Under My Skin (Stark International Trilogy 3)

“Yup,” she confirms, then shoots out of the room like a rocket.

Jackson watches her go, and I watch Jackson. When he turns back, he catches me eyeing him, then smiles sheepishly. “It’s hard to believe sometimes,” he says. “That she’s really mine, I mean.”

I think about the little girl’s dark hair and blue eyes. Her cleverness coupled with a vibrant personality and fierce determination. “Not hard to believe at all.”

I had hoped to coax a smile, but still he just looks sad.

“There was really nothing?”

“I promise.” I must look dubious, because he continues. “The police aren’t going to release names. Not until an arrest. Or until it drags on so long they feel like they need to get ahead of a leak.”

“And you know this because of your vast experience in the criminal underworld?”

“Years of watching television,” he corrects. “But you know I’m right.”

I nod. It makes sense. Plus, the police don’t yet know everything. As far as I’m aware, they know only about Jackson’s determination to block the movie. The blackmail and Ronnie’s existence remain hidden.

That, however, doesn’t lessen my fear. Because if—no, when—those come to light, it will look worse for Jackson.

“Are you okay?” I ask. It’s a stupid question, and it hangs there, as awkward and inadequate as I feel.

He shakes his head, just a little. “No,” he admits. He brushes his fingers lightly over my cheek, his attention on my face, his eyes searching mine. At first, he looks lost, but that soon changes as heat and need build in his eyes. Both are directed at me, and neither is a question. There is no permission to be granted, no request to be made. He simply slides his hand around to cup the back of my neck and pulls me toward him, then captures my mouth with his.

I open to him without hesitation, not just my lips, but my entire body. I am his, wholly and completely, and however he needs me.

He deepens the kiss, his tongue teasing and tasting. His mouth hot and desperate against mine.

We didn’t make love last night, too exhausted from both travel and the emotional whirlwind. Too wrapped up in seeing family and spending time with Ronnie.

And that is part of why I now expect more than the wildness of this kiss. I expect the crush of his hands upon my breasts. An explosion of breath as he pushes me back on the mattress, then rises to slam the door shut and flip the latch. The shift of the mattress as he returns, and the sound of ripping cotton as he strips me of my panties.

I anticipate the feel of his body over mine. Of my wrists bound tight by his T-shirt that I wear in lieu of pajamas after he yanks it over my head and uses it to constrain me.

I imagine the tightness in my inner thighs as he roughly spreads my legs, and the quick burn of friction as he enters me hard in one thrust and then loses himself to this wild passion that he needs. That he craves.

I expect all this because I know him. Because his world has spun out of control, and Jackson is a man who not only needs control, but who takes it. He is not a man to be swept up in the tide, battered by the rise and fall of circumstance. He fights back. He wins. He takes.

I channeled control into sex.

He’d told me that once. And he’s shown me as much many, many times.

And yet he doesn’t come to me. He doesn’t take. He doesn’t claim.

Fear slithers over me as he releases me, then stands. He doesn’t meet my eyes, but simply turns and moves from the bed to the window, then drags his fingers through his hair.

“Jackson?”

He doesn’t react. He simply stands there, his back to me, his shoulders slumped. And I am certain that he didn’t hear me, because how could he? Right then he is miles away, not just a few short feet across the bare wooden floor.

The table is in front of him. My coffee and toast are still there, untouched. He pushes the tray aside and opens the curtains, letting in the morning light.

We are in Betty Wiseman’s house, Ronnie’s maternal great-grandmother. The family is well-to-do, but this New Mexico home is a small getaway, a “mere” five thousand square feet. Jackson and I are in one of the guest rooms that overlook the back of the property. The view I’d seen yesterday evening was magnificent—the rocky, rising terrain of the mountains, dressed up in their fall colors. The verdant grasses and evergreens. The browns and reds of stones and foliage. And, of course, the vivid blue sky, so wide and resplendent that it seems to slide into and fill your soul.

But from where I still sit on the bed, stiff and awkward and just a little scared, I see only a small section of the covered patio and a view of the side of the house. I’m not at the proper angle to see the beautiful panorama that Jackson is looking at right now. Instead, our perspectives are entirely different, and that small reality eats at me.