was about to do.
She pushed the bedroom door open silently and he followed behind her.
The room was still pink, her sheets still white, just as they’d been when she was a girl, but all of the pictures and posters had been taken down and there were boxes stacked in the corner. Two lone pictures had been stuck to the mirror. One of Betsy with two friends with the Statue of Liberty in the background, and one of Betsy with a man. They were standing behind an array of pastries, both of them with a certain glow to their cheeks. Accomplishment. Camaraderie. Something else Jack didn’t want to name.
Betsy reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck again and he looked away from those pictures of another life, turned his mind away from the questions that bubbled up inside him. If he spoke, he knew the spell over them would shatter.
It was the right thing to do, to stop this before it went any further, but Jack was tired of the right thing.
Even though it was on the tip of his tongue to tell her she didn’t want this with him and all of the reasons why:
That he was broken.
That he was ugly inside and out.
That he had nothing to give her.
That even these moments would only be a hungry shadow of what she deserved.
He said none of them. Instead he kissed her. Jack crushed his mouth to hers and he wasn’t sure if it was because he needed to taste her again or if he was punishing them both.
Her for making him feel, making him want, and himself for not being able to deny the pull between them.
She melted under the onslaught, her body molding against his. There was no shy confession from her, no demure invitation like before. She was bold, her hands moving under his shirt, over his chest, his shoulders, his back.
While scarred, he knew that part of him was well made and pleasing. He was strong; he had to be to lift himself. He could lift her, too. Jack remembered that was something Betsy had always liked, to be picked up. To be shown that her curves weren’t too much for a guy to handle. To be reassured that petite wasn’t the only definition of sexy.
When he would have hauled her up and wrapped her legs around his waist, she was too busy tearing his T-shirt off him, her fingers on the button fly of his jeans.
Stark terror coursed through him and he stumbled away from her.
Because she’d see. The ugliness would be right there in her face. There was no hiding it under a pant leg; there was no pretending he was whole.
What the hell had he been thinking? It was the middle of the day, the sun high overhead, and there was no darkness for him to hide in, no shadows.
His dick withered at the thought. He couldn’t let her see.
Yet his eyes were drawn to her mouth, the rise and fall of her chest as she struggled to catch her breath.
She still didn’t speak but turned her back to him and pushed her hair to the side, exposing the zipper on the back of her dress. Betsy stepped out of her vintage shoes and nudged them out of the way with a stocking-covered foot.
Everything about her was seductive, every gesture and every breath.
Against his will, he found himself drifting toward her, his hands on her zipper, sliding it down the length of her back. He drank in the sight of her creamy skin, her bra and panties a splash of delicate pink lace against perfection.
He pulled her back against him hesitantly, his arm around her waist, and fastened his lips to the swan arch of her neck. Even her skin tasted sweet. If he thought he was broken before, Jack knew she was going to wreck him.
He could still stop. He could pull away from her; he could—
Betsy drew his hand up from her waist to cup her breast. He could do none of those things because he was lost in the undertow. Instead of drowning in the dark, he was drowning in her, in the inky black waves of her hair, in her creamy skin. He never wanted to surface; he wanted to fill himself up with her until there was nothing but Betsy.
She was warm, safe—she was all things good.
Until she tried to turn in his arms again.
“I don’t want you to see,” he confessed in a harsh whisper, sure that the spoken words would rip like daggers through the haze of need over them.
Betsy turned anyway and for a moment, he thought there would be pity on her face, but there wasn’t. Her dark eyes were half-lidded, her lips swollen from his kisses, and she was the embodiment of desire.
“There’s so much you don’t want, Jack. Tell me, what is it that you do want?”
“To stay lost in you,” he answered honestly. “But I haven’t touched a woman in two years.”
“What about yourself? Have you touched yourself?”
“Bets—” He was torn between being even more turned on that she asked, that she thought of him like that, and the shame that he hadn’t had the desire since his injury. He couldn’t stand to look at himself, let alone bring himself pleasure.
And the whiskey...he was surprised he could maintain an erection.
“This isn’t going to be good for you.” Another confession torn from him. He meant for more than the here and now, more than just fleeting bliss he might have been able to offer once upon a time, all those years ago.
Her hands slid down to his button fly again. “Yes, it will. You’re good at everything. You’re Jack McConnell.”
When her fingers closed over his length, he still had his doubts. “This is going to be over before it starts.”
“And yet it still will have happened.” She tilted her face up to his and feathered another kiss across his mouth. It was nothing like his cruel mastery, but it punished him all the same.
“Why do you want it to?” He breathed against her lips.
“Because if all we have is ashes, we should at least get to burn in the fire.”
He could understand that, process it. Her words made much more sense than the idea that she actually wanted him. He didn’t know where things had gone wrong for her, but obviously they had if all she had to do on a Sunday afternoon was him.
She was right. They both wanted this and it didn’t matter that he wasn’t whole, that he couldn’t spend hours worshipping her body, bringing her off time and again, even though he wished he could. This was about the moment, about burning to nothing. About feeling something more than pain.
For all that he thought she didn’t understand, with that simple sentence, he knew that she did.
If she could lose herself in him the same way he could be lost in her, he could give her that.
He tangled a hand in her hair and surrendered.
* * *
BETSY DECIDED THAT was nothing compared to what it was like to have his hands on her body, his mouth on hers, and the sure knowledge that she’d finally experience this with him. It was the culmination of a fantasy, of a schoolgirl crush, but it was something more, too.
This joining was a haven against everything wrong in the world, against all their shattered dreams.
It was only right that the first time would happen in this room where she’d spent so many hours dreaming of him. Of course, when she’d imagined giving herself to him, it was all fey bubbles and breathy sighs. He’d been kind and patient in her fantasies—gentle and tender.
The reality was nothing even close to that. His hands were rough and calloused, his kisses were more like a battle than a seduction, but it was still everything she wanted because it was real.
She angled him back on the bed, still stroking him. Betsy didn’t want him to think about anything other than how good this felt.