“I’m starving.”
He nodded, not realizing how long he’d been staring at her. “Let’s eat.”
They spread out the blanket on a large boulder with a beautiful panoramic view of the lake.
“Which part of the blanket do you think hugged your dad’s balls?”
“Probably two inches from the part that flossed his crack.”
“Oh my God!” Her eyes grew wide. “I can’t believe you said that. How very un-Jones of you.” She laughed. “I fear I’ve tainted you.”
They sat side by side on the rock with their legs dangling off the edge, sandwiches in hand. Jessica nudged his shoulder.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Skinny dipping, waiting by the register at Staples, swapping gum … letting me experience life with you.”
“The experience is mine.”
With a furrowed brow, she looked up at him. “What are you experiencing?”
He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “You. You’re the greatest experience of my life.”
She shoved a bite of sandwich into her mouth and mumbled over it like the well-mannered lady she’d never be. “That’s just … sad for you.”
Luke watched her look out at the lake. He didn’t miss the glassy tears that attempted to pool in her eyes. Would she ever feel worthy of true, heart-stopping, soul-shattering love? He hoped so because it’s all he had to give her.
*
Her favorite doctor had been right: surrendering took as much strength as it did control. Every day she gave him a piece of her past in exchange for his future. As much as she wanted—needed—his love, accepting it took practice. A voice in her head kept reminding her to just “shut up and let him love you.”
“The day will come that I don’t want to kill Trigger, right?”
Luke sucked in a slow, deep breath. “I hope so. Maybe it will be the same day I care if Fran dies.”
Jessica tilted her head, resting it on his arm. “You care. You just haven’t let yourself feel it yet. Feelings are who we are … actions are what we’ve become. I became a killer. I just have yet to feel bad about it. But I hope to God that someday I do. Killers don’t feel remorse. If that day comes … I’ll finally be the woman you see. I’ve caught a glimpse of her in your eyes, and I can’t help but envy her.”
Luke twisted around and hopped off the boulder then offered his hand to her. “It’s funny how we don’t recognize our own reflections, but the one thing about them is they never lie.”
Taking his hand she jumped down. “Dr. Jones, you should have majored in philosophy. On a more positive topic … what’s your theory on me driving back to your parents?”
“I don’t have a theory, just a fact.”
“Really? Enlighten me.”
“You will not be driving my car.”
She made a horn-like buzzing sound. “Wrong answer.”
He folded the blanket and grabbed their empty bags then opened the trunk.
“Let me enlighten you. I’m going to strip, and ride your cock on the hood of your shiny red GTO, not giving a damn what passersby think until you—”
“Yeah all of that.” He gestured to his arms full with the big blanket and the lunch bags. “Would you grab the first aid kit? I scraped my ankle on the rock over there.”
She looked at the little box with the red cross on it. With a huff, she leaned into the trunk to reach it at the back, squirming until nearly three-fourths of her short stature was inside.
“Fuck!” She fell … no she was shoved into the trunk and he closed it on her. He. Locked. Her. In. The. Trunk.
“As much as I like you riding my cock, and in spite of last night’s bonding with my parents, I’m not an exhibitionist. And I just put a new coat of wax on her the other day so I’m not going to leave my ass print on the hood.” He knocked twice on the trunk. “Hope you’re not claustrophobic, but if you are, I’m pretty sure I just bought you some electric pillar candles in one of those sacks. They should take the edge off. Hold on tight, I’ll go slow.”
“Die. YOU. WILL. DIE!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Knight
1 Timothy 2:12
Jillian stared at her phone as the sun peaked over the horizon. AJ struggled to get to sleep the previous night, refusing to take any pills until after they’d had sex—sex that felt like making love, sex that gave her so much heartache and guilt. Luke was gone, she tried to tell herself, but he really wasn’t. Jessica died. Luke lived. Would it have been easier to move on had he died? Had Luke moved on? Had he made love to another? The ghost of the woman she once was couldn’t bear the thought, but Jillian Knight wished him a life filled with a wife who embraced his quirks and maybe someday little Joneses tearing his orderly life apart in the best possible way. She hoped her four-legged baby would live out the rest of his life in a house full of people who understood him the way Jessica had.
To avoid waking AJ, she perched in a chair outside the tent, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for her one-bar wireless service to return an answer to her biblical verse search. After churning in cyber circles the answer appeared on her screen.
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”
“Fuck that,” she whispered to herself. Her finger hovered over the forward button as she contemplated sending the message to Jackson.
“Jill—”
She clicked off the screen and unzipped the front of the tent.
“Goddammit! AJ?” He lost consciousness and his body began to wrench in muscle contractions. She dropped to her knees beside him, watching in horror. There was nothing else she could do. It took less than two minutes that seemed like an eternity, and then he went completely limp. Her lower lip quivered between her teeth as she pressed her fingers to his neck. Closing her eyes, she swallowed hard, finally feeling his pulse.
“I can barely keep myself alive … I can’t do this,” she whispered, collapsing onto her side next to him.
After a few minutes he came to, focusing on her eyes with confusion in his.
“You had a seizure.”
“Sorry.”
Jillian huffed a small laugh. “You just up and left without anything, didn’t you? What is this? Am I here just to watch you die?” The bitterness bled through her words.
“I was dying with them … I’m living with you.”
“Well, then it’s a shitty way to live. You need some anti-seizure meds or something. I can’t watch this every day.”
“Take me back.” The defeat in his voice hurt worse than watching his body lose control.
“I’m not taking you back.” She crawled out of the tent, grabbed her phone, and walked toward the main road for privacy and better signal.
“I’m still getting texts.”
McGraw’s cynical laugh greeted her on the other end of the line. “Then let me bring you in. New identities, new location, maybe even a sex change. I always thought you should have been a guy.”
“Is that why you buried your cock in my ass?”