“I don’t want to discuss my father.”
“The prison has a law library, Landis. And I had a lot of time on my hands. I was working on my defense, but you never left my mind. I was able to get the name of Reece’s ex-partner.”
“You were out of line.”
“I made some calls, asked him to visit me.” Jack had spent the better part of a year researching Reece McAllister, piecing the newspaper stories and court transcripts together until he’d had a picture. A very dark picture that explained a hell of a lot more than he’d ever imagined. “He agreed to talk to me.”
“He had no right.” Landis stared at him, her expression stricken. “And you have no right to dredge that up now.”
Jack stepped toward her. “He told me about the times your father came home drunk, bragging about the money. He told me about the kind of company he kept when he was off the clock. He told me about the time he put your mother in the hospital. The times he put his hands on you. About the times he used his fists on you and your brothers.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with what happened between you and me.” Landis tried to turn away.
Jack snagged her arm and forced her to face him. “You were just a little kid. But you saw the scum that came to the back door in the middle of the night, didn’t you, Landis?”
“Stop it.”
“You worshipped the ground your father walked on, didn’t you? He was your hero. But he walked that thin line, didn’t he? A line you’ve learned to fear because you know a betrayal is right around the corner, don’t you?”
Wrenching free, she backed away, looking like a trapped animal. Jack tracked her, refusing to give her a respite. For the first time his temper stirred. He was furious with Reece McAllister for the terrible scars he’d left on this woman. Scars so terrible and deep, she would rather be alone than risk opening her heart to another human being. To a cop she thought walked the same dark line as her father.
“Reece McAllister was a dirty cop, wasn’t he, Landis? A dirty cop with a drinking problem and mean streak. He gave you a taste of that mean streak a time or two didn’t he?”
“My father is dead. He doesn’t matter anymore.”
“He broke your wrist when you were in third grade,” Jack said bluntly. “Because you got a bad grade in math. The scar on your knee is from the time he pushed you down the stairs for waking him from a nap. But he was still your hero, wasn’t he?”
Her eyes darkened, and Jack knew she was remembering. He saw the agony of it in her eyes. A child’s unconditional trust torn from an innocent heart.
“He called it discipline,” Jack continued, “but Reece McAllister stepped over a line. He took away your childhood. He took away your trust.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation.”
Staring into her shimmering eyes, Jack saw the injured girl she’d been. An innocent child desperately seeking her father’s love and approval only to find herself facing the kind of pain no child should ever have to bear. A little girl who’d been betrayed in the worst possible way a child could be betrayed.
“You were nine years old when the cops came for him in the middle of the night. When they handcuffed him and took him away. You were eleven when he hung himself in his prison cell.”
Her face had gone sheet white. She stared at him, her eyes stricken, her expression accusing. “How dare you dig into my past?”
“I needed to understand you, damn it.”
Tears spilled over her lashes and ran unchecked down her pale cheeks. For a moment, she stood vacillating, staring at him as if he’d just pulled the rug out from under her. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” she whispered. “But none of this changes anything.”
“It changes plenty for me.”
“I’m the same person I was before.”
“But at least now I understand.”
Hugging herself as if from a sudden chill, she turned from him and crossed to the opposite side of the room. “I couldn’t control any of the things that happened to me when I was a little girl. It’s like I was riding in a car that was barreling out of control and all I could do was hang on and hope the crash didn’t kill me. I couldn’t control my father or what he did. What he did to my mother and my brothers.”
She turned to him, her expression fierce. “I swore that when I grew up, no one was ever going to hurt me like that again. I swore I would be in charge of my own destiny. I didn’t even realize it at the time, but it boiled down to control. I controlled every aspect of my life. My education. My career. My relationships. Everything.” She searched his gaze as if looking for something vital, something that eluded her no matter how badly she wanted to find it. “I could control everything,” she said, “except you.”
She crossed to him, her steps halting, her expression uncertain. “I couldn’t control you, Jack. I couldn’t control my feelings for you. When I met you, it was as if you were a drug, and I was a junkie and I couldn’t get enough. I found myself willing to risk things that were important to me just to be with you. I lost control of my life.”
A fissure of tension went through him when she lifted her hand and touched his face. He endured the contact silently. But his heart raged in his chest, a beast anxious to be released from its cage. He could feel the sexual pull to her, an uncomfortable heaviness in his groin. The heady pound of blood. The clench of tension in his shoulders and neck. The need winding up inside him.
He looked down at her, keenly aware of her hand trembling against his cheek. He hadn’t expected her to touch him, and his resolve to do the right thing faltered. He wanted to say something that would snap both of them back to their senses, but his mouth was so dry he didn’t trust his voice.
“On the outside, you might walk a thin line, Jack. But on the inside I know where you stand. I know you’re nothing like my father. I just don’t know where that leaves us.”
“The same place we were before,” he said roughly. “On opposite sides of the fence. It has to stay that way.”
But he didn’t move away when she stepped close and put her arms around him. His world rocked when her body came gently against his. The contact shocked his system. Vaguely, he was aware of his arms going around her, the softness of her body against his. Her scent titillated his senses, and he closed his eyes against a rush of longing, a hot burst of lust.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” she whispered.
Jack couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so overwhelmed with emotion—or felt so wrenchingly vulnerable. When he was a kid and had been lost in the foster home system, he hadn’t had any control. Over what had happened to him. Over what he’d felt deep inside. He felt that same lack of control now, and it was scaring the hell out of him. He knew they were tempting fate by getting this close. He might be a risk taker, but putting his heart on the chopping block for a fate that could be cruel was something he had no desire to partake in. If only she didn’t feel so damn good against him…
“No matter what happens, I’m going to keep working on your case,” she said. “I’m going to get you out of this. I’m going to help you. I’m going to keep digging until I find the evidence that will exonerate you.”
Even though the hotel room was chilly, Jack broke a sweat beneath his flannel shirt. This wasn’t working out the way he’d intended. Her closeness was getting to him in a way he didn’t want to pursue. In a way that would hurt them both if he didn’t stop this right now.
“As much as I want to make love to you,” he growled, “I think we both know it would be wrong for us to let this go any further.”
“Maybe it would be even worse not to see where it leads us.”
“For God’s sake, Landis, I’m a convicted murderer. I’m on the run. I can’t let you ruin your life.”
“I’m not sure which of us you’re trying to convince.” She shifted against him, ran her fingers over his shoulders. “But it’s not working.”
The intellectual side of his brain told him to pull away. Before
things went too far. But the side of him that was a man—a man who’d been alone for a very long time—longed to touch her, to hear her sigh, taste her mouth, feel his body encased within her heat.
“Landis, where I’m going I can’t take you with me….”
His resolve faltered when her mouth brushed against his. For the first time he sensed real danger. Not from some outside threat. But from within himself because he knew if she touched him now he wouldn’t stop.
He hated it that he was the one who was falling apart. He’d wanted it to be her. But, God help him, she was standing so close, he could feel the warmth of her quickened breaths on his face, the softness of her breasts against his chest. He could hear the rush of blood in his veins, a freight train barreling down treacherous tracks toward an inevitable crash.
Heart pounding, he eased her away just enough for him to look into her eyes. But if he thought looking into her emerald depths would help him do the right thing, he was sorely mistaken. Because it was there that he saw his fate. He felt the truth of it stab him like a steely knife.
“I’m not going to do this,” he whispered without conviction.
“Neither am I,” she said and pressed her mouth to his.
Landis had always thought of herself as a level-headed creature. She’d always prided herself on her capacity for good judgment without emotions or impulses muddying things up. She valued her ability to stay cool under fire. They were the qualities that made a good lawyer. Qualities she’d cultivated and honed since the day she’d decided to go into law.
It was the ultimate irony that those qualities ceased to exist when it came to Jack LaCroix.
She was starkly aware of the wet, satiny texture of his mouth as he kissed her. Her breasts grew heavy. She could feel the pang of arousal in her womb. The wet heat between her legs. And an ache in her heart that didn’t have anything to do with any of those physical sensations.
“You make me lose control.” Never taking his eyes from hers, Jack lifted her hand and pressed her palm against his erection. Shocked by his boldness, she tried to tug her hand from his, but he held her palm firmly against his shaft.
Heat flooded her when he drew her hand slowly over the hard ridge of him. He was like heated steel beneath her fingertips. She could feel the pulse of him beneath against her palm. She could feel that same heat pulsing through her body to gather in her breasts and pool in her womb.
“This is your last chance to change your mind,” he whispered.
“I’m not going to change my mind,” she said.
Cupping her face with his hands, he dipped his head and crushed his mouth to hers. His lips were firm and demanding and infinitely clever as they devoured hers. She marveled at the scratchy feel of his whiskers against her face, the warmth of his breath against her cheek, the restrained urgency she felt in his touch.
She opened to him when he probed her mouth with his tongue. She entwined hers with his, loving the taste of him. His breaths came hard and quick, filling her senses with the sound of male need. Heat built inside her, burning her until she felt feverish. Until she felt herself melting like hot wax beneath a desert sun.
Even as the voice of reason screamed for her to stop and protect herself from the inevitable hurt this man would bring her, Landis tightened her arms around him. Right or wrong, she wanted this time with him. He filled something empty inside her no other human being had managed to touch. And it was a void that had ached every day he’d been out of her life.
Breaking the kiss, Jack pulled away just enough to make eye contact. Landis stared at him, shocked by the power of the emotions inside her, the intensity of the things happening to her body.
“I’ve dreamed of touching you like this.” His fingers combed through her hair, skimmed her face and throat, lingered on her shoulders. “I love the way you smell. I love the way you taste. I love the way your skin feels against my fingertips.”
She leaned close, brushed her lips across his mouth. “I’ve dreamed of kissing you like that. Of hearing your voice in the night. Of feeling you against me and knowing in my heart everything is going to be all right.”
He began unbuttoning his shirt. Even though his hands shook, his gaze never faltered. “I can’t make any guarantees, Red.”
“Maybe not. But of all the crazy things that have happened in the last year, this is the only thing I can make sense of.”
She hadn’t realized it was possible to feel so many emotions at the same time. She felt besieged by them, pulled in a thousand different directions. The memories of the way things had once been between them raced through her mind. But all of it was tempered by a future that was uncertain at best. Suddenly she wanted to cry out against the injustices that had been cast upon them. By fate that wasn’t always fair. By choices that hadn’t always been smart. By a system that wasn’t always perfect.
Jack removed his shirt, let it fall to the floor at his feet. Landis lowered her eyes, stared at the broad span of his chest where a thatch of black hair tapered to the waistband of his jeans. Her heart pounded against her breast when his fingers went to his belt.
The need to touch him overrode caution. She skimmed her hands over muscles that were as hard as granite. A shudder went through him when her fingertips traced over his nipples. She could feel the tension vibrating in his muscles as she ran her hands over his abdomen, then lower to his belt. “Let me.”
She struggled with his belt buckle for several eternal seconds, but her hands were shaking so badly, she couldn’t finish. Gazing intently at her, he set her hands aside and unfastened the belt, then his fly. The muscles of his chest rippled as he worked his jeans down over lean hips and stepped out of them.
The sight of him completely naked and fully aroused unnerved her, thrilled her, sent a shiver of anticipation through her. Without speaking, he took her hands in his and backed her toward the bed. Landis started when the backs of her thighs came in contact with the mattress. Eyes burning into hers, Jack reached for the lapels of the robe. “I want to see you. All of you.”
Landis began to tremble. Lovemaking had always been difficult for her. The vulnerability involved with the act itself unsettled her. The power of the emotions involved disturbed her. That Jack could so easily steal her control terrified her….
The terry cloth whispered over her nipples as he slipped the robe from her shoulders. A tremor raced the length of her as it puddled on the floor at her feet. Her nerves jumped when Jack’s eyes swept over her. She felt his gaze as if it were a physical touch, warm fingers skimming over her flesh….
She didn’t miss the darkening of his eyes or the rigid set of his mouth when his eyes latched on to hers. “You’re more beautiful than I remember,” he said in a thick voice.
Landis had never seen his emotions so visible on his face. She’d always known he was an intense man, but he’d never shown her this gentle, vulnerable side of him and it moved her profoundly that he would share it with her now.
She jolted when he raised his hand and swept a strand of hair away from her face. Embarrassed by her overreaction, she laughed, but the sound was fraught with nerves.
A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “I guess I’m not the only one who’s nervous.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone,” she said. “Since you.”
“A year is a long time. Maybe we’re both a little out of practice.” Gathering her into his arms, he pulled her to him and kissed her. She thought she’d been prepared for the onslaught of pleasure, but nothing could prepare her for the hunger of his kisses. She accepted his tongue, opened to him. Her thoughts tumbled inside her head until she could no longer form a single, rational thought.
A gasp escaped her when he cupped her breasts. She jolted, then arched when he took her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Dizzy with sensation, she closed her eyes. Never taking his mouth from hers, Jack swept her into his arms and laid her on the bed. Vaguely, she was aware of him lying down beside her. Of
her breaths coming hard and fast. Of her heart beating out of control.
She threw her head back when he kissed the hollow of her throat. His mouth lingered at her collarbone. A shiver swept through her as he trailed wet kisses to her breast. She cried out when he took her nipple into his mouth. Another cry escaped her when he flicked the engorged tip with his tongue and began to suckle.
Landis writhed beneath his ministrations, shocked by the intensity of the sensations streaking through her. Anticipation coiled tightly inside her, a high tension wire stretched to the limit. Dazedly she wondered how she had survived for an entire year without this man. How she had gotten through a single day without his touch.
She wanted badly to touch him, but every time she tried to move, his mouth besieged her with a new sensation that had her muscles tensing and then going slack. A shudder ran the length of her when he traced kisses from her breasts to her navel. She could feel the wetness of his mouth heating her flesh, teasing her with the promise of something forbidden and sweet. A keen sense of vulnerability made her tense when he moved lower, but he didn’t stop.
“I want all of you,” he whispered. “Let me kiss you there.”
Landis had never shared that part of herself before. Had never been able to bear the vulnerability of it. A shiver moved through her when he set his mouth against her mound. He kissed her softly, and sensation vibrated through her. The power of the pleasure stunned her; the intimacy of it shattered her. She cried out when his tongue slid between wet folds. Every nerve ending in her body zinged when he stroked her. Thoughts fragmented and splintered and her control tumbled away.
He kissed her with a ravenousness that took her quickly to the peak. Pleasure washed through her, a wave cresting higher with every stroke of his tongue. Sensation assaulted her senses. The intensity of it wrenched a cry from her. She heard his name on her lips, realized she’d called out his name. Jack answered in kind, kissing her deeply, stroking her, never giving her a respite.