Smooth Talking Stranger (Travis Family #3)(66)

Afterward, I lay quiet and trembling in jack's arms, feeling the hot slick of him between my thighs. I turned my face into his chest. My body felt heavy with satisfaction, tender as a fruit ripened to full-slip sweetness.

"Rest," Jack murmured, pulling the covers over my na**d shoulders.

"Can't," I mumbled. "Downstairs. The babysitter . . ."

He kissed my hair. His voice was a stroke of raw velvet. "Just for a few minutes. I'll watch over you."

Burrowing against him, I dozed gratefully.

In a while, I blinked and stirred, filled with the dreamlike awareness that something had changed. Me. I felt uncertain, undermined, and yet it was a strangely good feeling.

Jack was propped up on an elbow, staring down at me with surprising gravity. One of his fingers came to trace the edge of my smiling lips. "That was the best I ever had, Ella. There's not even a close second."

I closed my eyes as he traced the wings of my brows. And I reflected that the difference between good sex and mind-blowing sex had been a quality of attention I'd never gotten from Dane. Jack had been wholly absorbed in me, intensely focused on my responses. Even now he touched me as if the contact between our bodies was a language all its own. His caressing fingers moved down to my throat. "Your skin is so soft," he whispered. "And your hair is so silky. I love the way you feel . . . the way you move . . ." His thumb ran slowly along the edge of my jaw. "I want you to trust me, Ella. I want every part of you. Someday you're going to let go with me."

I turned my face into Jack's hand, pressing a sideways kiss in his palm. I knew what he meant, what he wanted, and I didn't know how to convey to him that it wasn't possible. I would never be able to lose myself entirely in lovemaking—there was a guarded center to my personality that no one would ever be able to reach. "I just had sex with the light on," I said. "For God's sake, isn't that enough?"

He laughed and kissed me.

Even sated as I was, the feel of his mouth against mine was enough to start me simmering. Settling my palms on the angles of his shoulders, I followed the rises and curves of solid, efficient muscle. "I saw you with Ashley tonight at the party," I told him. "She's very beautiful."

Jack's mouth quirked without humor. "That fades the more you get to know her."

"What were the two of you talking about?"

"She's bitching to everyone about her problems with Pete."

"That's her husband? Was he there?"

"Yeah. They seemed to be doing their best to avoid each other."

"I wonder if she's been unfaithful to him," I mused.

"Wouldn't be out of character," Jack said dryly.

"That's sad. But it justifies what I've always thought about marriage: you can never promise to love a person forever. Because everything changes."

"Not everything." Jack eased back onto the pillows and I stretched against him, settling my head into the crook of his shoulder.

"Do you think she loved you?" I asked. "I mean, sincerely loved you?

He sighed tautly. "I don't know if there was ever any love on her part." He paused. "If there was, I ruined it."

"Ruined it?" I sensed this was territory that had to be navigated with care, that remnants of pain, or regret, were still part of the landscape. "How did you do that?"

"When Ashley left me for Pete, she told me—" Jack broke off with an unsettled breath.

I climbed over him fully, draping myself over his hard, furry chest. "Trust works both ways, Jack." I reached to the ruffled disorder of his hair and slid my fingers through it gently. "You can tell me."

Jack looked away from me, his profile as hard and perfect as a face on a new-minted coin. "She said I wanted too much. That I was demanding. Needy."

"Oh." I knew that to a man with Jack's pride, that was about the worst thing a woman could say to him. "Were you?" I asked in a matter-of-fact way. "Or was Ashley trying to put all the blame on you for the fact that she cheated? Because I've never been a big fan of the look-what-you-made-me-do defense."

The tension eased from his body. "Ashley sure as hell never took responsibility for anything. But the truth is, I probably was a pain in the ass. I don't do things half-measure, including falling in love." He paused. "I have a possessive streak."

He seemed to believe he was telling me something new. I bit the inside of my lower lip to keep from laughing. "No kidding," I said. "The good thing is, jack, I have no problem telling you where to draw the line.

"I noticed that."

We stared at each other as smiles started on both our faces.

"So," I said, "after Ashley cheated on you, you spent the next several years scoring with every woman in sight, to show her what she'd missed out on."

"No, that had nothing to do with Ashley. I just happen to like sex." His hand slid down to my bottom.

"No kidding." I rolled away from him with a gasp of laughter and hopped out of bed. "I need a shower."

Jack followed readily.

I stopped short as I flipped on the switch in his bathroom, an immaculate well-lit space with contemporary cabinetry and modern stone vessel sinks. But it was the shower that left me speechless, a room made of glass and slate and granite, with rows of dials and knobs and thermostats. "Why is there a car wash in your bathroom?"