“We have had a go of it, huh?”
He nuzzled her neck, sending shivers of pleasure traveling from her toes and up her spine to her head, where her thoughts chased each other around in circles.
“I’m going to get us through this.”
She closed her eyes against the fear that she felt building in her stomach, let herself rest against his solid chest for one moment longer before turning in his arms so that she could look at him. “I know that. But it doesn’t mean that I’m not scared. Jake…”
She glanced away, afraid that he’d see the truth in her eyes. The truth, which happened to be that she was absolutely petrified. Every time she thought about the situation she was in, her stomach would lurch in objection and she’d break out in a nervous sweat. She’d remember what the killer’s hands had felt like touching her neck, imagined what it would feel like to have her breath so easily betray her, fleeing her body without a second thought. “I just want this all to be over.”
“Me too.” He pulled her closer to him then, hugging her tightly against his body.
Lola breathed him in, enjoying the way that the familiar scent of him washed over her, quietening the loudest parts of her brain that were screaming with anxiety. “Will you marry me when this is all over?” The words slipped from her lips easily, as if greased by her anxiety over what the future held
He tensed, his arms locked around her. “Did…did you just propose?” he asked, leaning back to look at her, a hint of laugher mingled with the disbelief in his voice.
What. The. Fuck. Why would you say that? She bit back a hysterical laugh and nodded instead. “I think I did. Although, I swear I was not planning to. It just kind of slipped out because I was thinking how if I die, I don-”
He crushed his mouth to hers, stealing her words and her breath with one long, desperate kiss. “Yes.”
“What?” She took a solid step back from him. “No.”
Oh. My. God.
He raised his eyebrows at the gesture, but she noticed that he grinned openly at her. “You can’t change your mind now,” he teased. “I said yes!”
“I…” What is happening?
Chuckling, he countered her movement so that they were standing close again, chest to chest. He grabbed her hands in his. “I’ve been thinking I might ask you too.”
“What?”
“I’m in love with you. I think I’m in love for the first time in my life…”
“I love you too,” she said, still not sure what she’d gotten herself into. They’d only known each other for two weeks. Not even. Twelve days. Crazy. Did she even want to marry Jacob? Yes. The answer hit her right away.
“Lola Michaels. I love you. I want to marry you. I want you to have my babies. I want to grow old with you, or…” he shook his head so-so, “older anyway.”
“You do?” She stared at him, shocked by the Pandora’s box that she’d opened. God, she wanted everything that he was asking of her, that she was asking of him. She wanted to wake up to him every day, feel his arms around her when she slept. She wanted to have his children, which was weird because she didn’t think she’d ever thought about kids before. But now…she wanted all of it.
“I do.” He kissed her again, but this time he did not pull back. Instead, he took her mouth with the same desperate urgency that she felt, his tongue sliding over hers as their breath mingled in quick pants and gasps.
What just happened? Her mind spun with emotion, with the doubt and the certainty that she felt warring inside her. Doubt that they’d rushed things because of the situation they’d been thrown into together. Certainty, because she knew that she’d never felt before what she felt for Jacob Simmone.
Because she needed distance from the situation that she’d so spontaneously thrown them into and because she needed the distraction from thinking over the odds that upcoming events turned out in her favor, she didn’t pull away. She moved her fingers from his hands, lifted them to his shirt, and started unbuttoning it, even as his mouth drove every other rational thought from her mind.
When his lips moved from her mouth to the column of her throat, she pulled his shirt from his shoulders, her eyes trained on the way that his thick muscles bunched under her fingers. “I love your body,” she whispered.
His head whipped up to look at her. His eyes, always so green, shone, near black, in his face, sending a shiver of awareness down her spine. Reaching out, she trailed her fingers over solid abdominals. He groaned and caught her hand in his, his eyes closed as if he were trying to hold himself back. The thought made her feel incredibly sexy and she leaned forward to nip playfully at his right nipple. He groaned once, catching her wandering hands in his own. “Fuck.”
She kissed his soft skin gently, felt her own body pull inwards when his grip around her wrists tightened and he let his head fall back. When she flicked her wrists free and started to unbutton his slacks, he caught her hand in his and tugged her towards the bed instead. She felt her core throb between her thighs and, because their hands were still clasped, she brought his palm up against her as she moved it gently back and forth over her white, lace underwear.
He groaned, and his breath came out in one long exhale. Still, he didn’t break at her prompting, choosing instead to gently nudge her onto her back on the bed. “I never thought that I’d feel this way about anyone,” he whispered.
Lola felt tears burn the back of her eyes. Me neither.
“I love you.”
She met his eyes, couldn’t help but grin at the frown on his face. “I love you too.” Before he could reply, or add anything, she reared up, wrapped her arms around him, pulling him as close as she could. She had known that he was about to add some caveat about the case, and she’d deliberately distracted him. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the fact that he wanted to protect her, to keep her safe and out of harm's way. But in that moment, she didn’t want to think about any of it. About the case. About the fact that there was a psychopath out there who knew who she was and where she lived. At that moment, all she wanted was to be with Jake, to feel his body rising over hers as he took her under completely.
Chapter 20
He hung up the phone with Douglas Brennan and indulged in a single, hearty laugh that rumbled through his large frame.
Over the years, he’d been told that it was a good laugh. The kind of laugh that, if in response to a joke, would have made the teller feel proud of the reaction that it had garnered. It was a laugh that had charmed many people over a long, prosperous career, including, he knew, his wife. But that had been when she’d been young. And beautiful. Like a porcelain doll, with big, blue eyes and fine, silky blond hair.
He looked up at where she sat, her blue eyes dull as she stared forward at the television. Her skin, which he’d once loved to take between his teeth and bite down on until the soft flesh puckered, was sallow and wrinkling, and it no longer held any appeal to him. Where once her frame had been slender and firm, now it was bony, tired, as if she had one foot in the grave already.
He hadn’t told her that he’d killed the bitches who’d tried to steal her away from him. Yet. As much as he’d have loved to have seen the fear sink into her eyes, he was still smart enough to know that he should never speak of his deeds to anybody—not even his wife. Such things were for fools, and, as much as he wanted to relish the control that he had over her, he’d never risk giving her the power of his crimes to use against him. Women were fickle, devious creatures. That he knew to be true.