Say My Name (24 page)

“I’m sorry.” My voice is small, and I hate that I did that to him. Because he’s right. I’d been freaked and scared and I’d wanted only to get out of there.

“You wouldn’t tell me anything. You just said that I had to do something for you. You said it was important.”

I swallow. “It was.” I blink, wishing desperately that I could cry. “I had to ask you to leave. It couldn’t be me who left. You would have followed me.”

A muscle in his cheek twitches. “Christ, Syl. We’ve wasted a lot of time.”

“No,” I say, and I can see the surprise on his face. “I had to make you leave. I couldn’t handle it.” I draw in a shaky breath as I try to gather my courage. “I’m scared, Jackson. This,” I say, gesturing between the two of us. “What if it is a mistake?”

“It’s not.”

“You don’t know that. No,” I say when I see that he is about to interrupt. “I let myself go with you once, and I regretted it. I lost control when I shouldn’t have lost control. I was overwhelmed. There was—is—this intensity between us, and it was too much, because it just got all tied up with everything.”

I’m talking fast, the words spilling out, and I’m not sure he understands because I’m not sure I understand myself. “I felt unanchored, and then I felt stupid because I knew I shouldn’t have opened that door in the first place. I should have never left the pandas. And then it built and built until the nightmares came. The nightmares. The fears. All the goddamn memories, and—”

I cut myself off, biting down hard on my lower lip and looking away because I don’t know how to say this. I don’t know how to say that maybe this moment between us that felt so incredible is wrong. Is bad. Is a mistake that’s just going to rip us apart all over again. “I couldn’t handle it,” I finally say. “And I’m scared I won’t be able to handle it again.”

“What did you regret?” His voice is soft and gentle, in sharp contrast to my tone of rising hysteria.

I shake my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You said earlier that you let yourself go with me, and that you regretted it. So did you regret the nightmares? Or did you regret leaving?”

“I—” My breath hitches, and I look away.

“No,” he says gently. “Talk to me, Syl. I can’t help if you don’t talk to me.”

“I’m not asking for help.”

“No, you’re not. But you’ll have it anyway.”

I close my eyes and take his hand, then close my fingers tight around his. “Leaving.” I take a breath, then open my eyes and look at him. “I regretted leaving every single day. And at the same time, I didn’t. Because staying would have destroyed me.”

“Oh, baby.” He pulls me close against him and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I don’t know what’s hiding in your nightmares, but I will help you fight them.”

“I thought you were an architect, not a shrink.”

“I know a thing or two about the lingering scars of childhood,” he says. “My childhood was nothing like yours. But it still qualified as shit.”

I look at him, this man I’d always seen as so strong, and the vulnerability I see makes my heart twist. “Will you tell me?”

“I’m a bastard.” He shrugs. “That’s pretty much the sum total of it. And I mean that in the original sense of the word. My mother had an affair with a married man. Got pregnant. Had me.”

“So you never knew your dad?” As much as I often wished I’d never known my father, that still wasn’t a fate I’d want for a child. “Oh, no. I knew him. Knew my father. Knew all about his other family. I was two when my half-brother was born, and I knew every goddamn thing about him, and I wasn’t allowed to say a single word.”

“My god.” I’m trying to imagine what that would be like and failing. “My god,” I say again.

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. You could say it pissed me off, especially when I could see so plainly how much of my father’s attention my brother was getting, and how very little of his time was spent with me. I got angry. Very angry. The kind that explodes out. The kind that’s dangerous.”

I can’t help the way my gaze darts to the cut on his cheek.

He sees and flashes a rueful grin. “I turned anger into fights.”

“Jackson …”

He takes my hand, then kisses my palm. “And I channeled control into sex.”

I lift a brow. “Did you? I hadn’t noticed.”

“I guess I’ll have to try to be more obvious.” He gently strokes the hand he still holds. “My point is that when I realized I couldn’t fight all the shit that was in my past—in my head—I embraced it instead. You need to do the same.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do. Fight back. You have nightmares? Don’t run from them. Battle them. You’re strong, Sylvia. Strong enough not to be defeated by your own head.”

“It’s not my head,” I say. “It’s my history.”

“And what is history but a memory, and usually a false one at that? What’s that saying? That history is written by the victor? Write your own history, Sylvia. And when you do, make yourself the hero.”

I don’t answer, because I’m not sure I want to talk about it, much less think about it.

Instead, I deflect by reaching up to trace my finger across the scar that runs from his brow to his hairline. I’d noticed it at the premiere, and had yet to ask him about it. Now that he’s mentioned his fights, I can’t help but wonder what flash of anger translated into this injury.

“When?” I say nothing more. I know he will understand my question.

“About twelve hours after you told me to walk away.”

I only nod, not trusting myself to speak as my fingers drift down to gently touch his cheek. “This one is new.”

“After I met your friend Louis,” he says, confirming what I already suspected.

“Does the other guy look worse?”

“I assure you, he does.”

I meet his eyes. “Maybe you need help, too. You can’t just go on beating people up.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up. “I promise you I’m not accosting random tourists on the street. I belong to a gym. There’s a boxing club. And no, I’m not talking about the kind of gym that has a smoothie bar and twenty-eight elliptical machines. Heavy bags, speed bags, free weights.”

He strokes my cheek. “I’m doing just fine.”

I picture the kind of dirty, grimy gym you see in so many movies, where guys are getting their faces smashed in. It’s not a picture I like. I lift my hand to cover his so that I feel the warmth of his skin on my face. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Oh, baby. They can’t hurt me. Don’t you know that you’re the only one who’s ever managed to tear me to shreds?”

I wake with a jolt, my heart pounding in defense against the lingering clutch of fear.

I reach out, groping for Jackson, and as I do, I realize that it is not the cold fingers of a nightmare that cling to me, but the fear that Jackson has left.

“Now there’s a lovely picture,” he says, and his voice sends unexpected waves of relief coursing through me.

He hasn’t left—and I didn’t have a nightmare.

Thank god, thank god, thank god.

I realize that I’ve been lying stretched across the bed, my hip and thigh uncovered. I sit up, pulling the sheet over my breasts for modesty, which is ridiculous considering how thoroughly he explored every inch of me. I lean against the headboard and sigh in pleasure as I watch him move toward me, barefoot and shirtless in only his jeans, the top button open to reveal just a hint of the hair that arrows down toward a very enticing bulge.

I’m enjoying the view so much that a full second passes before I realize that he’s holding out a cup of coffee. I take it gratefully, then smile when I realize there’s already cream in it. “You remembered.”

“I remember a lot of things.” He gestures for me to slide over, then gets in beside me when I do. “For one thing, I remember that we’re supposed to be at your boss’s house in two hours, and it’s a half-hour drive with no traffic. Which means that it’s always an hour drive.”

“We didn’t get much sleep.”

“And yet I feel surprisingly energized,” he says, then brushes his hand over my hair.

I sigh and lean against him, amazed at how quickly things have shifted between us. This feels like it did in Atlanta. It feels like we fit. And even though I’m still scared, this time I don’t want to run. Instead, I want to cling tighter.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” he says.

“You came after me last night. When I took off for Mulholland, I mean. But you didn’t come after me in Atlanta.”

“That was different. You told me to leave, you didn’t run out. And you made me promise.”

“Yes,” I say. “I did.”

“Did you want me to break my word?”

“No—I couldn’t have handled it.”

“But?”

I shake my head, both amazed and a little irritated at how easily he reads me.

“But you wish that I had anyway, just so that you would have known that I cared?” His words hang soft and fragile between us.

“It’s stupid, I know.” But I cannot deny that it’s true.

“I would have,” he says, moving away from me to stand up. He moves to the far wall and the window that now glows with the light of morning. “The truth is that back then I would have said fuck the promise and gone after you.” He turns to face me. “But you’d gone to him.”

“Dammit, Jackson. I was never with Damien that way. If you don’t believe me—”

“I do. You told me earlier, and I do. I believe you. But back then I thought otherwise.”

I consider what he says as I slide out of the bed and walk naked to him. “Was that why you said no? To the resort here and in the Bahamas? You thought I was Damien’s mistress or something?”

“Partly, but there was more to it than that.”

“The land deals.”

He cocks his head. “Let’s just say that outside of the context of the Cortez resort, Stark and I are at cross-purposes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know what? It doesn’t matter.” He lets his gaze drift slowly over me, so that the heat from his inspection seems to touch every part of my body, firing every molecule and making me forget just what the hell we were talking about, anyway. “I’m about to invite you into the shower with me. Which means that the last thing I want to be discussing is Damien Stark.”

“Oh,” I say, sliding into his arms. “You have a very good point.”

He’d turned on the shower before he made the coffee, and when we go into my bathroom, it’s already warm and cozy and steamy, just the way I like it.

Jackson strips off his jeans and I follow him in, then press close as his arms go around me, letting the sluice of water drench my hair and run over my face and body. I imagine it’s washing away the past, leaving open the way for a future with this man.

I tilt my head back and close my eyes, and that is when I feel his lips brush mine.

“No time, remember?”

“I’ll be fast,” he says, then captures my mouth with his even as one of his hands slides down to stroke my sex.

I’m wet and ready, and all I can manage is a simple word, “yes.”

His hands close over my breasts as he moves me back so that I am pressed against the tile. Then he lifts one of my legs so that my calf is over his hip, and I am open to him. I do not want to wait. I reach for him, then stroke my hand down the length of his erection, taking satisfaction in the way his expression goes hard, as if he’s on the edge of something spectacular. Because he is—and because I am the one who is taking him there.

“Now,” I say, urging him closer, demanding he fill me, then crying out in surprise and pleasure when he finds my core and thrusts inside me.

“Faster, Jackson. Harder.” I am crazed with need of him, and when he holds on to my ass so that he can thrust more deeply, I hook my other leg around him, then gasp again and again as with each thrust I am slammed up against the warm tile wall.

Until finally, I feel his body tighten and he explodes inside me, and it is my name that I hear on his lips.

“Come on,” I say when his eyes are no longer glassy. “We need to get going.”

“Not just yet,” he says, reaching for the handheld shower and turning it to a steady pulse. “I don’t think you’re quite ready yet.”

“Jackson …” I’m too ready, too sensitive, and I’m not at all sure that I can handle what he has in mind. But this is not a morning for mercy, and when he pulls out of me and I settle one foot back on the shower mat, he keeps hold of my other leg, then aims the pulsating jet at my clit.

“Oh, god, oh, Christ, oh, Jackson.”

I clutch his shoulders, my body shaking with a growing pleasure that is almost too much to bear.

“If we’re in a hurry, I can stop.” His lips are right by my ear, and he highlights the words by tracing his tongue along the edge of my ear, making me even more crazy. “Is that what you want?”

“Don’t you dare,” I say. “But, Jackson, oh, please, I’m so damn close.”

“Then let’s see what I can do.” He puts the handheld back, then drops to his knees. With one of my legs over his shoulder, he closes his mouth intimately on me, and it is that combination of his tongue, his lips, his touch that pulls me that final distance. My body shatters as a million volts pour through me, ripping me apart so that I am nothing more than atoms spinning in space. Nothing more than heat and desire lost in the arms of this man.

“Wow,” I say. “I don’t even care if we’re late.”

“Convenient,” he says. “Because neither do I. Still, the man is your boss. We should probably make an effort.”

I nod, then reach for a towel once he has turned off the shower. Outside the glass enclosure, I drop the towel in favor of my robe. I’m about to tie it when I look down and notice the red ribbon tattoo.

Jackson is a few feet away, a towel wrapped around his hips as he runs a comb through his hair.

“Come here,” I say.

He turns, but I simply crook a finger.

“At your service,” he says with a small smile, but I can see the curiosity on his face.

I take his hand, then trace his index finger over the red ribbon.

“Theo Stiles. Kevin Carter. Dan Weiss.” I give him the names as I brush his finger over each of the initials. “I didn’t answer you earlier.”

“Boyfriends?” he asks, though I can tell by his tone that he knows they were not.