“Weapons,” I say. “Blunt instruments.”
“Tell me.”
I wrap my robe tight around me in defense of the cold. But we are still in the steamy bathroom, and there is no chill. It’s Jackson I want, and I go eagerly into his arms when he pulls me in close.
“I told you how I hid at first,” I say. “After it stopped. In boring clothes and no makeup.”
I have my cheek pressed against his chest, and I am speaking softly. But I know from the way his body goes stiff that he has heard me just fine. “You didn’t want to be seen.”
“I would have become invisible if I could.” I draw in air. “My friend Cass is the one who finally got through to me. She told me that the more I hid the more he won.”
“I think I like your friend.”
I look up at him, then smile at the warmth in his eyes. “She’s great. Strong, too. Because she managed to pull me out of hell. But there were times—” I cut myself off, suddenly realizing how hard this was to talk about. I move away from him, then press my hands and forehead to the tile and simply breathe.
“It’s okay,” he says as his hands close over my shoulders. “You don’t have to go on. I think I understand.”
I shake my head. “You don’t. You can’t possibly.”
“It was better for a while,” he says. “You proved to yourself that you didn’t have to hide. But it didn’t stay easy. Maybe a man asked you out. Maybe he got too close. Maybe it wasn’t even about sex, but something happened at work or at school. You felt out of control. Like you’d lost the reins of your own life.”
I squeeze my eyes tight. “How can you know that?” I ask, then turn in his arms so that I can see his face. “How on earth can you possibly—”
“I saw it, didn’t I? With Louis? I’d knocked you down,” he says with so much self-loathing that I have no choice but to grab his hand and clench it tight. “I’d sent you racing right toward him. Right toward something you could get your head around. That you could control.”
“And you stopped me, too.”
He glances down, and I know that he is looking at the red ribbon. “Would you have gone to bed with him?” he asks.
I think of how lost I’d felt. How turned on I’d been by the way Jackson had touched me, kissed me. And how angry I’d been when he’d offered that deal. “I don’t know,” I whisper. I gather my courage, then lift my head and meet his eyes. “You mess me up, Jackson. No one has ever messed me up the way you do.”
“Baby,” he says, “I know the feeling.” Gently, he pulls me against him, then holds me close. He is hard, and I feel the press of his erection against me, but this moment isn’t sexual. Instead, it is tender, and I cling to him, feeling cherished for the first time in a long time.
Five years? Forever?
For me, I realize, they are the same.
“I want to make love to you right now,” he says. “I want to hold you and sink deep inside you and make up for five long years without you, when you should have been in my bed,” he says, as my body warms and tingles under the gentle caress of his words. “I want to touch you and please you. I want to hold you and caress you and make you laugh and come and hope and dream. I want to watch your eyes when you soar with me. And then I want to hold you while you sleep and stand guard against your nightmares. I can’t change your past, but I will stand with you to fight your battles now.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, but I don’t quite meet his eyes.
He tips my chin back so that I am forced to look at him. “What?”
I draw a shaky breath. I should have known better than to think I could keep something hidden from this man. “I don’t like being weak.”
“You’re the strongest person I know, Sylvia. You walked away from us and managed to survive, didn’t you?”
I know his words are a tease to make me feel better, but there is truth there, too, and I can’t help but think that after surviving the past, this present is my reward.
“And now we need to get dressed because there’s someplace I want to show you on the way, and if we don’t hurry, we really will be late.”
He runs the comb through his hair once more, then relinquishes the bathroom so that I can do my hair and makeup.
I hurry, but it still takes me ten minutes. My hair may be short, but I need various gels and goops to get it the way I want it to look, and then spray to ensure it stays that way. As for my makeup, I’ve never worn a lot, but even my minimal face routine takes time. Finally, I have to find something to wear, a decision I would normally have made last night considering that most of my hanging outfits are still wrinkled from the move or are still folded in random boxes.
I’m staring in the closet debating, when I suddenly realize that I have the perfect outfit tucked away. I go to the box from which I’d pulled the lingerie last night, take a deep breath, and then pull out the yellow dress. I’d folded it carefully, and that combined with the light material has kept it pretty much wrinkle-free.
I grab fresh underthings and skip the stockings altogether. I glance at myself in the full-length mirror I’ve propped next to the closet door, and I can’t deny that the dress is flattering. But that’s not why I’m wearing it. The day that Jackson gave me this dress stands as one of the best in my life. He’d filled every moment with heat and wonder, and though I know that he now understands why I left, I want him to realize how much Atlanta meant to me. That despite everything, I’d clung to those memories and my souvenirs of our time together.
When I’m finally dressed with shoes and jewelry, I step out into the living room to find him fully dressed in the clothes he wore last night. He smells clean, all soap and shampoo and male. And he looks positively gorgeous, tall and lean and sexy as he stands by my back wall and looks out at the bright, crisp afternoon.
“How the hell do men do that?” I ask, as he turns to look at me. “Just five lousy seconds in the bathroom and you look hot as sin.”
“And just how hot is sin?”
“Very.”
“In that case, thank you for the compliment. And even though you took longer than five minutes, I have to say that it was worth every second. You look incredible. And I especially like the dress,” he adds, just when I think he’s not going to mention it at all.
He crosses to me, and kisses me lightly. “You saved it.”
“Are you surprised?”
“Friday I would have been. Today, I’m not.”
My smile blooms, and I hook my arms around his neck. “Kiss me now,” I say. “And take me to bed later.”
He laughs. “How can I resist?” he asks, then closes his mouth over mine.
I have driven up the Pacific Coast Highway from Santa Monica to Malibu more times than I can count, and yet in Jackson’s Porsche it feels as though this is the very first time.
“It’s like flying,” I say, my head back in the seat and my eyes closed. “It’s like being free.” I open my eyes long enough to grin at him. “Or at least it is the way you drive.”
“Vixen,” he retorts, making me laugh.
“What did you want to show me on the way?” I ask.
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Fair enough.” I lean my head back and breathe deeply, and realize that for the first time in a very long time I feel completely content. “You know we need to talk about the resort.”
“I want to see the island first. Then you can tell me your basic concept.”
“And Glau’s sketches.”
“Not interested,” he says, and I bite back a smile. I’d been expecting that answer.
“You still need to look,” I say. “Aiden or Damien might want your thoughts.”
I expect another protest, but then he nods. “But not before I see the island. I don’t want anyone else’s vision in my head when I see the raw space. Certainly not Stark’s.”
I shoot him an annoyed glance. “What is it that bugs you so much about him?”
“He’s arrogant, for one thing,” Jackson says.
“So are you.”
The words are undeniably true, but he only smiles. “Maybe. But I’m also not a man who forgets or forgives easily. Especially when someone skirts the law to get what they want.”
I must look confused, because he continues. “Atlanta, Sylvia. He swooped in, bought land out from under everybody, and screwed more people than just me.”
I frown. “Even if that’s true, I don’t believe he did something underhanded. He’ll grab an opportunity, sure, but illegally?”
“You may work for him, but you don’t know him.”
I raise my brows. “But you do?”
“I know enough.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “And I didn’t mean to go off on your boss. Sorry. I just don’t want his ideas in my head when I do my initial walk-through of the site.”
“Okay.” That much I understand. “Okay. Why don’t we go this afternoon? We’ll have a few hours of daylight after the party. I’ll call Rachel and have her notify security we’ll be on the island, and then get her to send Clark and the helicopter to the Malibu house around three.”
“Tell her we’ll be on the island,” Jackson says. “But we don’t need the helicopter.”
“We don’t? Why not?”
“What? Don’t you think I can handle transportation?”
I narrow my eyes. “Unless your secret identity is Aquaman, I sincerely doubt that this car turns into a boat. Or a plane, for that matter.”
“Do you trust me?” He asks the question casually, almost teasingly, but I think I hear an undercurrent of something else. As if we have veered off the topic of transportation and onto something much more serious.
“Yes,” I say, and realize that I mean it. Trust, however, is an elastic thing. And I am not entirely sure how far mine stretches.
I think that he is going to say something more, but before he gets the chance, my phone rings. I grab my purse off the floorboard, rummage around, and answer the call.
“Are you busy?” Cass asks.
“On our way to Damien and Nikki’s for lunch,” I say.
“
Our
way,” she repeats. “So how did it go?”
“It’s going just fine.” I glance sideways at Jackson, who looks both curious and amused.
“Fine? Really?”
I can’t help my laugh. “Yeah, really. Who would have guessed?”
“How very interesting,” she says with a singsong lilt to her voice.
“Okay, moving on. What do you need, Cass?”
“I got an email from Ollie. He wants to meet on Tuesday to talk about the franchise thing.”
“That’s fabulous.”
“I’m scared shitless. I don’t know what kind of questions to ask. I’m not even sure why I’m doing this anymore. What if I screw everything up? My dad spent his whole life paying off this place—what if I fuck it all up by trying to expand? I can’t—”
“Hey. Deep breaths. Nothing’s going to happen on Tuesday. It’s an informational meeting, right? He’ll talk to you about what you want to accomplish, and you’ll ask every question you can think of.”
“My mind is blank,” she says. “I can’t even remember my own name, how am I supposed to think of intelligent questions?”
Considering Cass has more business savvy in her little finger than most people have in their entire body, I’m not particularly worried. I can tell that she is, though. Totally Tattoo is her entire life, and the fear of losing it is what has kept her shopping at Goodwill, and has filled her savings account to a point that she actually has the capital to consider expanding.
“When’s the appointment?”
“Five. Oh my god, Syl. Can you come with me?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I say, mentally reviewing my calendar. “But I don’t know that my questions will be any more on point than yours.”
“Moral support,” she says. “Thank you, I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“And, Syl? I’m glad it’s going fine.”
She clicks off before I can respond, and I tuck my phone back into my purse.
“Intelligent questions?”
“Cass wants to franchise her tattoo parlor and she’s got a meeting with an attorney next Tuesday. She’s incredibly nervous, which would be amusing if it weren’t so important to her. Cass is about as cool and collected as they come.”
“You’re a good friend.”
“I hooked her up with Damien’s attorney, and he put one of his guys on it. It works out well because Cass has met him before a couple of times. Orlando McKee. He’s a friend of Nikki’s.”
“I meant for going with her.”
“She’d do the same for me. But I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. I’ve never started my own business, and the stuff of Damien’s I’ve worked on is on a much bigger scale.”
“Why don’t I come with you?”
I shift in my seat so that I’m looking more directly at him. “Really?”
“I’ve never franchised anything, but I have started my own business. I can’t promise I’ll be any help, but I think I can manage to come up with at least one or two intelligent questions.”
I just stare at him for a second.
“Is that a problem?”
“I’d really like to kiss you right now.”
“Well, that’s not a problem,” he says as I lean over in my seat and kiss his cheek. “And it won’t be a problem for Cass, either?”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s your best friend. And she just inked that lovely flame on your breast.” He takes his hand off the gear shift and squeezes mine. “I don’t know what you told her, but I can guess. And I doubt that I’m high up on her favorite-person list.”
“True,” I say. “I guess you’ll just have to treat me really great to earn her respect and admiration.”
I’m teasing, but there’s no humor in his eyes when he meets mine. “That’s my plan.”
“Right,” I say, licking my lips as a pleasant warmth washes over me. “Well, okay, then.” I sit quietly for a moment, watching the world go by, the Pacific on my left and the hills rising up on my right. “The truth is we both screwed this whole thing up.”
“And now we’re trying to fix it.”
“Lost years,” I say, my words mirroring his from last night.
He gently strokes my hair. “Maybe we just met too soon. Maybe now we’re ready.”
“Do you think so?”
“You let me in last night, didn’t you? You didn’t do that in Atlanta.”
“We didn’t exactly have time in Atlanta. Two days, remember.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“On the clock, maybe. But there was nothing short about our time together. I knew you, Syl, and you knew me. And in those two days we connected more intimately than I have ever connected with anyone else.”