How many nights had I wanted nothing but this? How many times with Caleb had I imagined Jordan in his place?
Thinking of Caleb at the height of my own arousal stopped me completely.
Self-doubt, self-loathing, and a good deal more had me jerking away from Jordan. When he reached for me, panic-gripped memories overcame me. I could almost smell Caleb’s expensive cologne. Almost taste the liquor on his breath.
Shaking hard, I scrambled from Jordan’s lap and to the other side of the seat.
He didn’t reach for me as I fought to open the passenger door and fell out of the truck onto the gravel.
I clawed at my throat, breaking the chain that had hung there. I gasped for breath that wouldn’t come as memories I’d been running from rushed in.
Jordan knelt in front of me, but didn’t touch me. If he’d touched me, I’m not sure how I would have reacted. Instead, he calmly said my name. “Raelynn.”
When I brought my eyes up, there was Jordan and not the memories. For that moment, I had a center, I had my reason for coming home. I wasn’t running from anything.
I’d been running toward Jordan.
“There she is.” He ever so gently took my fingers into his hands and pulled them from my throat.
Cupped in his much larger hands, mine were like a child’s, small and delicate. No matter how dark my tan grew, my hands paled in comparison to the caramel
color of his skin. He held both of mine in one of his and reached for my neck, tracing the claw marks gently.
“Oh, Raelynn, baby.” When I finally met his dark eyes, I was met with a knowing that was as strong as the danger I’d seen before.
Self-loathing and shame replaced my fear. I hadn’t outrun the victim I’d become. I couldn’t face Jordan, so I ducked away, hastily jerking my hands free.
I twisted my fingers together, nervously.
I moved quickly. Growing up with an older brother and a little sister who had been a head taller than me before she’d been a teenager, I’d learned to be fast. Pride kept me from running across that driveway, but shame kept my steps quick.
Even still, with all that, he was faster.
“Raelynn!” He was in front of me, the width of him blocking my path. A thin gold chain dangled from his fingers.
“I need to go home.” It would fall on deaf ears, but I said it anyway.
“No, not until you tell me what is going on.” His eyes searched my face. “What was that?”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I tried to sidestep him, only to find him in my path again.
“Please,” I whimpered. He couldn’t see me like this, he couldn’t know. If he knew, everything would change. He’d never look at me the same.
“No, I can’t let you walk away from me like that without an explanation.” His face contorted into a helpless panic that I’d never seen before.
His panic calmed my voice, but not my heart. “It’s none of your business, Jordan.” It wasn’t any of his business, but his emotion had tempered my desperate need to flee, given me a moment’s hesitation.
“The hell it isn’t.” That moment was all he needed. He reached out this time, taking hold of my shoulders.
I didn’t flinch, I didn’t shy away, because I had never been afraid of Jordan. I saw him for the man he was. That man wasn’t Caleb.
Jordan’s signature black ball cap was gone, it was an odd thing to notice at that moment. It was intimate to see him without the brim of the ball cap shielding his eyes. I studied his face too, as his eyes slid down to my throat.
Shame burned bright and I broke. I would tell him everything, anything, so I wasn’t alone anymore. How many times had someone else handed him their burden? He would want to fix what had happened to me, make it right.
I didn’t cry, I didn’t fight against his hold, I didn’t do anything. Instead, I whimpered again. “This isn’t something you can fix.”
“How do you know if you don’t let me try?” His voice was thick with emotion.
I thought of Devin, of the crushed way he’d looked at me. I don’t know why I thought of him then, thought of how I’d rejected him. But I did and it reminded me of the night Jordan did the same to me.
“It wasn’t that long ago that you stood right here and told me to leave.” I stared at his chest, unable to bring my eyes up to his. The wide expanse of muscle shifted with the soothing rhythm of his breathing.
“I was wrong then. Now I’m asking you to stay.” “Please, Jordan,” I begged. I still thought of
escape, I even dug down into the dredges of my mind to find something to be angry with him about. None of it had been his fault, there had never been the smallest
need to blame Jordan, not even when Caleb’s fingers had tightened around my throat.
Once I’d known that his love for Devin was the reason Jordan had turned me away, I could never blame him.
He pulled me to him and encased me with the strength of his arms. I seemed so small, so fragile when he wrapped around me. I hated the feeling because I needed it, needed him. I always would. Ever so slowly, I softened in his embrace. The trembling of my body began to ease.
“Keep your secrets, Raelynn, but stay here with me.” He kissed my hair in a way that only he ever had. When he stepped away from me, he took me gently by the hand. He’d already started walking us to his house before I knew I was moving. I’d grown so numb that I couldn’t argue anymore.
“It wasn’t you,” I told him, remembering the panic on his face.
“What wasn’t?”
I gestured to his truck and shook my head so that my hair fell into my face, offering me a place to hide. “I needed you to know, it wasn’t you.”
He relaxed beside me and brought my knuckles to his lips. His silence spoke volumes.
Jordan led me through his house, past the kitchen where he’d kissed me stupid, through the living room that looked as if it had never been lived in, and into the one room I’d never entered. Never not even as a child, had I dared find myself in Jordan’s bedroom.
“I’ve never seen your bedroom,” I mused as I took a nervous look around. When had I traded my need for escape for nervous excitement?
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. He emptied his pockets, sending change and an assortment of bits and bolts onto the dresser. “One of the old man’s rules was no girls in the bedroom. I guess I’ve stuck with it. Kept things simple.”
“Wait…” I was shocked. “So, I’m the first?”
His rueful smile sent a tingle across my skin. “In here, yeah. Not my first, but the first girl in my bedroom.”
If seeing him with his hat off had been intimate, being allowed in his inner sanctum was so much more. With a reverent touch, I slid my fingers across the dark glossy wood of the chest of drawers. Everything was clean to the point of perfection. I couldn’t help but grin, the TV in that room was bigger than the one in the living room.
The bed was made neatly, when I’d left mine I’d left it in a tangled ball of sheets. Yet, the neatness didn’t diminish the sheer masculinity of the room. From the smooth lines of the furniture, to the framed glossy photos of his car, the room was all male and all Jordan.
Even his room is a turn-on.
If it weren’t for the hatred for who I was, for what I believed myself to be, I would have found that funny. That his room, this quiet place that was his alone, somehow was attractive to me. It was a place, not the man, but still…
“What are you thinking?” He was leaning back against the dresser, watching me.
I forced a lie, though teasing. “I’m wondering if you’re going to fit on the couch.”
“Nuh-uh.” I raised a brow in challenge, but didn’t say a word. He sat on the bed to pull off his shoes. “I’m sleeping here and you’re sleeping with me.”
“Jordan—”
“Something has you spooked, Rae. You don’t want to tell me, I get it. I’m not going to force you to tell me anything. I know what it means to keep secrets. I know how the fear of someone else knowing them can change you. I’ve got a pretty good idea what you’re hiding, I’m not stupid. Maybe I don’t want to hear them tonight, either.” His dark eyes seemed to grow darker. “But, you’re going to sleep here with me. I’m going to show you that if nothing else, you can trust me.”
I was at war with myself. I wanted to sleep with him, the thought of feeling those big arms wrapped around me was thrilling. But…I didn’t deserve the care and kindness he was offering me. Nor was I sure I could be that close for that long.
He spoke of trust, like I had something to fear from him. I blinked back the emotion that stung my eyes and pulled at my heart.
“I promise you there isn’t a man in the world that wants you as badly as I do, Raelynn. But, I won’t touch you. Not tonight, not ever. Until you tell me to.”