“You almost did that,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“And I’d do it again. In a heartbeat. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to take you on and I walked away from you. Honestly, it all but destroyed me. And every time I think that it almost got you killed, I feel furious with myself.” If he’d admitted his feelings to her and himself, neither Exxum nor Maldonado would have ever gotten within a hundred feet of Elle, much less kidnap her and threaten her life.
Elle hugged him tight, speaking against his chest. “That wasn’t your fault. You saved me.”
As far as he was concerned, she’d saved him.
“You cut your hair,” he mumbled after a long silence.
“Yes, I hated how it had hindered my movements,” she replied, lowering her gaze. “Plus I decided I needed a change. Why? You don’t like it?”
Her sudden confrontational tone brought a smile to his face. Fuck, he’d missed her. Her wit. Her warmth. Her smart-ass attitude. “I love it.”
“Good. You said some pretty hurtful things when you left me. Not to mention that you left me.”
Jack flinched at the pain in her eyes. “Fucking sorry, pet.”
Her voice was barely there. “Don’t do it again. Please.”
“I won’t.”
He kissed her, slowly. Reverently. Relishing every one of her shivers, and lifting her into his arms, he took her to the bed. Time to love his woman.
Elle sat on the porch stairs and read the e-mails that Jack had sent her, furiously wiping the fat tears rolling down her eyes.
Good morning, pet. I woke up at the hospital, without you. You’ve been here. I can still smell you. And I remember going in and out of consciousness and seeing you. There was no e-mail from you, so I decided to write to you. I miss you. A lot. Where are you?
She scrolled through the e-mails. There were dozens of them, which, considering they hadn’t seen each other in four weeks, was a lot.
I finally got to see that damn movie, Grease. Apparently the same principle applies to the TV and the radio: given enough channel-hopping, you are bound to find one where that movie is on. I still don’t get the fascination with it, and I’ll probably refuse to watch it ever again, but I did watch.
She noticed over her sniffling that the front door had opened. She didn’t have to turn to know who that was. She could feel his gravitational force, pulling at her. And that sexy scent of his inebriating her.
Jack sat behind her on the stairs, engulfing her with his warm body and planting a kiss on the top of her head. “What are you doing out here?”
Elle shrugged. She’d started reading the e-mails in the living room, but soon she realized the waterworks were unavoidable, and not wanting to wake Jack up, she’d escaped outside.
“You’re crying. They’re that bad?”
“No, of course not, Borg,” she said, irate. “They are wonderful. You wrote to me every day.”
“Yes. I think there are several occasions when I wrote twice in the same day. I didn’t know what to do with myself without you.”
They stayed together on those stairs for a long while, hugging. Going through the e-mails together.
“I love you, pet,” he whispered.
Elle kissed him softly. “Love you too. Your morning-after skills have improved, Borg.”
Jack chuckled. “So it seems.”
“I told you I didn’t need all those niceties to let you fuck me and I meant it. I still do.”
“I know, but you deserve them. I won’t start calling you princess or doll or anything like that though. You are and always will be my pet.”
Fair enough.
“Now what?” Elle asked finally. It was his move. This was the proverbial morning after.
He answered right away. “Now we move in together.”
“You at my place? Mrs. Copernicus will be thrilled to get someone like you for her neighborhood-watch group, but I don’t see you in suburbia.”
Jack shrugged. “I can deal with that; it doesn’t bother me.”
“What if I say I’m not ready to shack up with you?”
“Get ready pretty soon, because I’m waking up to you every day from now on. Every fucking day. Your choice where. You could move to my apartment.”
“The one you only allowed me to go to while I was in shock so I would forget where it was afterward?”
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and handed her a key. “This is for you, pet.” The key ring attached was engraved. To Elle.
She cocked her eyebrow but took it. “Pretty sure you were going to win me back, weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t going to let the best thing that has ever happened to me slip through my fingers.”
Elle cupped his face. “I love you like crazy, Borg, but you know I will never bake you bread, right?”
Jack laughed. “I know. I’ll survive.”
“Or sew you underwear.”
“We’ll make do with Target.”
“And I will always be a smart-ass.”
He brushed his lips against hers. “I’m totally counting on that.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You are in so much shit, dude,” James said with a snort to Jack as they watched Elle and Ronnie laugh and twirl on the dance floor.