His child. His chance to atone for all his father's sins. There and gone before he even had the joy of knowing. Gone because of him, just as Evie was gone because of him.
Not for the first time he thought he was the one who should have sliced open a vein and drained his life away.
Laurel slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his back, her tears dampening the soft cotton of his T-shirt. She could see it all so clearly. Jack, so eager to prove himself, scrambling up that sheer granite face of the odds that were stacked against his making anything of himself. Then all of it crumbling beneath him, sucking him down and crushing him with the weight of the debris. He must have thought he'd had everything he ever wanted right in the palm of his hand, and then it was swept away, and every line of degradation his father had ever hammered into him must have come rushing back.
He shoved her away so suddenly, so unexpectedly, Laurel nearly fell. She stumbled back against the table, her shoes crunching over a fortune in shattered porcelain. Jack wheeled on her, his face dark with rage.
"Get out! Get outta here! Get outta my life!" he shouted in her face. "Get out before I kill you too!"
Laurel just stared at him, at the wild gleam of pain in his eyes, the muscles and tendons that stood out in his neck, the heavy rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. She should have run like hell. Inside he was as fractured as any of the statuettes grinding to dust beneath her feet. She wasn't in much better shape herself. She certainly wasn't strong enough to take on his healing too.
She should have run like hell. She didn't.
She fell in love.
He was trying to push her away, not because he didn't care, but because he cared too much; not because he didn't feel, but because his heart was so badly battered. Losing her heart to him wasn't the smart thing or the timely thing. It wasn't the choice she would have made with her logical, practical attorney's mind, but logic had nothing to do with it.
She met his pain and fury with her chin up and her eyes clear. "Why should I go?"
Jack stared at her, dumbfounded. He thought he could actually feel the gears in his mind slipping. "Why?" he repeated, incredulous. He swept his hands back over his hair, turned around in a circle, stared at her some more. "How can you ask that? After all I've just told you, how can you stand there and ask that?"
"You didn't kill your wife, Jack," she said gently. "You didn't kill your child. You're not going to kill me, either. Why should I leave?"
"I can't have you," he whispered, more to himself than to Laurel.
She stepped up to him, calm and fearless, and whispered, "Yes, you can."
He wanted to tell her she didn't understand. He couldn't have her, couldn't care, because he didn't deserve her and because everything he ever wanted was ripped away from him in the end anyway. He didn't need the pain, didn't think he could stand it. But he said none of those things. The words simply wouldn't come.
All he could think as he stared down into that earnest, angelic face was that he wanted to hold her. Just for a little while. Just for what was left of the night. He wanted to hold her, and kiss her, and find some comfort in her body.
Use her.
He'd be a bastard to the very end, he thought. No use fighting his true nature. It wasn't as if he hadn't warned her.
It wasn't as if he didn't need her…
Longing welled inside him, and he reached out to touch her, to ease the ache, to fill the hole in his heart if only temporarily. She sank against him, so small, so fragile. His… for the moment… for the night… for a memory he could hold forever.
Outside, the storm shook the night with sound and fury, but in this room all was stillness except the beating of hearts, the caress of flesh against flesh. Mist blew in through the open door and settled like silver dew, shimmering on the cypress floor when the lightning flashed, but all that touched them was a warmth that glowed from needs within.
Every sense was heightened. Every sense was filled. The fragrance of her skin. The hardness of his muscle. The taste of tears, of gentleness, of desire. The sound of breath catching. The growl of passion. The contrast of light skin on dark. The delicate lacework of her lashes as they swept against her cheek. The planes and angles of his beard-shadowed jaw. Laurel immersed herself in it all. Jack soaked it up greedily.
He touched her like a blind man trying to see with his fingertips, tracing the lines and gentle curves. Fingers fanned wide, he skimmed her jaw, her throat, the slope of her shoulders. He cradled her breasts then let his touch flow downward, over her ribs to her tiny waist, along the subtle flare of her hips.
As he mouthed phantom kisses across her eyelids, along her jawline, his fingers explored her most tender flesh. Laurel whispered his name, and need shuddered through them both.
He wouldn't be an easy man to love. He had branded himself unworthy, thought of himself only in terms of his flaws. He would push her away in the name of caring, break her heart and call it fate. But she went to him. She went to him and offered him everything she was, everything her heart could hold. Without words. Without strings.
He took her in his arms, and they fell across the bed. Springs creaked, linens rustled. The storm rolled on toward Lafayette, thunder sounding like the faint echo of hoofbeats, rain hissing like the sound of steam.
One arm hooked behind her gracefully arching back, Jack bent himself over her and took her breast in his mouth. Her nipple budded beneath the coaxing of his tongue, beneath the wet silk of her camisole, and he drew on it hotly, greedily.
His fingers caught in the hem of the garment and pulled it up. She lay back and stretched her arms above her head. He pushed the camisole to her wrists and held it there, held her there, pinned to the mattress. His eyes locked on hers as he kneed her legs apart and settled his hips against hers.
Laurel 's breath fluttered in her throat, not with fear but with anticipation. He would never hurt her physically. He would break her heart-of that she had little doubt-but she trusted him implicitly with her body. She offered herself totally, opened herself, wound her legs around his hips.
And he filled her. Slowly. Inch by inch. His eyes on hers. Giving her the essence of his maleness, being welcomed and embraced by the warm, tight glove of her woman's body. Pressing deeper, deeper, until she gasped his name. When the joining was complete, he cast the silk aside and gathered her to him in a crushing embrace.
It went on forever. It could never have lasted long enough. They moved together, body to body, need to need, heart to heart. Scaling peaks of pleasure, soaring from height to dizzying height.
Jack lost himself in the heat, in the bliss, in the comfort she offered him without words. He gave himself over to desire, thought nothing of right or wrong, only of Laurel. So sweet, so strong. He wanted to give her everything, be everything for her. He wanted to press her to his heart and never let her go. She filled up the hole inside him, flooded all the pain away, made him believe for a moment he could start over… with her… have a family… have peace… find forgiveness.
Foolish thoughts. Foolish heart. But for this night he would cling to them as he clung to the woman in his arms, and soothe his aching soul with visions of love.
Chapter Twenty-One
Laurel slipped from the bed at dawn and dressed silently in the soft light that filtered through the French doors and lace curtains. For a long while she stood by the balcony door and just studied him, as an artist might study a subject before putting brush to canvas, taking in everything about the man, the mood. The light seemed the color and consistency of fine sand, golden and grainy, and it didn't quite penetrate the shadows of the graceful four-poster. Jack lay sprawled on his belly, taking up most of the bed, his face buried in the crook of his arm. His bronzed back was a sculpture of lean, rippling muscle. The sheet, a drift of white, covered only a section of thigh and hips. One leg was bent at the knee, thigh and calf strong, masculine, dusted with rough, dark hair.