“I know you think I have control issues, but they’re really more trust issues.” Their eyes met as she released his tags. “Falling asleep, naked, next to someone takes a lot of trust. In fact, there’s really nothing that feels more vulnerable than that.”
AJ withheld all emotion, just a blank expression.
“Say something,” she whispered.
He cupped the back of her neck and kissed her. His tongue slid against hers with lazy patience. It was as quick and simple as striking a match or flipping a switch. Jillian’s body went from content to desperately insatiable. She rocked her pelvis against him, feeling a trickle of warmth at her core. He grabbed her hips to still her motion.
“Thank you.”
She pulled back, eyes narrowed. “For what?”
“For not trusting me.”
She frowned, resting her hand on his cheek. His pain was so palpable. “She left you?”
He nodded.
Questions swelled on her tongue, but she had no right to ask them.
The ghost of a man looked over her shoulder like he was seeing his past on a T.V. screen. “Brooke, my ex-wife, was my dental hygienist. My former dentist … her boss, is now her husband. We fell fast in love and six months later we were married. Cage was born two years after that. We were never in the same place very long. When Cage started school we decided it was best for her to move back to Portland near our parents. We wanted Cage to have stability and make friends without feeling like nothing in his life was permanent, the way I felt growing up. By the time I came home for good, I wasn’t the same person. It’s like being on constant high alert. You just can’t shut it off and it wears on you … it affects everyone around you. She’d tap my shoulder and I’d have her pinned to the wall with my hand around her neck.”
He sighed a shaky breath and ghosted his hands up and down Jillian’s legs. “I broke her down a little every day. I broke us a little more every day.” He shook his head. “I never hit her, but I lost my temper … a lot. I frightened her. I didn’t even realize how much until I found a locked box in her bedside drawer. Inside was a hand gun.”
He shook his head. “What does that say about a man when his wife needs a gun by her bed to feel safe? We had sex, but we never made love again. She looked at me like she was looking at a stranger. I could almost hear her counting down the seconds until it was over. I never forced myself on her and she never denied me, but she’d curl up in a ball like I just raped her.”
His voice broke and he swallowed hard. “I moved out when Cage was ten and we signed the divorce papers shortly after his eleventh birthday. I wondered if she’d been having an affair because of how quickly she remarried. But honestly it didn’t matter. In some ways it was comforting to think that someone else was taking care of her and treating her with the respect and love she deserved.”
AJ laughed. “How fucked up is that?”
His words were a clear warning, but they only made Jillian feel more drawn to him, not a moth to a flame—a flame to a stick of dynamite.
“It’s not you I don’t trust.” She reached behind and unclasped her bra. AJ’s hands slid up her stomach and cupped her breasts as her head fell back; a soft moan released. “It’s me,” she whispered.
Chapter Twenty
The Knight’s basement smelled like a gym, especially on the days Jackson wanted to sweat a lot. He turned off the air conditioner until the whole house began to feel like an inferno. Jillian stopped at the bottom of the stairs and watched her brother do one arm pushups. He defined the term physical specimen: muscles, tan skin, and a canvas of ink.
“Angry, bored, or sex deprived?”
Jackson grunted as he switched arms. “Yep.”
Jillian sat down on the bottom step. “You’re angry with me?”
“Yep.”
“And bored?”
“Yep.”
“Because I’m not here?”
“Nope.”
“Because you’re sex deprived?”
“Yep.” Jackson growled through the last one that shook his whole body. Then he sat on the floor, arms resting on his bent knees, completely out of breath. “I don’t like you with AJ.”
“You didn’t like me with Luke for quite some time.”
He shrugged. “Why AJ?”
“I think he needs me.”
Jackson laughed. “And who are you?”
“A single thirty-year-old woman with ghosts haunting her at every turn. AJ’s haunted too.”
“So two wrongs make a right? Or misery loves company? Or—”
“Or when I’m with him I feel close to Luke.”
Jackson shook his head. “That’s messed-up.”
“I was messed-up. Luke saved me.”
“So AJ needs saving?”
Jillian stared at the chipped polish on her toenails. “He needs somebody.” Jessica Day needed somebody.