Assumed Identity(57)

“I’m still here, Jake. I’m in one piece. I think you must have some kind of post-traumatic stress. I know you didn’t mean it.” He silently cursed the face reflected in the mirror above the empty fireplace. But Robin came right after him. She pulled his hand back to her cheek and turned her face into his palm. “I’m not any part of your nightmare. I’m real. I’m now.”

With that much of an invitation, his fingers inevitably wound into the silky waves of her hair. “I wish I could remember. The doctors said with an injury like mine, the memories sometimes never come back.” The moon outside filtered through the windows, casting a cool light over her beautiful face. “I wish I knew if I was a good guy who deserved you, or some murdering S.O.B. you need to be running from.”

“I can’t imagine what that’s like, to have lost so much of yourself. But I do know this. To me, you’re Jake Lonergan. You’re the man who saved my life and my daughter’s. And that makes you a very good guy in my book.”

“But what if—”

She pressed her fingers over his lips and cut off his argument. “No what-ifs. Only certainties tonight, okay? Maybe you’ll never get your past back. But you have the present. And you have a future. A man gets to choose who he wants to be every day of his life. Decide who you want to be right now. Choose to be a hero. Choose to be with us. Forget about whether or not you killed someone, whether you did it out of self-defense or... Oh.” A pink blush stained her cheeks as she pulled her hand away with an apology. “Forget was a poor choice of words but—”

Jake cupped her face between his hands, pulled her onto her toes and kissed her. Hard. She tumbled into his chest and he kissed her again. “I get it. I choose you.” He thrust his tongue into her mouth, surrendering to her stubborn faith in him, claiming the compassion and understanding she gave. “I choose here. Now.”

Her lips chased after his, parted, welcomed. He took anything she offered, and damn, the woman was generous. She braced her hands against his chest and curled her fingertips into his skin, igniting ten hot spots of desire that fed the need simmering deeper inside him.

“I need you, Robin.” One more kiss and his body was just as hot as it had been during the throes of that nightmare, but in a very different, much more pleasurable way. “I need to hold on to you. And reality.” She nodded, understanding, and Jake swung her up into his arms and carried her back to the sofa. “I need you.”

“Yes.”

The single word was a gift he didn’t deserve, but one he needed to hear as he laid her on the overstuffed cushions and slid on top of her. His jeans and shorts were uncomfortably tight and he couldn’t help but rub against the juncture of her thighs. She held on to his neck and kissed his throat, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, fueling the fire that was already burning dangerously beyond his control.

Jake pushed up the hem of her shirt, running his hands over her smooth skin, exposing her pretty breasts to the moonlight and feasting his eyes on the tight, rosy peaks. “I need you to keep the nightmares away.”

“This is you and me. We’re real. I want—” He closed his hungry mouth over her breast, suckled the pebbled tip against his tongue and she bucked beneath him, gasping his name.

Oh, damn. He’d hurt her.

“It’s too much, isn’t it. Too intense.” Denying his own raging need, he pushed himself up, carefully pulling his body away from hers. “You don’t have to do this. I can take a cold shower.”

“Don’t you dare.” With a determination that shouldn’t have surprised him, Robin pushed him against the back of the sofa and climbed into his lap. She straddled his arousal and reached for the hem of her pajama top, stripping it off over her head and shaking her hair loose around her face as she tossed the shirt aside. She was the most glorious thing he’d ever seen. “I need you, too. I’ve been on my own a long time, Jake. It’s hard to be alone—even if you can manage it. And I’ve never been drawn to anyone the way I’m drawn to you.”

He groaned at the need pulsing through him and fisted his hands on the couch. “I haven’t been with a woman since... I can’t remember.”

She reached for his hands and placed them over her breasts, showing him with her body that he hadn’t hurt her at all. “Then we’ll rediscover how it’s done—together.”

There were no more words and not nearly the finesse this woman deserved. In a flurry of bumping hands and stolen kisses, they shed the rest of their clothes. He found a condom in his go-bag and she rolled it onto him. Jake palmed two handfuls of her round, beautiful bottom and lifted her over his lap, nudging at her entrance before pushing into her tight, welcoming heat.