She’d been manhandled by someone she considered a friend, had had her home broken into, and she was worried about him. “Let me worry about that.” He reached out with his thumb and erased the little frown line between her brows. “He doesn’t scare me, believe me.”
“No, I imagine he doesn’t. And I never thanked you for showing up right in the nick of time, did I? Just like in the movies. Jack Prescott to the rescue. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Jack’s voice was suddenly hoarse, and he had to clear his throat to get the words out.
She was holding the stem of her wineglass, twirling it, watching the deep red wine climb the walls of the crystal, lost in thought.
The hand holding the stem was delicate, as was her wrist. He could see the tendons working as she twirled the stem. Everything about her was delicate, even fragile. Tonight she didn’t have her usual rose under ivory color—she was pale and looked tired.
Much as she tried to build little havens for herself from the outside world in her home and her shop, the sharp-toothed outside world had come roaring in to take a big bite out of her in both her havens.
The world was not kind to the kindhearted.
Jack’s heart simply rolled over in his chest.
It was almost as if he were seeing her for the very first time. Caroline had been in his head for most of his life, it seemed. A mysterious, otherworldly beauty, unreachable, unapproachable. Someone to fantasize about while jerking off in lonely places. A unicorn. A myth.
But this—this woman was real. This woman with the gallant, warm heart wasn’t a myth, but a real flesh-and-blood woman. Strong, yet vulnerable. Steadfast, yet fragile.
She was also the bravest person he’d ever known.
If you’d asked him, Jack would have said he was brave. Christ, he was a soldier. He’d been in more firefights than he could count. He went into battle each and every time fully prepared to die. He didn’t back down from anything, man or beast.
Didn’t mean jack shit. When the Colonel had fallen ill, that was when his courage had been tested. It had been three weeks of utter and total hell. He’d spent all the time he could at the hospital, wishing he could escape each and every second. Watching the Colonel die, inch by inch, watching him become weaker, day by day, had taxed his courage to the maximum.
Jack had gone home every evening, gone down to the basement and worked out at the punching bag for an hour a night, and it barely took the edge off his desperation.
At the end, he could barely look at the Colonel. He was ashamed of it still, but he couldn’t stand to see that emaciated face, the skin paper-thin and almost bloodless. The tubes running in and out, the gasps for breath.
When the nurses came to change his bed linen or give him his medication, Jack took the excuse to escape, if only down to the canteen for a cup of what they laughingly called coffee. And each time he came back, he stood outside the door of the Colonel’s hospital room, sweaty hand flat against the door, willing himself to push it open. It sometimes took him half an hour finally to get the courage to go back in and help his adoptive father die.
It had nearly killed him, and it had lasted three weeks.
Caroline had done that for her brother for six fucking years, while laboring under a terrible financial burden.
She deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor.
She was a woman in a million.
Caroline could be hurt at any time, be taken from him at any moment. The world is a big, cold and cruel place. No one knew that better than Jack. No one knew better than he how brutal and savage life could be. One swipe of the reptilian hand of fate, and Caroline could be wiped off the face of the earth in an instant, shattered and forever gone to him.
The beauty and goodness in her could vanish as quickly as a candle being snuffed out.
This woman was incredibly precious, light in darkness, grace in sorrow.
At that moment, Jack realized, with a sense of truth that went deep as bone, strong as blood, that Caroline held his heart forever, and that his mission in life was to keep her safe and happy, bring a smile to her face and the rose blush back to her cheeks.
As long as he drew breath, he would make sure no harm came to her that he could prevent. But even more than protecting her, he wanted her to be her truest self. Nothing could take her back to the carefree, privileged girl she’d been, but by God, he wanted the woman he’d caught glimpses of during the weekend back. A charmer, good-natured, secure in her beauty without being run by it. Well-read, with a good sense of humor, even earthy. That woman was Caroline, the essence of Caroline, when life wasn’t beating her down with a big stick.
Jack couldn’t go back in time and undo today, but he sure as hell could drown her in pleasure at the end of it.
“Come,” he said suddenly, standing up.
She looked puzzled when Jack placed two clean stem glasses and the half-empty bottle of excellent wine they’d been having for dinner in her hands, then yelped as he scooped her up in his arms.
“Where—” she began, then held her tongue. Where they were going was very clear as he headed up the stairs.
“I thought we’d have a nightcap up here.” Jack smiled in her eyes as he carried her along the upper-story landing to her bedroom. Their bedroom now.
He didn’t switch on the light in the bedroom, but the light on the landing filtered in. It was just enough to wrap them in the intimacy of darkness, yet let him see her. He needed to be able to watch her as he loved her. He knew her body well enough by now to know that he could tell by touch what was happening to her, but he wanted to see it, too.
Nothing in the world was as exciting as watching Caroline’s eyelids drooping with arousal, as if keeping her eyes open was too great an effort. Or watching her skin turn an even deeper rose where he touched her, or the barely perceptible beat of her speeded-up heart over her left breast.
God, it all turned him on. Everything about her was designed to make his cock swell, his heart beat faster, his blood rise. The sight of her, the sound of her, the feel of her, the smell of her—everything kept him in a state of semiarousal whenever he was near her or even just thought of her.
He wasn’t in semiarousal now, it was the full-blown deal. Jesus, good thing he’d bought himself another pair of tight jeans because he needed to keep it in his pants for a while.
Tonight was a night for romance, and romance meant foreplay, though it wasn’t what he was good at. Once he got a woman naked, sex was only a few minutes away. He wasn’t used to pacing himself or holding back.
Tonight would be a crash course in control because tonight was about her.
Jack sat her on the side of the bed, poured her half a glass of wine and put it in her hand. He poured himself a glass and clinked it to hers. The pure ring of crystal blossomed in the room.
“To us.” He drank, watching her over the glass.
“To us.” Caroline smiled, swirled the wine around, sniffed deeply, then sipped. That’s my girl, he thought. It’s all about the senses tonight.
Enjoy.
He sure intended to.
Jack dropped to a crouch, wincing a little as his cock rubbed up against his jeans. Fuck, it hurt. Maybe he should just go naked around Caroline, spare himself the pain.
He slowly slipped her right shoe off, then the left, getting a kick out of looking at her pretty feet and her toenail polish gleaming creamy pink through the stockings.
In the quiet room, he undressed her, slowly, like unwrapping a wonderful Christmas present to himself. Stockings, skirt, sweater, panties, bra and there she was, naked, just for him.