Scandalous 1 (Scandalous #1)(22)
Author: H.M. Ward

I walked around the table feeling like we shouldn’t be doing this, but Jack didn’t seem to care. He pulled me on his lap, warm arms wrapping around me. I could feel how much he wanted me, and closed my eyes enjoying the sensation. His hand draped across my knee, before the other one produced the iPhone. “Now, let me warn you. This is the sexiest shoot I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” Leaning closer, brushing his lips to my ear he whispered, “Are you sure you want to see?” His eyes glinted as his sexy smile widened.

“Jack,” I was ready to ride him right there. The entire day passed and he sated me again and again, but he still hadn’t been back inside of me where I wanted him. Fighting the urge to writhe on his lap, I pressed my knees together and said, “Show me before I wiggle on your lap so much that I leave an embarrassing little wet spot.”

He flushed, “Abby!” Jack’s face had the most delightful expression, part awe and part embarrassment. Trying to knock me off-kilter, he held up the phone, and the screen illuminated, showcasing me, decked out in pearls and silver. The way the light lit my body, the dark pearls and inky skirt draping off of me, the glittering chain that went from one nipple to the other—I squealed and ripped the phone out of his hands. He laughed, taking in my reaction.

Looking over both shoulders, I concealed the phone, half looking at it and half hiding it. “You can’t take pictures like that, Jack!” My pink lips hung open, slightly shocked and very turned on.

He reached for the phone, trying to take it from me, a smile snaking its way across his lips. “And why not? When the model is this sexy, what’d you think the pictures would look like? Hiding you as a nun for a decade seriously threw me off, but this is what you are, Abby. This is what I see when I look at you.” He laughed, still trying to get the phone.

“But, Jack, they’re so dirty.” I held it away from him, feeling like I’d fall off his lap, but he held me tight. I flicked the screen, trying to see another picture, fascinated and afraid. The picture was dark, nearly solid black except for a rim light surrounding my upper body. It drew attention to my br**sts, both taught n**ples, my lashes lowered with full lips. I didn’t know who that girl was, but as I looked at her Jack glanced from the phone and back to me like he was seeing the same thing.

Tucking a piece of hair behind my ear he said, “Look at the next one,” I flicked the screen. The next picture was more sensual, more erotic and more beautiful. I gasped, not believing what I was seeing. I was there; I was at the shoot, but I had no idea I looked like this. The pit of my stomach twisted, delighted and nervous.

Jack spoke softly in my ear, “That’s what you do to me—when I see you and I can’t have you—that’s how you make me feel.” The phone felt like a brick in my hand. The portrait was everything, his longing, my desire—unmet, like we were when I first saw him sitting across the table from me as he stole my interview from Gus. The phone slid out of my hand and hit the floor. Our bodies inched together, my lips burning, wanting to feel his mouth against mine. We leaned in toward each other, lost in lust when the door to the galley swung open. I glanced down, heat rising to my cheeks. Standing, I slid off his lap and moved back to my seat.

Without a word, the waiter went to walk away, embarrassed, but Jack said, “Check. Now.” His blue eyes were locked on mine, not looking away as he said it. Those pictures made my head spin. They were the most erotic depictions I’d ever seen—and they were of me. It wasn’t just that they were nudes, it was that they were evocative. Everything about them screamed of deep longing and sexuality unsurpassed.

My voice was thin, “Is that really how you see me, Jack? All the time?” my brows lifted, like I didn’t believe what I was saying. My hands were on the table in front of me strangling the helpless tablecloth in my death-grip.

Jack took my hands, running his thumb along the back of my hand, tilting his head. “There wasn’t a time when I didn’t see you like that. You’ve always been that way to me, Abby—an unattainable goddess.”

The room was silent, as he handed me the phone. Glancing down, I took it and flipped through more pictures, each more sensual than the last, lust building through the shoot—the way that it had been building in my body—until the final image was of the two of us together. Jack was holding me, and the expression on my face was completely sated.

My eyes glanced up and saw Jack, his gaze dark and wanting. He’d done it to me again, turned me into something I wasn’t. As if he could read my thoughts he said, “I just bring it out in you, Abby. This sensuality, this exquisite sexuality has always been there. It always will be. It’s part of who you are.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Our night was perfect. Utterly divine. We walked past the jeweler’s closed shop, heads tilted together, Jack’s arms around my waist. “I’ll take you here tomorrow. We’ll pick out the perfect ring for you.”

“Jack, this feels like a dream,” I snuggled in his strong arms. He pressed a kiss to my temple as we watched the lit window. Different rings, all amazing, filled the case.

Jack said, “I like that one. The one that looks vintage with the antique setting. It’s stunning, just like you.” And it was a stunning ring. At least five carats. I didn’t know how I felt about that, about Jack’s money. Even though I’d been back for a while, and seen him running his business, I still thought of him as the strapped guy that I knew in high school. He worked his ass off, like me, and neither of us ever had much. As if he sensed my thoughts, he said, “It’s our money now, Abby. What’s mine is yours. You won’t have to think about anything ever again. And that church off. You never have to go back there again. I’m paying your loans off first thing in the morning.”

I laughed softly. The idea of telling the church to go to Hell was appealing. At the rate they were going, they were headed there anyway. Part of me wanted to fight with Jack, and resist. “They didn’t do it—they didn’t sign for the loans. I did. Those were my mistakes, Jack. I thought I could do it. I thought I could find a balance between idealism and reality, but there wasn’t one. I made all the wrong choices.”

Turning me in his arms so that I faced him, Jack took my chin in one hand, leaving his other on my waist, “Look at me, Abby. You made all the right choices. Everything you did brought us back together. Those decisions gave us a chance that we wouldn’t have had. I’d love you to tell them to screw off, that you don’t need them anymore. What that church did to you was…” he bit his lip, shaking his head. He softened his tone and continued, “They trapped you. They figured out a way to keep you indebted to them and trapped you. When you sold all their crap and gave the money to the poor, you blindsided them. They were a means, a way to bring you back to me. I can’t stand what they did to you, but there’s no way I’d wish it didn’t happen, because without them, you wouldn’t be here with me now.” I breathed deeply, trying to let go of the emotions tied to that place.

Tears formed in my eyes, “If it was a good thing, then why do I feel like I failed? I didn’t save anyone. Seminary, all that debt, the last decade of my life—it was for nothing.”

Smiling softly, he pressed his lips to my forehead. Wiping away my tears, he said, “You saved me. Abby, I was so lost before you came back. Life was a never ending series of fake people hoping to get a piece of me. No one actually sees me as person. I’m a f**king bag of money, a means to an ends. The models do it, the business partners do it, the patrons do—everyone sees me the same way. I was sick of it. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I would have dropped a match on the place and walked away. It was that bad, Abby. But the day you showed up was the day my life started again. I know misery. I know about trying to do the right thing and having it come back and bite you on the ass. And I can promise you, Abby, all that misery you went through wasn’t for nothing. You told me a few weeks ago, if you saved one person, that was enough. Abby, I’m that person. You saved me.”

As he spoke I watched his eyes, his lips spilling his soul. I wanted to hear the words, and silence his painful story at the same time. I could tell that there was darkness lurking within him, something dark and desperate. I saw it in him during my interview. Jack seemed cold, distant. He wasn’t the boy I’d left behind all those years ago. But slowly, as days turned into weeks, I saw that boy was still inside of him. Jack began to melt, his hard edges smoothing. I didn’t realize that I was the reason until that moment.

Pressing my lips to his, I kissed him softly, tears in my eyes. I held him close, in front of the shop, feeling his hair in my hands. Smiling I said, “I love you so much.”

He glanced at me, grinning softly, “Come on, Mrs. Gray. There are some things I’d like to show you in my room.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

When we walked into the studio it was pitch black, but something seemed off. My eyes shifted through the shadows trying to see what was bothering me before Jack flipped the lights on. As he did so, we could see the files in the desk were dumped all over. Chairs were turned on their sides, papers were everywhere. The floor was covered in white paper, Galleria brochures, and a million other office supplies. Someone broke in.

Jack’s gaze narrowed, surveying the damage before he said, “Stay here. “ He took off into the back. I heard his footfalls disappear, leaving me in silence.

I flipped through the papers on the desk and the floor. They were random things to dump out, and when I pulled open the drawers, they weren’t empty. When Jack came back he was fuming. He held the Tiffany’s boxes in his hands and threw them on the desk. They landed with a thud.

“Stolen?” I asked. That jewelry was worth a small fortune. Anything from Tiffany’s was.

He shook his head, “No. That’s the problem. Something was taken, Abby, and they did this so I wouldn’t be able to tell what it was.” I looked around. The place was such a mess that it would take hours, possibly days, before it was all put back so we could tell what was gone.

“Call the cops, Jack. Tell them you have someone…”

His shoulders were tense. He snapped, dragging his hands through his hair as he looked around, “Tell them what? That one of my employees was messy? They didn’t break in, Abby. They had a f**king key.” Turning swiftly, he slammed his fist into the wall behind him. I winced. He looked over at me, “I wanted tonight to be perfect.” He shook his head, “I’m sorry.”

Walking to him, I stopped in front of him, and he wrapped his arms around me, “Tonight was perfect, Jack. It was completely perfect.” He looked down at me, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “Let’s sift through this stuff and figure out what they took. And in the meantime, call the locksmith and change every lock on this building, change every code, every combination, until you figure out who’s doing this to you.”

__________

I called Kate and told her I was staying over. Her response was typical Kate, “If you sleep with him, you’ll lose your job, Abby. Tell me that you guys are just playing house, and not f**king each other’s brains out.”