“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” He relaxed when her posture softened.
“Thank you. I keep having to pinch myself that I’m here and I’m safe.”
“Believe it.”
His breath caught as she leaned into him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Her arm braced at an awkward angle on the bed and she fell into him. He caught her easily as her face pressed against his. Tentatively he continued the kiss, moving it slightly closer to her lips. His fight with Jack had been three hours ago, but the blood still ran hot in his veins. Desire thrummed through him, but this was Jill. Possibly
his
woman, and he had to take things slowly. He couldn’t fuck this up. She allowed the kiss, turning her lips to meet his more firmly. He’d been lying to himself that Jill was only a woman he was keeping safe and that he’d let her go to find another match when she left. There was a connection between them that was worth exploring.
He kept the kiss slow and gentle not making any moves to intensify it. She had to lead. Their lips made soft wet sounds as they connected repeatedly. He was ready to back off when Jill pulled back slightly, but she surprised him by murmuring that she couldn’t reach him easily. He hoped he was reading her body language right and wouldn’t frighten her off by pulling her onto his lap.
She curled against him and this time she initiated the kiss, even daring to work her tongue into the magic. He forced his body to remain relaxed, but he knew she had to be feeling his erection under her thigh.
Her arms went around him, with one hand landing on the shoulder of his missing arm. Something tense inside him relaxed. Jill might have told him his arm bothered her, but her current body language told him they’d just been words sprung from a place of fear. She’d come running to The Program for safety. Finding herself matched to a man missing a limb had to have been a blow for her. His chest swelled that tonight he’d proven he was strong enough to take on her husband and protect her. She had to know he was stronger than Jack, missing arm or not.
Their mouths stayed fused and he let his hand do a little exploring, first around her back then around her belly just below her breasts. All on top her clothes. He didn’t think she was ready for naked. And they had to take it slowly. They were living together and might possibly be a match. If they took their relationship to the next level and had sex but it didn’t work out, things could get awkward between them. Especially since they were living together. He’d be taking away Jill’s safe house. He wasn’t that much of a bastard that he’d let his dick fuck things up.
But damn it hurt, especially as her hand slid under his shirt and rubbed a gentle circle on his back. For now it was fingertips, but he ached for a future when it’d be her nails raking his skin and her crying out during orgasm. This simple kiss was hotter than all of his sexual encounters combined, and for the first time he understood why his brother and Xander were so gaga for their matches.
The connection was intense.
The very taste of her was seeping into his blood, and it’d be a taste he’d crave forever. His hand wound its way into her hair and he deepened the kiss, tipping her head back to thrust his tongue farther into her mouth. She purred a little from the back of her throat and clung to him. The flowery smell of feminine hair product infiltrated his senses, making him hotter.
For long minutes they got lost in the kiss, blocking the rest of the world out. The sound of male voices coming up the hallway outside his room broke the spell they’d wound around each other. Jill came to her senses first. She scooched off his lap and sat on the navy comforter next to him with a person’s width between them. Her hands fisted in her lap. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have…”
Gently, he turned her chin to face him. “Don’t apologize. That was the hottest kiss.”
A small smile spread across her swollen lips. “Really?”
He nodded.
“For me, too,” she whispered. “Do you think…maybe we
are
a match?”
“Don’t know. Certainly felt like it. Kissed enough times in my life to know there was something special about that one.”
Her top teeth worried her lower lip as she gave him a confession that rocked his world. “You were my second.”
“Your second?” he asked.
“The second man I’ve kissed,” she said. “I met Jack when I was a sophomore in high school. He was a junior.”
He kept silent, sensing she wanted to share. She needed to share.
“He was really popular. He played football and everyone liked him. He was dating a cheerleader before he met me.”
“It’s like a freaking after–school special,” he said, then zipped his lips vowing not to give snarky commentary. She didn’t need it. But she laughed and agreed.
“I know, right? The school loved it, especially our names. His senior year, the yearbook actually did a stupid page with a parody of the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. I, of course, loved it. I thought it was so cool.”
“When did the hitting start?”
She twisted a thread on his comforter and stared at the blank TV. “Not in high school, but the signs were there. He was controlling, you know? I wanted to try out for the volleyball team, but he didn’t want me to. I’d have to miss his football games sometimes since the seasons were the same time. If I were a cheerleader I could be at all his games.”
She gave a gentle snort. “Fifteen–year–old me thought it was romantic that he wanted to be together all the time. It didn’t occur to me that Jack got his way, but I didn’t. It also meant he controlled who I was friends with.”
Rowan nodded and kept silent, listening. He longed to take her in his arms, for she sat stiffly, hurting with the memories, but he knew she had to expunge them before she could move on. “What else?” he prompted.
“He drove me to and from school every day. Even after he graduated. I’d been thinking about getting a job and saving up for my own car, but he’d said not to bother since he could drive me on the way to work.”
“Again, all about control,” he said.
She nodded. “He set up my total dependence on him early.”
“What’d your parents think?”
Tears shined in her eyes. “They liked him. He was polite and handsome and never got in trouble at school. He hid his meanness well, but there were signs. Ask any of the kids he bullied.”
He rolled his eyes. “Like I said, after–school special come to life.”
“The first time he hit me was right after our honeymoon. We’d been living in the house about two days, and I was unpacking some presents. I dropped something and it shattered. He got angry and hit me.”
Jill shut her mouth and got busy staring at the carpet.
“Jill?” he asked. She gave him a side–glance. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start. “I think you should know, you could throw every single thing in this room, shatter it beyond recognition, and I still wouldn’t hit you.”
The beginnings of her smile warmed him.
“I might yell a lot, and I might even cry if you broke my mom’s picture, but I still wouldn’t hit you.”
They both turned to look at the framed picture in the center place of honor on his dresser. “I believe you,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “But you will.” He stood and stretched. “Let’s get some sleep. Driving six hours and beating assholes is tough work. I’m tired.”
She stood. “You take the bed.”
“Nah. I’ll be right back.” He left his room and went down the hall to Gavin’s room. He’d been offered use of an air mattress, and he dragged it back to his room. The sound of running water told him Jill was in the bathroom washing up for bed. She emerged from the tiny room in her pajamas, and he did another double–take at how different she looked with her new hairstyle. It’d be too easy to say she was pretty, although she was. Her attractiveness was more in the way she carried herself. She no longer looked beaten and like a trapped animal.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the large grey object on the floor at his feet.
“Bed.”
Her brow furrowed. It was cute. “I’m not a giant like you, but I don’t think I’ll fit in that bag.
He chuckled. “Wiseass. It blows up like a raft. Gavin said it’s pretty comfortable. Let’s try it.”
Together they wrestled the rubbery rolled–up deflated mattress out of the bag and onto the floor. Jill found the plug and pushed it into the wall. He stayed silent, but he was grateful for her help. It wouldn’t have been easy maneuvering the sucker and inflating it one–handed. He would’ve managed, but it would’ve been a pain in the ass.
He found the pump on the side and pushed the inflate button. About forty–five seconds later a full–sized mattress filled the empty space in his small room. A one–foot walkway remained between his bed and Jill’s new one.
“Try it out,” he said, gesturing to it.
She smiled and sat tentatively. “It’s comfy.” She shifted around, testing the mattress.
“Want it firmer? I can add more air.” If she didn’t stop wiggling around on the damn bed, he was going to have to leave the room. She was too tempting, smiling up at him like a child with a new toy.
“No, this works.”
“Let’s get some sheets on it.” He opened a low dresser drawer and pulled out his one extra sheet to toss on the bed. He and Jill needed a Target run. Living as a bachelor soldier, he didn’t have extra sheets, towels, and other housewares that most women seemed to like. Right now Jill seemed happy to simply have a safe place to rest her head, but he didn’t want her to have to settle. She deserved as attractive a house as she’d been living in.
While most of his time in rural Virginia had been spent beating Jack, he had managed to get a glimpse through some of the windows at Jill’s house. She’d had a nice home. It’d been clean, with decorative touches he assumed were her doing. Jack didn’t seem the type to coordinate a lampshade with the couch.
Once Jill’s bed situation was settled, he headed for the bathroom to change and wash up. His lingering arousal hung close to the surface and he hoped he’d be able to sleep tonight. Jill’s presence on the next bed over wouldn’t help his peace of mind. Oh well, if he couldn’t sleep, he could hit the gym. He wouldn’t be alone. A lot of the insomniacs here spent the wee hours working out.
“Good night, Rowan.” Jill was settled into bed with her silky light–brown hair fanned out behind her head.
“Night.” He climbed under his own covers, which were crumpled from their earlier kiss. His nose told him it was still smelling Jill’s hair product on his pillow, but he knew that to be a lie since her head hadn’t touched his pillow.
He lay on his back staring at the dark ceiling. He should be tired. It had been a long day, but his body and brain still buzzed from his earlier fight with Jack and his kiss with Jill. Unfortunately he didn’t see sleep in his near future.
“Rowan?” Jill whispered from her bed.
“Yeah?”
“Will you tell me about your mother?”
“My mom?”
“Yes. I’m not tired any more, and the way you spoke about your mom’s picture made me realize I don’t know anything about you except you have a brother.”
“What do you want to know?”
Everything, Jill suddenly realized, but she couldn’t say that. He was probably tired from his long day defending her, and it revealed too much. What did it say about her as a person that she’d gone from wife of one man to totally and completely enthralled by another? “Well, we’re sharing a room for the foreseeable future, and I don’t know much more than your name or your occupation. Actually, I don’t even really know that. Are you a soldier?”
She heard rather than saw Rowan roll over to face her. She followed suit. It felt intimate, almost as if they were sharing the bed, but they both knew a one–foot gap divided them. When Rowan stayed silent, she worried she’d offended him in some way. Maybe he couldn’t be a soldier since he was missing an arm, but to her he seemed invincibly strong. “Rowan?” she whispered. “I’m sorry. You can go to sleep. I don’t need to know anything right now.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I was just thinking of where to start.”
“The beginning?” she suggested and earned a chuckle from his side of the room.
“All right. The beginning it is. I was born here in 1986. Here being The Program compound. But something happened between my mom and dad—you haven’t met him yet, but he lives here still—and my mom ran away taking me and Adam with her.”
“What happened?” She leaned on her elbow to get closer.
“Me. I’m what happened.” He gave a bitter laugh. “When I was born minus an arm, my mom got wind that The Program was going to make her put me up for adoption and that my dad was okay with that.”
She sucked back a gasp. “That’s horrible.”
“Hang on, let me finish talking before you decide everyone here is evil.”
It was as if he were reading her mind, since that was exactly what she’d been thinking.
“Turns out, only one person wanted me outta here. Bad guy named Keel. He’s gone now. Dead. Anyway, this Keel guy sent my dad on an overseas mission right after I was born and played a head game with my mom. He was good at his lies, and she believed him. I was only a few weeks old when she disappeared into DC with me and Adam. He was two.”
“What happened? Did your dad come looking for you?”
“Sort of. See, Keel played a head game with him, too. Made up all sorts of bullshit that my dad believed, and remember, things were different. It was easier to hide. My mom never got a credit card, never bought a house. We lived paycheck to paycheck in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Dad never found her, and he was convinced she didn’t want to be found.”
She identified with that sentiment all too well. “Did you know?”
“Know what? That I was a genetically enhanced human?”
“Know about your family,” she said, clarifying.
“I knew nothing. Mom always said our dad had died. When Adam was fifteen she told him the truth and he ran from home to live here at The Program.”
“And then your mom told you when you were a teenager,” she guessed.
She saw Rowan sit up and lean back against the wall. “No. It’s an even longer story,” he said. “I knew nothing about my family or The Program until a few months ago.”