Page 78 of The One With the Mountain Man

"Exactly. I'm making you dinner."

She reached out and fisted my dirty shirt, pulling me back to her. "Thank you." Then she kissed me so sweetly my dick stirred to life.

Making dinner shouldn't earn me this kiss and it pissed me off that Marley didn't have more people taking care of her, looking out for her mental health, making sure her idiot fans didn't scare her away. Why didn't her family visit? Her friends? It was like she was alone in the world. "You're welcome but you don't have to thank me. I'm happy to make you food any damn time."

That light in her eyes dimmed again, just like it did any time I mentioned the future.

I hated it. So I nipped her lower lip. "I know I don't know what your world really looks like and tomorrow is going to be a lesson for me, but don't think it's going to scare me away. I'm falling too hard and fast to let that happen."

"Jackson," she whispered in that way that was somehow both a plea and an oath at the same time.

It made me want to bury myself inside her and never leave. I wasn't Huk Finn, the boy who got into trouble, the kid who pissed off his parents, or even the guy my friends knew. With Marley I wasJackson.I felt more like me than I ever had before. Like I'd hidden part of me away with the rage and bad memories and was finally letting all of them out.

"I need to feed you." I kissed her back, then moved down the column of her throat, pushing her chunky sweater aside to taste the skin of her shoulder. "I have an insatiable need to take care of you." I took her chin in my hands, grabbing her full, fuzzy attention. "I'm going to feed you, then I'm going to fuck you, then we're going to sleep so we can face tomorrow with clear heads. Together."

She blinked at me.

"Do you understand?" I used that slightly commanding voice she needed from time to time to shake her out of her running thoughts.

"I understand," she whispered.

After a chicken salad sandwich, I took her to bed. We spent an hour touching and kissing, drawing pleasure out of each other slowly and teasingly. For her it was to erase the stress. For me it was a way to bring it all into order.

And in the morning, I learned that I might know a hell of a lot about Marley Tranquill but I didn't know a damn thing about A.M. Quill.

Twenty-Four

Marley

Their ghosts were here

Jackson was fuming.Silently, but it was obvious he wasn't happy. At all. His hands were balled into fists, his jaw was set, and his eyes were neither green nor blue. They were fire.

"Security?" He finally bit out.

"I told you, my real life is a circus." And with my stalker who knows where, my agent and I decided we didn't want to take any chances. There were extra police around the bookstore as well, due to the crowd size.

"I'm not upset that you have them, I'm upset that you need them." He planted his fists on his hips. "Why the fuck are we here? You don't want to do this and it's not safe. This is insanity."

I stopped unpacking and carefully sat in the stiff armchair by the huge windows. The drapes were open, but the sheers were closed, letting the light into the room without having us on full display. The hotel suite was expensive and nice, reserved using Jackson's name, not mine.

I folded my hands in my lap, feeling bizarrely calm, given the circumstances. "I cancelled all my events this year. I haven't done a signing, reading, speech, workshop, nothing all year. But we booked this event as a charity fundraiser for a reader who lost her husband in an accident. I postponed it once, hoping I'd have good news to share by the time we got here."

"But you don't."

"But I don't. So, it was either postpone again or face my fans. Since it is a limited ticket event and the cause is important to me, I agreed with my agent that we should go through with it." We were taking every precaution. The hotel was secure. It was also nowhere near the bookstore. A private car would take us from the hotel garage to the event. They even arranged to use the staff elevator so we wouldn't run into hotel guests who might, on some off chance, recognize me and post our hotel to social media. There was an elaborate plan for returning to the hotel. It was all so cloak-and-dagger, super spy stuff that it made me want to laugh.

Until I remembered Cristobal's hot breath on my skin. Then I wished there was more.

"Fuck." Jackson ran his hand through his hair and dropped down onto the bed. "You were really going to do this alone, weren't you?"

And there it was. I'd been waiting for the questions. I could see them in his eyes. For days, weeks even, he thought them but didn't ask. He gave me my space. He waited patiently.

I didn't blame him for reaching his limit now. "I was."

"Why? Why isn't there someone you want to call? Someone who jumps to help out?"

Jackson saw who I was the minute he spotted me in that parking lot. I never once had to hide myself away or pretend to be someone I wasn't. And because of that he never saw who I was to everyone else.

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