Shifting in my seat, I turned down the road to Devon’s house.
Jack took a deep breath beside me and leaned his head back against the seat. His hands dropped together between his jean-clad thighs, causing them to spread slightly and bump against my knee.
I jerked and ground my teeth.
“Sorry,” Jack murmured and pulled his leg away again.
I flicked my eyes over to his closed ones and didn’t miss the small quirk of his dimple.
Devon was looking at me from across Jack, all innocence, with his brows cinched up and arms folded.
“So, how long are you in town, Devon?” I asked, my voice steady and conversational.
He smiled. “For a while, actually. I’m producing a movie in Savannah that Jack will be starring in, so this should be home for a while.”
My heart thudded. I glanced at Jack then back at the road. “That’s great. Good for you. Both.” So he came back for a movie, not for me. Of-freaking-course, Keri Ann. Seriously, I could be a dumbass sometimes.
And why should that bother me, when I didn’t want anything to do with Jack? I glanced back at Devon, ignoring Jack’s eyes on me. “Gosh, well, if that means scenes like tonight are going to become the norm, you better find some groupies to take your drunk asses home. Coz I’m not doing it.”
Devon snorted with laughter. “Monica would have my hide.”
“We’re not drunk,” was all Jack said quietly.
I pulled into Devon’s driveway, shifting the gearstick into park, and turning down the music. No, no, no, no, I will never forget came the lyrics from the radio. Instantly, I was hit with a wave of longing. Longing to go back to the beginning with Jack.
Devon thanked me and opened the door. He climbed out, and after a nod at his cohort, closed it behind him.
I whipped my eyes to face Jack. “What the …” My words trailed off as Jack leaned in toward me, his scent, his Jack scent that I remembered so well … pine … soapy … clean, surrounded me.
My pulse raced.
The truck’s headlights reflected off the white house in front of us, slicing across his eyes, making them glow. A deep green forest floor, sucking me in.
“Jack—”
Our air mingled. Mine were quick shallow breaths un-synched with my starving need for oxygen and reality.
“You think I’m only back because of the movie in Savannah, don’t you?”
I licked my lips nervously, and nodded.
Jack’s eyes followed the movement.
“I begged,” he whispered. “I pleaded, and I sold a little more of my soul to make it happen.” His mouth tilted up into a grimace.
“I don’t understand why you’d do that, Jack.”
“Yes, you do.” He leaned closer, and his arm came up to brace on the driver’s side door. “Seeing me whisper in that girl’s ear tonight bothered you, didn’t it?”
“No,” I managed.
“Liar. Do you want to know what I was telling her?”
I shook my head. “No, definitely not.”
The truck suddenly went still and silent as he turned the ignition off, then he shifted his body closer, sharing my air and not leaving enough for me. His hand went around the steering column and flicked the headlights off.
We were plunged into darkness.
I swallowed. It was a deafening sound. Every other sense went into high alert. Closing my eyes, there was no point in keeping them open, I felt his rough fingers skate up the column of my neck setting my nerve endings ablaze. His lips were close, close enough to taste again, if I just leaned forward a little. I resisted.
My mouth watered.
Fingers danced over my cheekbone then slid behind my head. I felt the gentle tug of my ponytail being pulled free, and my hair tumbled down around my ears.
Jack inhaled, breathing me in. “God,” he murmured.
I knew I should stop him, stop this, but for a moment I just wanted to … feel again.
A thumb pad brushed down over the pulse beating wildly in my neck, and I let out a breath that hitched without my consent. I was thirsty for Jack’s mouth, but I refused to close the miniscule distance.
“How can you tell me this isn’t real?” Jack whispered, his words caressing my mouth. Then his tongue flicked gently across my lower lip.
Oh God.
A small sound escaped me. I should have stopped him sooner.
“This is as real as it gets, Keri Ann. This is Technicolor, when everything else is black and white. This …” His hand trailed down over the exposed skin of my chest then brushed over my dress and the tip of my breast sending shock waves through me. I arched into his hand without meaning to.
Damn my traitorous self.
His hand didn’t stop, but floated down my belly to my thigh, and I tensed, my mouth pressed tight to keep my reactions in, trembling on the edge of a place where my pride would cease to exist.
“This …” he continued and began bunching up my dress in his fist and drawing it up my thigh, “what we have … is extra-sensory overload … where everything else is a silent fucking movie.”
I panted out a breath then jammed my jaw shut.
My dress glided up. Heat pooled low in my belly. It was intoxicating. Would anything in my whole life ever feel this way? I’d been numb before he’d touched me and numb since he’d been gone. I wanted to sob with the injustice of it.
How could I not want to be with him and want to be consumed by him at the same time? I wanted to be back on that bed underneath him, the way he’d looked at me as if I was his salvation. His benediction. His release.
But I knew why I didn’t want it. I’d lose myself in him.
“This,” I managed just as his hand released my bunched up dress and landed hot on my bare upper thigh, sending waves of sensation cascading over my skin, “is just lust.” Grabbing his face between my hands in the pitch dark, I closed the distance and slanted my mouth over his, sliding my tongue into his delicious mouth.
Jack groaned deeply, and his fingers on my thigh dug in.
He tasted so good. So … Jack. His face was hard and rough beneath my fingers, his mouth soft as he let me in, kissing me back gently, not responding to my aggression. So I kissed him harder, wanting to punish him for doing this to me. Wanting him to take over for me, make it so it wasn’t my fault we were here again. Make it so it was him kissing me, and I wasn’t willingly doing this.
This was so messed up.
His gentleness and his refusal to respond to my fierce need did me in. And made me crazy. I pulled my mouth from his, our erratic breathing reverberating around the interior of the vehicle. I struggled to shut down my body.
He was heavy as I pushed at him in the pitch black, moving him away from me.
Turning in my seat, I flicked the truck lights back on, and the light sloshed over the heated moment like ice water.
“Get out of my truck, Jack.”
“What?” His voice was ragged, but I refused to look at him.
“You heard me. Get. Out. I can’t do this with you. I won’t. How can you even expect me to? How can I even want to?”
Jack blew out a harsh breath and adjusted in his seat. Silence and unspoken words stretched out, wending their way around the truck, sliding into all the available space between us and pressing me back into my seat with their weight.