Loving Lies (18 page)

“That's that, little man.” Slade nodded firmly. “You go play, I'll take care of it.”

He stared at the older couple as Cody ran out to the sand pile.

“Hank.” Slade turned to the older man, deferring to the man's normally placid temperament. “You want to tell me why Clarissa thinks she can tell me who you will allow around my son and who you think you won't?”

Clarissa's demand had been concise as she cornered him in the Principal's office of the school. He would not, in any way, see Jessie again or Cody's grandparents would sue for custody of the child.

When he left the office, Clarissa had been pale, shaking, utterly convinced that she had stared death in the face and barely escaped when he left. He hoped it kept her mouth shut just a little bit longer.

Now, he just had to deal with Glenna and Hank.

“That woman destroyed Amy, Slade,” Glenna accused, tears filling her voice. “Do you think she didn't tell us how miserable you made her because of that little slut?”

“Enough!” It was a damned good thing Glenna said it and not Hank. He wouldn't hit a woman, but Amy had gotten her vindictive mouth from somewhere. He turned to Hank. “I can take Cody now and not come back, Hank. I won't have this. That boy is innocent and I won't have his head messed with. I was faithful to Amy and treated her like gold. You know I did. She's gone now, and I'll be damned if Cody will pay for the problems we had.”

“You didn't love her.” Hank shook his head wearily, his eyes sad. “She was in that car because of you.”

“She was in that car because that was where she wanted to be,” he growled, wishing he could tell them the truth, wishing the Top Secret stamp on her file didn't forbid him from revealing the information. “If she wanted that marriage to work she would have tried, the same as I was. It wasn't Jessie's fault, it wasn't Cody's. And neither of them are going to be punished because of it.”

He was furious and thanked God, not for the first time, that they were unaware of the fact that Cody wasn't his biological child. They would have taken him in a heartbeat.

“I'm taking him with me now,” he snapped, battling the wild anger growing inside him as he speared Hank with a remorseless look. “You two better think this over and decide how important it is to you to continue this vendetta. If it keeps up, I'll make sure you never see Cody again.”

He didn't give them a chance to argue. He turned, stomping back to the yard and swinging his son into his arms.

“What say we start work on the house early today?” He hoisted the boy to his shoulders as he moved to the jeep. “We could go ahead and put up the fence around the yard. That sound good?”

Cody threw out a
yee haw
that had Slade laughing in delight, and his heart lightened. He deposited Cody in the back toddler seat, strapped him in and moved around the front of the vehicle.

As he jumped into his seat and snapped his seat belt, he threw another hard look back to the couple standing on the porch, and felt his chest tighten with heaviness. He hoped to stay on friendly terms with Amy's parents. Cody needed his family, grandparents. He didn't have aunts or uncles, but he could have had the extended family the Jennings possessed if they would pull the sticks out of their asses long enough to see the truth.

Not for the first time he thanked God that Jessie lived nowhere near Amy's family. The neighboring county wasn't one she associated with much. It was one Slade hadn't associated with much, until Amy. But it served as a reminder that he was going to have to tell her about Cody and the reason he had left her five years ago. Soon. If he didn't, someone else would.

Chapter Seventeen

 

The next morning, before the fog had even lifted from the ground, Slade pulled into the offices of Rigor Construction and parked his jeep beside Jessie's car. The small lake next to the offices kept the fog heavy, and lent the two-story office building a charm it wouldn't have had otherwise.

The small dock that led from the steep bank held Jazz's fishing boat and Zack's Sea-Doo. Their toys, which they played with often. Slade shook his head, but admitted the evenings they had spent fishing on the water were some of his best memories, besides that weekend he had spent with Jessie. Which brought him full circle. The situation with Amy's parents was getting out of hand.

He had dropped Cody off at his grandparents for the last time, he feared. Glenna had been openly hostile toward Slade, though she had gentled momentarily with Cody. Hank had been silent, his head hanging dejectedly in the face of his wife's anger. It was something Cody didn't need to be a part of, and to be honest, Slade was growing sick of the woman's waspishness. It wasn't a healthy atmosphere for his child. Today, he had two objectives. Find someone else to watch the boy, and this evening, tell Jessie the truth.

First, he needed one more taste of her. God, he missed her last night. The woman was under his skin like a fever. She always had been, and he had admitted, even before leaving her, that nothing was going to cure him of it.

He stepped up to her apartment door, his lips quirked at the note taped on it.

If this note is here, I'm still sleeping. Go away until a decent hour.

He snorted, inserted the key into the lock and turned it with a silent click. The door slid open, enclosing him in a rush of warm air. Damn, it was too warm in here. Despite the open windows and the early morning air, it was thick with sultry heat.

He stepped through the interior, moving into the bedroom as he pulled his shirt off. Sitting on the padded chest against the wall he removed his boots, staring at the woman sleeping on the bed, sprawled naked beneath a light blanket. Her hair fanned out around her flushed face, her lips parted with seductive sensuality as she breathed deeply.

Shucking his jeans and shorts, he pulled at the blanket, drawing it slowly from her lithe, lovely body, smiling as she muttered in her sleep. A frown creased her brow as his cock jerked in lusty demand. A smile tugged at his lips as he bared her breasts, the flushed mounds with their delicate pink, hardened nipples. The air in the bedroom grew warmer.

The material slid down her torso, her abdomen, revealing the little tattoo, the dragon he so loved. God, he dreamed of kissing her there again, of feeling the heat of her flesh, smelling the scent of her arousal from the soft folds below. Then the blanket cleared her thighs, revealing her bare pussy. Damn, the sight of that tattoo never failed to weaken him. It was just so Jessie. Whimsical, reminding him of fairy tales and the love he had so feared he had lost.

She was his light. The very air he breathed and he had no clue how to convince her of this, how to convince her that the past would never be repeated, that he had known, even before he left her, exactly what he was walking away from.

With the blanket now lying on the floor and Jessie's soft body revealed to him, thoughts of anything but loving her, touching her, fled his mind. Just looking at her seduced his senses, filled him with visions of her writhing beneath him, as consumed as he was with their passion. It also filled him with tenderness. The mix of emotions kept him off balance, reminding him often of the power this one little woman held over him.

His chest tight with emotions that often seemed too intense, Slade lowered himself beside her, feeling her turn instantly to him, snuggling against his chest with a sleepy little sigh. He hated the thought of awakening her just yet, despite the need pounding through his body. He was rarely given the chance to just hold her as she slept, curled trustingly to his heart as her legs tangled with his. His fingers threaded through her hair, the feel of cool silk against his palm reminding him of untold nights when he had lain alone, staring into the darkness, his soul filled with memories of her. The need to touch her had been overwhelming, his knowledge that only the distance between them had saved his own sense of honor had been a bitter pill to swallow.

If he hadn't left her, he would have never made the choices he had made, because God knew she was like a fever in his blood that he had no desire to be rid of.

“Told you I was sleeping,” she muttered against his chest, her body still relaxed, curving trustingly against him. “I knew you would show up at a miserable hour.”

Smiling, he brushed her hair back from her cheek, his hand cupping the side of her face as he laid a kiss against the corner of her mouth.

“I missed you,” he whispered, keeping his voice hushed, determined to hold onto the edge of fantasy that wrapped around them.

She stretched against him, silken legs rubbing against his rougher ones as she curled closer, his arms tightening around her.

“We have to talk today, Slade,” she finally sighed, her hands pressing against his hair-roughened chest, her lips caressing his neck.

Slade closed his eyes. Yeah, they had to talk today. But not right now. Not when the early morning fog enfolded them and she was lying sweet and relaxed against him.

“I love you, Jessie.” He had to whisper the words, to reinforce the emotion that had backed his decisions for the past five years.

“But sometimes love isn't enough.” The saddened remembrances in her voice pricked at the comfort enfolding.

“And sometimes, love is all you have.” For five years he had lived on the memory of love. He couldn't survive on the memory any longer. “We'll talk tonight. There's a lot I have to tell you and decisions we both have to make. But I don't want to talk right now. Right now, I just want your love.”

She tilted her head back, her velvety brown eyes drowsy.

“You always had my love, Slade. Every minute of every day for as long as I've known you. But I'm not a child anymore. And I don't need your protection.” Her voice was laced with steel, her gaze becoming direct, determined.

“I'll protect you with my life whenever it's necessary, Jessie.” He sighed. Hell, he didn't know anything else. “You're my sunlight. I've been without you too long, I've needed you too much. That is never going to change.”

“Then we're going to have a hell of a time figuring this relationship out,” she warned him, the drowsy sensuality that filled her face doing nothing to detract from the defiance in her eyes. “You might be the big bad stud, but I'll be damned if you'll roll me as though the past never happened and it can be wiped away by the simple means of never speaking of it. It doesn't work that way for me. It won't work that way for me.”

“I know, baby.” And that weighed heaviest on his heart. He wanted to forget. He wanted to close the door on the pain behind them and never open it again. “Just let me hold you right now, while the morning is quiet around us, while you're soft and sweet from sleep and just mine. Let me have that for now.”

“You always had that.” Her hand lifted, her fingers brushing over his jaw before feathering over his lips. “But it's not free this time, Slade. This time, I want all of you. The secrets you're holding and the reasons you left. Everything. Or you can walk out that door now and never come back.”

“Never,” he growled, the fierce denial tearing through his chest as he pulled her harder against him. “Believe that, Jessie. No matter what you think, no matter how much you may dislike the decisions I've made or will make, I'll never walk away again. Ever.”

“I will.” Regret shimmered in her eyes. “I won't be lied to, Slade. And I won't be played with. Never again.”

He pushed her to her back, knowing the culmination of five years was rapidly closing in on him and the fear that tightened his chest sickened him, terrified him.

“I'll drag you back,” he warned her. “And if I have to do that I'll tie you to my bed and I'll hold you there until you can't fight anymore, Jessie. I warned you years ago you didn't know what you were getting into, and I'm warning you now. I will not tolerate ever fucking losing you again.”

Stretching her arms above her head he held them there as he stole her protests by the simple means of silencing them with his kiss. It wasn't a ravaging, greedy kiss, though God knew he was desperate to taste her. He used the caress to disarm her instead. Slanting his lips over hers, he sipped at her, tasted her. His tongue stroked past the parted curves, retreating just as quickly, relishing the sound of her broken breaths as he threw himself into the fire that was so much a part of her.

Her breasts pressed against his chest, hot little nipples searing his flesh, but nothing was as good as her kiss. He tugged at her lips with his own, licked at them, tasted her, dipped into her mouth and let her flow around him. His heart was reborn in her. Five years of deprivation and aching loneliness. It would take a lifetime to still the hunger now. It would take forever to ease it. He would never forget, never let himself relax in the vigilance that he never, ever lose her again.

“Warm me, Jessie,” he whispered against her lips, his teeth tugging at the lower curve, his desperation to hold onto her transferring to his refusal to release her lips. She stared back at him, passion and anger warring in her gaze. “I've been so cold, baby. Bone-deep cold, where no fire can reach, only you. Don't let me be cold again.”

Surrender echoed in her moan, in the flutter of her lashes as he rimmed her lips with his tongue. Sleep-soft, heated and filling the dark places in his soul, she relaxed beneath him, her little tongue peeking out, tempting him to burn in the center of the fire that was Jessie.

He touched her like the dream she had been for five long years. He released her hands, allowing his fingers to mold the firm curves of her breasts, as his lips moved down the smooth arch of her throat, heading unerringly to the baby pink, hard little nipples below.

She arched and cried out as he lashed at them with his tongue. Her fingers buried in his hair, her breath rasping as he suckled them into his mouth, raked over them with his teeth.