"I can't yet. Give me another couple of days," Elle pleaded. "I'll be stronger and then maybe Kate can help a little and I can deal with the house."
Jackson looked around his home, at the subtle difference in the walls. He didn't want to believe it, but he was beginning to think maybe the Drake house was moving locations. "Don't worry, Sarah," Jackson promised. "I'll take good care of her."
Sarah nodded, her eyes meeting his. "I believe you will, Jackson. Thank you for what you did."
Jackson watched the Drake sisters follow Ilya out. At once the tension drained out of Elle. She nearly went limp in his arms.
"I was so scared for you. Terrified." Elle pressed her face tightly against his chest. "You risked so much. What if he'd gotten into your head? What if he could cause you pain, or even kill you, Jackson? You're so reckless."
He stroked her damp hair, only partially combed out. "I knew he couldn't. You welcomed me. You invited me. He's an intruder and he doesn't belong. You don't have faith in your own abilities anymore, Elle, because you think they failed you, but you're still strong."
A small shudder ran through her. "I wasn't strong enough to keep him out."
"Let me look at you. How much damage did he do?" He lifted her away from him, forcing her to stand on the floor.
He could see the smudges of fingerprints on her throat. He tugged the top of the shirt lower. The dark bruises formed a pattern across the slope of her breasts and he could see faint teeth marks. She was holding still in his mind, waiting for his recoil, waiting for his reaction, so he gave her none, tamping down the raw edge of violence that had been a legacy from his father. He had patience and he would find and kill Gratsos, but right now, Elle needed reassurance and Jackson was determined to provide whatever Elle needed.
"Not too bad. The bastard. And I want you to notice I didn't call him a fucking bastard this time. I'm learning."
She smiled just as he knew she would. "I don't think you're quite getting the concept I'm after." She stroked Bomber's head and rubbed his ears. "You're such a good dog. Thanks for trying to save me."
"Maybe we could use that," Jackson said suddenly. "I'm going to make you tea the old-fashioned way and finish your hair while I think about this."
"About what?" She watched him gather teacups and carry them into the kitchen, following a short distance behind. "What are you thinking about?"
"Bomber and his instincts. He obviously spotted Gratsos's psychic energy long before we did. Each time you've had a problem, he's alerted before. I didn't recognize it right away, but that's what he's doing." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "You hungry?"
She smiled again, this time her eyes lighting up. She'd been upset not wanting her sisters to have to heal her, but she was grateful to Libby. She had felt so unclean, and Libby made her feel whole again, not quite so dirty and used. "Jackson Deveau, you're going all domestic on me. You really aren't such a badass after all."
He grinned at her, a little embarrassed. "I'm a total badass. Don't you go ruining my reputation around here."
"My sisters are going to uphold it. They get hot under the collar when you yell at me."
She sounded smug--and teasing. He liked that. It gave him a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach. He'd always wondered what a loner like him would do with a woman around permanently; now he knew he wanted her with him.
"I'm reading your mind," she reminded, walking on bare feet into the tiled kitchen. "Tell me about your great plan."
He sighed and picked her up, putting her on the counter beside him as he put away the groceries Inez had brought them. He held up several bags of Elle's favorite dried fruit--tangerine. "That woman is so sweet sometimes."
"I never thought I'd hear you say that about Inez. You don't talk to her."
"I talk to her." He cleared his throat and looked away from her, a faint flush of color rising up his neck. "She brings me groceries sometimes."
"Without you ordering them?"
He shrugged and pulled out the makings for sandwiches.
"Jackson." Elle waited until he looked at her. "Why does she bring you groceries?"
"I don't know. I tell her it's not necessary, but she thinks she owes me or something."
She could tell by his color and reluctant tone that he really was embarrassed. Elle moved in his mind. Her eyebrow shot up. "You loaned her money?"
"Damn it, Elle. Don't say it out loud. No one knows and I didn't exactly loan it to her. She's a very proud woman and she helps people out all the time. Too much. She insisted on keeping Frank Warner's art gallery open. He's getting out of prison any day now."
"How could he be? It hasn't even been a full year." Elle was shocked. Frank Warner had allowed the Russian mob to use his art gallery to smuggle in illegal items and launder money. She'd felt a little sorry for him in that he hadn't known what he was getting into, but through his greed for money, he had allowed a dirty bomb into the country by opening up the smuggler's route.
"He was only sentenced to three years and he got time off for good behavior. Inez was very instrumental in his receiving the lightest sentence possible. Frank was huge on charity and helping out the local food drives as well as the programs for school kids, the shoes, the field trips, and he participated heavily in all the auctions, donating some great works. She worked tirelessly to help him. They'd been friends since grammar school."
"How did you know all that?"
He handed her a sandwich and poured the boiling water into the small teapot. Before Elle had come into his life, he didn't even know what tea was. Now it was a staple. Worse, he actually knew the differences in teas.
"I was doing a drive by her store late one night and found her sitting outside in the back in tears." He couldn't help the embarrassment creeping into his tone and in his mind. He glanced at her as if half expecting her to say something.
Elle remained silent, a funny melting sensation in the vicinity of her heart. This was a side of Jackson she never saw. He was such a loner, and acted as if he didn't want to speak to or get involved with anyone or the community if he could help it, yet she was finding out interesting little stories about him that told her more than he obviously wanted her knowing.
"To make a long story short, she'd invested a great deal of her own money in the art gallery, buying in with Warner and becoming partners with him, but the gallery really suffered the first few months after his arrest and she was behind a little on her own mortgage payments. The store was doing fine, but she was working most of the hours. She couldn't figure out how to pay someone to work the gallery to keep it going, as well as the grocery store and still have enough for her home. Frank's apartment is over the gallery, so as long as she made the payments on that property, his home was safe."
"And you lent her the money?" Elle prompted.
He squirmed. "She wouldn't let me loan it to her." He looked around as if someone might overhear. "She insisted I buy into the grocery store. I didn't want to, but she wouldn't take the money any other way and I couldn't figure out how to save her home."
"You own part of the grocery store?"
He shrugged. "Eat your sandwich."
"How big a part?" Elle persisted.
"Okay, maybe half. I don't know. I just signed whatever the hell Inez drew up. It didn't matter to me and it did to her so I just did it." He confessed it like a sin, in a small rush.
A slow smile lit her eyes. "Jackson Deveau, you have a soft streak in you, don't you?"
"Hell no. Inez's just different. She doesn't have any family and she needs someone looking out for her is all."
"Like Donny Ruttermyer," Elle pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
"Eat your sandwich and stop bugging me." He handed her a glass of milk.
Elle smiled at him over the glass. "You really hate being the good guy."
He scowled at her. "I just don't want you getting the wrong impression about me, that's all. I like my privacy and I think most people are just plain ridiculous."
"Really?"
The little teasing edge to her voice did something to the pit of his belly. In spite of himself, his body stirred, an aching, relentless need that wasn't going away anytime soon. "Really," he confirmed.
He needed a little respite from being in such close proximity to her. Elle wrapped in his mind was intimate, and listening to her voice, soft and melodious, was stroking nerve endings he didn't need stroked. And then there was the brush of her body, her soft curves and glorious skin. He had to stop thinking about her. Right now, and maybe for a long time, she was going to need healing and care, not someone trying to touch her. But it didn't stop him from aching to slide his palm over her skin.
Elle moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. Jackson was trying so hard to keep from having any sexual thoughts toward her, but the images crept into his mind and washed over her, until a part of her was almost feeding his deepening hunger. She heard the come-on note in her voice, knew she was flirting with him, but the drive in her was becoming stronger.
There was a part of her that knew some of her desire was for the wrong reasons. She loved Jackson and she wanted to know that she could please him, that in spite of everything that happened, he found her attractive. There was a doubt in her mind. It shouldn't have been there when he'd been so supportive and she could read his growing hunger for her, but still, she worried that he would think about the way Stavros had touched her, had forced another man to touch her and might not want to be with her.
"Don't do that, Elle," Jackson's voice was low. Husky. Sexy. "Never doubt that I want you and will always want you."
"This is crazy. You can't have private thoughts and neither can I because the moment you pull away from me, he attacks." She tried not to be upset that he knew, but it was humiliating, just as his knowing everything that happened to her in vivid, brutal detail was humiliating. Just as he knew that Stavros had succeeded in forcing her body to respond to him.
"Elle. Why are you thinking about him?"
"I can't help it. I hate this. I hate wondering if I'm ever going to have a life with you, whether I'm capable of it."
"We'll have a life together, Elle." He flashed a small cocky grin at her, one that turned her heart over and made her stomach do a funny little flip. "Don't count out my skills of persuasion."
"You have skills?"
"A lot of skills."
Elle took a breath. She had skills now, too. She hadn't thought about that aspect, only that she might be afraid to be touched. If she didn't think about being afraid, if she could let herself relax and just go with her natural instincts with Jackson--her gaze dropped to the front of his jeans--she could work magic maybe.
"That's it. Go into the other room," Jackson said.
She could see the bulge in the front of his jeans growing. He turned away from her to busy himself cleaning the counters and pouring the tea for them.
"Well, it's the truth, you know. I did learn some things. Used the right way they might be fun." And Stavros could go straight to hell. Everything he wanted for himself, every service she'd learned at his hands could be given in love instead of forced from her.
"Elle." Jackson's voice was pleading. "Do you have any idea the pictures you're creating in your head?" He glanced over his shoulder and studied her face. "Go sit down before you fall down. You're so pale you look like you're going to faint. I'll bring us some tea and then I'll work on your hair some more."
"Jackson." She waited until he turned back from the tea to look at her. "Stop ordering me around."
He shrugged his shoulders, completely unrepentant. "Someone has to, baby, and it might as well be me. You're a spoiled little thing and stubborn as hell. Besides, I promised Sarah I'd take good care of you and she scares the crap out of me."
Elle sighed and went back to her favorite chair. It was large enough to accommodate a big man and she could curl up in it, drawing up her legs and making herself into a small ball where she felt safe. "What do you think about moving inland?" She tried to keep her voice from trembling, and her mind from giving away the fact that Stavros terrified her.
No matter what Jackson said, she didn't feel strong or even particularly brave. She still felt his hands, powerful and filled with anger, around her throat and on her body. He would never let her go. And now he knew about Jackson. That would only fuel his intense rage. He hadn't wanted any other man near her and the memory of him murdering the guard after forcing her to service him was burned forever into her mind. The guard's face kept changing. Elle on her knees, her mouth sliding over Jackson's shaft, looking up and seeing the gun shoved down his throat. She blinked rapidly to try to stop the burning tears.
"Stop it. I mean it, Elle. If you're going to think about that then let's just get it out in the open. You're terrified that you won't ever be able to give me pleasure by sucking my cock."
She winced at his crude terminology, but that was Jackson. His voice was hard, his dark eyes glittering as he strode across the room to tower over her. She felt intimidated, threatened, when she stared at the twin columns of powerful thighs and then up a little higher to the thick outline of the evidence of his desire. She'd been thinking about what the taste and feel of him would be like. Whether she'd be afraid or excited or both. And she'd aroused him. Now she realized she might have done it on purpose.
Elle shook her head. "I'm sorry, Jackson. I can't help but worry about it."
"You worried about kissing me and we kiss just fine, Elle."
"He took everything away from us."
"He didn't take anything." His hands dropped to the buttons of his jeans.
Her gaze jumped back to the front of his jeans, mesmerized as he slowly unbuttoned the fly. Her heart began to pound and she moistened her lips. "What are you doing?"
"What are we doing, you mean." He shoved his jeans down and stood there, large and even more intimidating than she remembered from the shower. "We're going to know one way or another whether or not if you put your mouth around me, I die."
She swallowed hard and closed her eyes briefly, tightly. "Jackson, I don't think . . ." He stroked himself, a casual easy movement not only with his physical body, but with his mind. She felt the wave of pleasure course through him, through her. Her body stirred, nerve endings going on alert. Her mouth watered. She wanted the taste of him. She wanted to replace every bad memory with Jackson, to fill herself with him, but this . . . Again she shook her head.
Jackson didn't move. He didn't step forward. He didn't drag her to her knees by her hair, he simply stood there, his hand circling his heavy erection, and he looked as sexy as sin.
"What if I can't?"
He shrugged as if it didn't matter either way, but it did--it mattered to her. Jackson was everything good in her life, in her soul, and if she couldn't bring him pleasure . . .
He laughed softly. "Silly woman. Pleasure starts in the mind. He can try to tear it from you and force you to accept him by training your body to a certain response, but it will never be what we have together. You give me pleasure already. I can feel your tongue stroking along the shaft, right here."
She followed the line of his finger, with her eyes and then in her mind. She almost tasted him. Warm. Male. Wholly Jackson. Her tongue curled and he jumped.
"See, baby? It's about love, and giving and not about control and serving. I have no doubt that you can bring me all kinds of pleasure anytime you want to."
Elle didn't take her eyes from his shaft and the large mushroom head already glistening with a small pearly drop. She wasn't sickened--just the opposite--she was fascinated. She could feel his breath moving in and out of his lungs, the heat coursing through his body and gathering into his very core. Her hand moved tentatively and she cupped his heavy sac, almost without realizing she'd done so.
Jackson let out his breath in a long rush. Her fingers stroked the velvet texture. He didn't move, standing perfectly still under her exploring hands. Fire streaked through him when she nuzzled him gently, her warm breath exqu
isite against his sensitive skin. She felt his reaction as if it were her own, his erection engorged and growing heavier and thicker, burning and aching with need now. She let her tongue run over the broad head just to taste him. His entire body shuddered in reaction. His shaft pulsed and jerked. She felt the explosion of ecstasy bursting through his mind.
"Tell me who has the real power, Elle," Jackson whispered, his voice hoarse. "This is all you, giving me pleasure. So fuck him. He can't take anything away from us." He actually stepped back away from her, trembling a little, but determined not to go any further.
Elle didn't want to stop. She wanted to see for herself. She hadn't taken him in her mouth, stroked her tongue over him or felt him slide his shaft down her throat. She needed to know if it was possible without turning the act of giving, of love, into something depraved. Her hands stopped his backward step, fingers digging into his thighs.
"I want to feel you inside my mouth."
"Baby . . ."
Jackson's voice was gentle, but it shook, just a little, telling her he wasn't nearly as composed or in control as he wanted her to believe. It should have scared her, but it filled her with elation. She ran her fingers down his thighs and back up again, stroked the tight sac and leaned forward to nuzzle the base of his shaft.
Jackson's heavy erection jerked and pulsed against her face. He gasped and a groan slipped out. "You don't have to prove anything to me, Elle."
She could see in his steady gaze he meant it. This would have been enough for him, he felt she could build confidence from there, but it wasn't enough for her. He stood there, so sinfully masculine, so giving and tender and she wanted him to feel that explosion of ecstasy again and again. She wanted to be the one to bring it to him. And she wanted to wipe the memory of how it felt to be forced into service rather than lovingly give it.
Her hand circled his wide girth and she slipped to the floor, on her knees in a submissive position. Jackson winced visibly and caught her shoulders. "I'm telling you, baby, this isn't necessary." But it was becoming necessary.
His entire body was on fire. What man didn't love to see his woman on her knees in front of him wanting to give him pleasure? He was afraid to let her, afraid of touching her, afraid of triggering a negative response in her, yet the moment her mouth moved over him, he knew he was lost, caught forever in her spell. The only avenue left to him was to share how she made him feel. He flooded every corner of her mind with sizzling fire.