she encouraged him to step out of the shower buck ass naked.

He’d just spent the past twenty minutes deciding he was a lecher and kicking himself in the ass for placing her in an uncomfortable situation. Now she acted as if hanging out in the bathroom together was an everyday occurrence. He shut off the faucet. Fuck it. Whatever game she was playing, he was going to call her bluff.

He shoved the curtain aside and reached for the towel on the rack. She’d already turned off the sink tap and was facing in his direction. “What are you doing?” he asked, toweling off his body.

She pointed to her left eye, but stared at his erection. “Just getting that eyelash out.”

“What are you doing now?”

She drifted her gaze up his chest, touched on his mouth, then met his eyes. “Sorry, I’ll get out of your way and let you finish.”

After she closed the door behind her, he stood there for a moment trying to figure out what the hell just happened. When he came up empty on answers, he wrapped the towel around his waist and approached the mirror. What he needed was to locate his good energy, and soothe the frustration and confusion messing with the pragmatic part of his brain.

What you need is to make love to your wife.

He used the hand towel to wipe the steam from the mirror. Wait. How could Jessica have used the foggy mirror to take care of her eyelash issue? Had she been lying? Was she playing a game, teasing him, testing him? He didn’t know. And now he didn’t know what to do.

Question her, or let it go?

Closing his eyes, he searched deep within himself for an answer. Searched for the happy place that normally calmed him and set him at ease. The clarity he sought eluded him. In its place was Jessica. Naked. Her legs spread, her arms open and inviting.

Letting out a breath, he gave up and finger combed his hair, then without bothering to dress, he kept the towel at his waist, grabbed his bag and left the bathroom. “It’s all yours,” he said, dropping the bag on the floor.

“Why aren’t you dressed?”

“Because I thought you might want to shower, too. If you don’t, and would rather wait, I’ll go back in and—”

“No. You’re fine.” She pushed off the bed and came within a few inches of him. “I know it’s a little early for dinner, but I’m hungry. Do you want to get something to eat after I’m done?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” She looked away, yet her gaze kept straying to either his mouth, chest or the towel wrapped around him.

“Are you going to—”

“Yep, on my way,” she said, then went inside the bathroom and closed the door.

“What in the hell?” he mumbled, and shook his head. “Think.” When they were leaving CVS, she’d had uncertainty written all over her face, almost like a deer caught in headlights kind of look. Hell, she’d even considered the thunder and lightning an ominous sign, only now— He glanced to the bed where she’d left her bag, filled with what she’d bought at CVS. Now she didn’t have anything in the bathroom to change into and would be forced to walk out in nothing but a towel.

Shit, he was confused. Was this her way of sending him a signal? That she was game for seduction.

Screw that. He would
not
seduce his wife. He’d spent over three years waiting, hoping, trying to make her see that he still loved and wanted her. That their marriage, her, their life together was important to him. He pulled a pair of black boxer briefs from his bag and stepped into them. Still aroused, he adjusted himself and stared at the closed bathroom door.

Although he refused to try and lure her into bed with him, he could test the water. Grabbing his travel kit from the bag, he went into the bathroom. “Sorry, it’s just me,” he said, mimicking her exact words when she’d interrupted his shower.

“Who else would it be?” she asked with a chuckle.

He grinned and wiped the steam off the mirror. “I need to shave and don’t want to hold up dinner.

Metal slid against metal. He turned and saw her poking her soapy head from behind the plastic curtain. “I like when you let your beard grow in for a few days.”

He set the shaving cream on the counter and faced her. “You do?”

She nodded, then pulled the curtain back in place. “Does Lola?”

Lola?
“I told you I’m not interested in her. I’m only interested in my wife.”

“Yeah, well, I heard your wife was a bitch.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Who’d you hear that from?”

“I’m not sure exactly.”

“What else have you heard about my wife?”

She half-laughed. “Where to begin? Um, let’s see, since someone took her baby, she’s been a little cuckoo, obsessing over not only trying to find her daughter, but anyone else who’s had a child abducted.”

“See, now I admire her for that,” he said, his chest aching, yet filling with more love than he’d ever felt for Jessica. Before Sophia was taken, Jessica used to paint with watercolors. She’d been so damned talented and had loved escaping into her art. Since their daughter had gone missing, she’d stopped painting. Only now she was painting a picture of herself. She was
finally
reaching out to him in her own way. But he didn’t like this self-portrait. “My wife has helped other families. Right now she’s doing her best to stop a couple of serial kidnappers. What else have you heard about her?”

“It’s not what I’ve heard, but what I’ve seen. The woman has aged before her time.”

He dropped his arms and approached the curtain. “I disagree. I’ve always thought she was beautiful. With every passing year, she only gets better.”

“Then we must be looking though different colored glasses.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I think the ugliness inside her has pushed its way to the surface.”

He pressed his lips together and tried to control his temper. “Are you calling my wife ugly?”

When she didn’t answer him, he swallowed hard and took another step forward. He wanted to rip the curtain off the rod and shake sense into her head. However she perceived herself was wrong and a complete distortion of the truth. She was beautiful, inside and out. “Whoever said those things about my wife doesn’t know what they’re talking about. She’s a good person. She cares—sometimes too much—and puts others before herself.”

“She didn’t put you first when you lost—” She drew in a breath and released it on a sob. “When you lost your child.”

He closed his eyes. “I never asked or expected her to put me first. I needed her, but I needed her to deal with our loss
together
.” He opened his eyes and stared at the curtain. Visualized Jessica beneath the shower spray. Naked. Crying. Vulnerable. And so damned alone. “She deals with her grief in her own way, just like I do with mine. Every. Damned. Day.” He clenched his jaw to ward off the tears, to control his anger. “I love my wife. I wish things between us could be different. Do you want to hear something ridiculous?”

She sniffed. “More ridiculous than this conversation? Absolutely.”

He smiled and suddenly felt as if he’d been transported back to St. Sebastian’s confessional booth. Only instead of making up sins that he knew Father Timothy would appreciate, and that would ultimately earn him the penance of saying ten Hail Marys, his confessional had become a shower. “I had secretly hoped my wife and I would end up stuck in this small town and forced to share a hotel room, so I could seduce her.”

“How is that ridiculous?”

“Because I got what I wanted, only now I can’t do it.”

“I told you she was ugly.”

He grinned. “Are you kidding me? Jessica’s gorgeous. Especially when she smiles. Her whole face lights up and her eyes…they’re such a beautiful color. Sometimes brown with flecks of olive, sometime olive with flecks of brown and gold. I could look at them every day and never grow tired of the sight.” He shook his head. “No. I can’t seduce my wife, because I planned to do it for the wrong reasons.”

“And those were?”

“I wanted to bind her to me. Make her remember how good we used to be together. But sex was never an issue. And I don’t want her just for sex.”

“What
do
you want her for?”

God, he wished he could look into her eyes and see into the depths of her soul. But if this was her way of working through their issues, he’d take it. At this point, he loved that they were talking period, and that he could finally tell her the truth. “I want always.”

“Always,” she echoed. “And forever?”

He swallowed around the lump in his throat. She sounded so damned defenseless and unsure it made him ache. How could this strong, proud woman not realize that she was his everything?

“Until the day I die.”
 

Chapter 9

JESSICA HUNG HER head beneath the water and let the tears fall. She’d been so wrong. So very, very wrong. When her daughter had been taken, she’d shut Dante out in order to handle her own anguish and suffering. Would things between them have been different if she’d opened up, shared her pain with him, taken on his and worked as husband and wife, as friends and lovers to piece their lives back together?

She covered her mouth and muffled her sobs. Oh, God. She didn’t know.

When she’d first walked into the bathroom while Dante had been showering, she’d gone in with the intent to discover what he wanted from her. Sex, she understood. He’d made his point clear on the subject enough times. Yet after their stop at CVS, his mood had changed. He’d gone from playful to brooding and she hadn’t understood why. Plus, she’d been down on herself. Hating the way she looked, hating those foreign feelings she’d never experienced before—at least not where Dante was concerned—she’d selfishly wanted to know if he still found her attractive. In the past, he’d never given any sign that she had anything to worry about when it came to other women. Only lately, her insecurities had risen to a new level, and she’d targeted his trainee, Lola, as the root of her self-doubt.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

She bit her lip to keep from crying harder. The only woman she was up against was herself.
She
was the root of the problem. She’d denied him her love in order to deal with her misery. In the process, he’d had to deal with their loss alone. Had she opened up and shared how she felt, maybe their relationship would, even now, be different. She could never forget her baby girl—the reminder was in Dante’s eyes, his smile. He was her human memento and she’d punished him for that.

Through it all, he still loved her.

She’d been such a fool. How could she have allowed herself to deny his love or the strength he would freely give her?

“Did you get sucked into the drain?” he asked. “I’m not good with radio silence.”

Raising her face to the spray, she let the water wash her tears away. “Nope. I’m still here.”

“Thank you for this.”

“For what?” For acting like the cuckoo she’d assumed other people considered her.

“For giving me permission to tell you how I feel about my wife,” he said, his voice ragged, husky and filled with so many unnamed emotions her heart ached.

The curtain moved slightly. She turned her head away from the spray and no longer saw his silhouette.

He’d tossed the ball in her court. But knowing Dante as she did, he’d done so with a clean conscience. He’d admitted to so many things, the grief he still harbored for their daughter, for their marriage…his love for her.

She wanted his love and to openly love him in return. But could she go back and start over again? Could she move into their house and resume their marriage? Damn, she longed to be with him, but the house…it held too many memories.

After shutting off the faucet, she reached for a towel. He’d said several times that he’d be willing to move. If he was still open to the idea, if they made progress on their relationship this weekend, maybe she’d broach the subject and find out exactly how much he was willing to sacrifice to save their marriage.

Before she had them moving and back together, she needed to talk to him first. Face to face this time, rather than hiding behind a curtain as if she were the Great and Powerful Oz.

She finished toweling off, then realized she’d left her bag on the bed. She’d been so infatuated with staring at Dante’s body, she’d forgotten about the stupid bag. No big deal. She picked up a brush from his travel kit and ran it through her hair, then wrapped the towel around her body.

She’d grab the bag, bring it back to the bathroom, change and then sit him down and tell him—what? She loved him. That was a good start. She didn’t want a divorce. Yes, even better.

From there, she’d wing it. Let their dialogue dictate the conversation.

Nervous anticipation fluttered through her belly. Her hand trembled as she reached for the door knob. She couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever and, at this stage, she was tired of hiding period. Her life had been unbalanced for too many years. She needed him to help her find that balance again. She needed the steadiness and stability his love could provide.