Saving Her (Her Protector Book 2) Page 13

  The hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood on end and I knew that someone was watching me. The fear that lived inside me like a feral animal snarled, hackles raising. My heart thundered in my chest and every instinct told me to run. To hide. To become invisible. To disappear.

  It wasn’t until I looked behind and spotted Jake walking through the door that I was able to breathe. Hastily, I scanned the bar but no one else was looking at me. Only Jake. And his gaze was like two lasers piercing straight through me. That look stole my breath all over again but for a different reason entirely.

  It was the heat in his gray gaze, the heat that was always there, the heat that burned away the rest of the chill from inside me.

  He strode towards me, ignoring everyone else, even the locals that waved and greeted him with surprise. It was obvious they weren’t used to seeing him in this place. But he’d come. Because of me.

  My heart picked up its pace once more as he stepped up beside me. He didn’t speak at first, just wrapped his arms around me and started to sway to the slow, dreamy song. I let my eyes close, let my body melt against his much bigger frame as the music swept around us.

  “I was worried I would walk in here and see you dancing with someone else.” Jake whispered roughly against my ear and I could hear the truth in his words, in the gruffness of his voice. “Or worse, not be here at all.”

  “I’m right here,” I said, too unsure to look up at him. To unsure to meet his gaze and see whatever turbulent emotion was swirling inside them, “I’m right here with you.”

  “I know. Believe me, I am well aware of that fact,” Jake chuckled warmly and the heat was back, driving away some of that shakiness. He talked as we danced, low enough that only I could hear his words. I more than heard them. I felt them rumble through my body like a tidal wave of desire. All he had to do was touch me, hell, look at me with that light gleaming in his eyes, and I wanted to melt into a puddle at his feet.

  “I should have told you this from the first, before we ever…” He trailed off, clearing his throat, “Before we, you know, did what we did.”

  I laughed softly against him at the sudden shyness in his voice. Jake Gallagher was the least shy person that I knew.

  “Don’t laugh. I’m trying to be serious here.”

  “I’m sorry. Go on.”

  “Thank you,” He said primly, but gave me a dazzling smile before he started talking again. “Three years ago, I was dating someone. Someone I thought I was in love with. Someone who I thought loved me.”

  I heard Beth’s voice in my head, telling me the same sad story about love and betrayal, but I didn’t say anything. I just let him say what he needed to.

  “I was going to propose to her. I thought…I thought I knew her so well, but I was wrong. I was so, so wrong. Turns out the whole time she was with me, she was screwing every other guy in town that she could trip into bed. And the whole god damned town knew about it. Everyone but me. Stupid, idiot me.”

  “Jake, I don’t think–.”

  “Just, let me finish this, while I can.” He placed a finger across my lips, sending a cascade of shivers up and down my spine but finally I nodded.

  “I was an idiot, Zoe. An idiot because I couldn’t see the through, but an idiot because I just went along with it. I went along with her, putting myself through hell because I wasn’t honest with myself.” He drew in a deep breath and I could feel his chest expand and contract against my cheek. “So here I am. Being honest. With myself, and with you.”

  He reached down and cupped my face in his hand, tilting my chin up until we were eye to eyes, our feet barely swaying at all on the dancefloor. The rest of the bar fell away. The rest of the world fell away. And it was only us. Just the two of us left in existence.

  “I want to be with you, Zoe. Only you. And I want you to be with me. No one else. I don’t…I don’t know what this is between us but I know it’s more than just two people having a good time. I want it to be us, just us, you and me, together.”

  I stared at him, lost in his gray eyes, in the emotion shining there, lost in his words, lost in the music.

  “Well, aren’t you going to say something?” He said nervously and I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew what to do.

  I grabbed the front of his shirt, leaned up on the tips of my toes, and kissed him. Trying to put everything into that kiss that I couldn’t say out loud. I knew I was falling for him. I had been since that first morning at the ranch when he’d been as wild and angry as a feral wolf but at the same time so kind. I knew it was the last thing in the world I should do, but I couldn’t help myself. How could I when he went and said something like that?

  He was breathless when he pulled away a moment later. “I know it’s probably hard for you, with everything that happened with your ex, the way he hurt you. I know it’s probably hard for you to trust people, for you to trust me, but you can.” He swept my hair back, tucking it behind one ear, “You can trust me Zoe. I’ll never hurt you like that, I swear it.”

  “I know that, Jake,” I said, guilt and fear forming again in the pit of my stomach at his words. At the lies I’d told him. The secrets I was still keeping from him. I knew I could trust him, but could he trust me?

  The thought broke my heart and I buried my face against his chest so he couldn’t see my expression.

  “I want you too, Jake. Only you. I don’t want to be with anyone else. You don’t have to worry about me cheating on you.” I said that last with a wry laugh. He had no idea how true that was at least. I couldn’t even imagine wanting to sleep with anyone else. Not even thoughts of my ex excited me like Jake did and I was going to marry the man!

  “Good, I’m glad to hear it.” Jake said gruffly, his arms tightening on me even more as if he never meant to let go and that was just fine with me. In the circle of Jake’s embrace was one of the few places I actually felt safe in the whole world.

  We slow danced together for another song, and then another, content to just hold each other, both of us giving ourselves over to each other and the rhythm of the music. It was pure magic. A moment that I wanted to wrap in muslin and pack away so that I could keep it and treasure it forever.

  “Hah, didn’t I tell you boring was exactly your type?” a familiar, grating voice broke the spell and I looked over to see the bottle blonde woman in the leopard print dress from the bathroom. I opened my mouth to tell her to go away but I noticed how Jake had frozen stiff next to me.

  “Believe me, darling, you don’t want him. No one wants him. He’s worthless in business, he worthless in bed. Just all around worthless.”

  I gasped at her tactless words but Jake’s eyes just narrowed on the woman. His voice was deceptively calm and even when he spoke but I could hear the anger underneath.

  “Leave us alone, Val.”

  I gasped again at the name. Val. This was Jake’s ex? This was the woman he’d been head over heels in love with? I tilted my head, looking at her objectively. She was pretty, in a way, but hard living had left sharp angles, grinding away any softness, any kindness, that might have once existed.

  “You should just turn around and leave him now. Leave him all alone like he’s meant to be. Poor, sad, little Jake Gallagher. You should actually just go ahead and leave town altogether. We don’t really care for strangers around her. Especially little jumped up strangers like you.”

  Jake took a step forward as if to protect me from her words but they just slid off me. Val ignored Jake, her catty gaze stuck on me as if she was trying to intimidate me and the whole thing made me want to laugh. Her, intimidate me? After having a stalker threaten me and my life for over a year? It was ridiculous!

  I threw my head back and laughed. Jake gave me a sideways glance, it was obviously not the response he expected. Valerie just stood there, glaring at me with contempt, and I could see it there, jealousy. She was jealous. Because I was with Jake, which meant he wasn’t pining for her anymore.

  Beth had said that he
hadn’t dated anyone since things had ended between them, and I bet Val had loved that. Imagining Jake all alone in the big farmhouse, thinking of her, mooning over her. She made me sick.

  “No thanks.” I said with a sweet smile, wrapping my arms around Jake, “I’m perfectly happy right where I’m at, actually.”

  “Well, you won’t be!”

  “Is that a threat?” There was no calm veneer to soften Jake’s voice this time and Val finally looked at him, her eyes going wide at the sharpness of his question.

  “A threat? What? You know I don’t get your hands dirty, sweetheart. I’ll leave that to you, working in horse shit all day.” Val smiled, showing all her teeth, “I can’t believe I ever let those hands touch me. The sex wasn’t even worth it.”

  I didn’t care what she had to say but I could see the way Jake flinched even though he tried to hide it. And that, I couldn’t stand.

  “It’s so sad, isn’t it Jake?” I shook my head, making a tsking sound with my teeth, “She’s so jealous. No self-respect. She obviously hasn’t stopped thinking about you after all this time. She should really get over you, because your taken now. You’re mine.” Val’s eyes widened in outrage at every word, and she was spluttering in anger as I turned my back on her, not willing to stoop any more to her petty level. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  I pulled Jake with me, stopping only to wave to goodbye to Beth before pushing through the door and getting out of the suddenly claustrophobic bar. I looked over Jake.

  “Let’s go home.”

  19

  Jake

  I clenched my hands even tighter on the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. It had been such a shock to my system to see Val after all this time but even more than that, to hear what she said, about me, about Zoe. The whole thing made me furious and I couldn’t get it out my head. I was more embarrassed than anything else.

  How had I ever thought I was in love with her? She was a viper, just biding her time, waiting for the moment to strike when it would cause the most damage. What had I seen in her? How could I have been so blind? It still shocked me sometimes, but I knew I’d let my emotions get in my own way. And my expectations had blinded me to the truth of the situation.

  Deep down, I had known something was wrong, but I’d gone along with anyway, gone along with her because that’s how it was supposed to be. I’d been so wrong.

  But for Val to say all of that shit to Zoe, it made my hands tremble with anger. What if she believed it? What is Zoe had listened to all of that garbage? And what Val had said about her leaving town. That bothered me the most. I didn’t want her to leave, damnit. I didn’t want…

  With a curse, I pulled the truck over to the side of the country road. There were no other cars on the road and the night was clear and warm around us.

  Zoe glanced over at me in confusion but didn’t say anything as I tried to get myself back under control. The last thing either of us needed was to get into an accident because I couldn’t control my temper when it came to my ex.

  Wouldn’t Val just love that? Knowing that she upset me so much that I ran us off the road. I shook my head and let out a rough, humorless chuckle.

  “I’m sorry, I just…She gets under my skin, you know?” I tried to explain but I couldn’t find the words. I just did the best that I could, “I really am sorry. That you had to meet her. That you had to…to listen to all of that garbage. Val is a lot to take at the best of times and tonight, well, it definitely wasn’t the best of times.”

  I tried to make it a joke. I tried to laugh it all off. But Zoe saw right through it, right through me. She reached out to me, laying her hand on my thigh and squeezing it in comfort.

  “You don’t have to apologize for someone else,” Zoe offered quietly, “Especially not her.”

  I nodded. I knew she was right. Didn’t make me feel any better about the situation, but I had learned one valuable lesson tonight. I was sure now. I didn’t carry any feelings for my ex anymore. Not even the bitter anger that had burned inside me for so long over her betrayal. It was all in my past now, and I knew that was because of Zoe.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” She started hesitantly, kindness in her voice. “What did you see in her? I can’t picture the two of you together.”

  I let out a huff of a breath. It was a question I’d asked myself countless times over the last three years.

  “Honestly? I saw what I wanted to see.” I put the truck in park, the music crooning some old soul song soft and low as my thoughts raced back to the past. “I saw what I thought I wanted. What I was supposed to want.”

  It had all seemed so simple at the time. So easy. So straightforward. The high school sweetheart.

  “She was the good girl, you know? My high school girlfriend and we’d just sort of kept dating off and on even after we both graduated.”

  “Good girl? Her?”

  “Val wasn’t always…She used to be different. Quieter. Gentler. Softer, you know?”

  “Yeah, well, life has a way of sharpening a girls soft edges.” Zoe whispered in the darkness of the truck cabin and I thought she was speaking from experience. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her. To just come out and ask her about it. About whatever it was that she’d gone through.

  But every time I brought up her past or asked about her history, she put up a wall between us and right now, in that moment, I felt as close to her as I ever had. I didn’t want that feeling to end, or that fragile closeness to disappear into thin air.

  Instead, I focused on myself, and my own fucked up history, hoping it would be enough to make her trust me with her secrets.

  “Believe it or not, Valerie was the good old country girl. Good grades. Nice family. We had dated through high school. On and off for a few years after that. I knew her. At least, I thought I knew her. I thought I loved her. Jesus, I was such an idiot.”

  “Loving someone doesn’t make you an idiot. She’s the idiot. She doesn’t know what she lost.”

  “Thanks.” I said stiffly, then I looked at her in the dark, her ink black hair shining in the moonlight, her eyes colorless in the night, twin pools of gleaming dark, staring back at me.

  “I’ll protect you, you know.” The words came tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop them, “You don’t have to be afraid of your ex any more because I’m not going to let anyone hurt you like that ever again. I would never hurt you, Zoe. I want you to trust me.”

  She stared at me, those big eyes of hers drawing me in, drowning me in their depths.

  “I know, Jake.” Zoe said after an endless moment, “I do trust you. I care about you…I never thought I would, you know? I definitely wasn’t looking for any one, or a relationship, but then wham! You just appeared out of nowhere and now…” She trailed off, shrugging one delicate shoulder and I couldn’t breathe as her words hit me. “I want you Jake. Only you. You don’t have to worry about me either, okay? Because I would never cheat on you. Not ever.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her I knew that but the words were cut off as her lips crushed against mine in a soul searing kiss. And then I couldn’t even remember what I was going to say, all thoughts, all memories, everything was gone in a haze of need as I lost myself in her.

  * * *

  Zoe

  My heart was racing so hard I could feel it like the beat of drums in my chest. Pounding out a frantic rhythm. Every single word that Jake spoke stabbed through me like a knife. I wanted to trust him. I did trust him. With my body. With my heart, heaven help me. But I couldn’t trust him with my secrets. I couldn’t trust anybody with my secrets.

  So instead, I kissed him. I kissed him as if my life depended on it, because in that moment, I felt like it did. Like only the parts touching him, skin to skin, lips to lips, were real. He anchored me. He kept me from dissolving into a million tiny pieces that could be swept away, never to be seen again.

  I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know when he had become such an inte
gral part of my life, but I felt him there. So solid. So dependable. The most solid thing in my entire life at the moment.

  Desire rushed through me, sweeping away the fear from earlier at the fence, the doubt and guilt, the panic and worry. It washed everything clean inside me so that there was only room left for him.

  His fingers speared into my hair, tangling in the fabric of my dress as he swept his hand under the hem and up my thigh, my hip. Grasping and holding on to me just as desperately as I was holding on to him.

  But it still wasn’t enough. There were far too many clothes and far too much space still separating us.

  I was shaking with need as I fumbled with Jake’s shirt, my finger’s feeling the heat of his hard abs as I finally reached skin. It made me gasp at the sparks that fired up my fingertips, my palm, travelling up my arm and then down the rest of my body.

  The smallest touch was enough to have desire pooling heavy and slick between my thighs. And knowing I had the same effect on him was heady and powerful. I could see his erection straining against the front of his jeans and I couldn’t resist.

  I unbuttoned and unzipped the closure so that I could see all of him. Jake grit his teeth and let out a sharp hiss of a breath as I dipped my hand beneath the waistband of his boxers and wrapped my fingers around his thick cock. I felt it pulse eagerly against my palm and drooled at the sight of him. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to taste him.

  I leaned down, drawing just the head of his erection into my mouth and savoring the flavor of him. All masculine, and all him. Jake gasped, drawing my hair into a fist as he stiffened under the lash of my tongue.

  I sucked him all the way in, hollowing out my cheeks as I swirled my tongue. I love the way his hips arched wildly beneath me as if he couldn’t hold on to any of his control but he was still gentle, careful with me even as he spiraled out of control.