Heartless Rebel (21 page)

 
          
Except
that he hadn’t slept. Cara frowned, but he showed no signs of slowing down.
Instead of hailing a cab, they walked the short distance to a café he swore had
the best coffee in all of London. Over a meal of bacon, eggs, toast, grilled
tomatoes and coffee, they talked about mundane things like the temperature and
the clear sky. It seemed odd after their charged evening, but Cara decided to
just enjoy it for the moment.

 
          
She
liked talking to him, even if it was about nothing.

 
          
“Tell
me about you,” Jack said after she’d commented on a woman and her dog in the
small park across the street. The dog was wearing a pink dress with a ruffle,
which Cara found hilarious.

 
          
She
swung around to look at him. “Dogs don’t wear pink dresses where I come from,”
she said with a smile.

 
          
Jack’s
silvery gaze was piercing, as if he’d wanted more from her than that. “It’s a
crime against nature,” he agreed. He reached for her hand, threaded his fingers
through hers—and she knew she’d been right. “But that’s not what I want to
know.”

 
          
Her
heart began to flutter. “What
do
you
want to know?”

 
          
“Why
you think you have to do everything yourself. Why you don’t want to accept help
from anyone.”

 
          
Cara
swallowed. “I can accept help. I’m just used to taking care of myself.”

 
          
“But
why? What happened to you that you have such a strong need to be independent?”

 
          
Her
skin prickled with heat. “Who said anything happened? I prefer relying on
myself, is all. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”

 
          
“Like
I was, right?” His voice was a little harder, a little flatter.

 
          
“I
didn’t say that at all.” She hadn’t even thought it when she’d spoken, but she understood
how he could see it as a dig at him. She’d just meant that she’d always known
what it was to work, whether it was watching her parents do so or getting her
first job as a cashier when she was sixteen.

 
          
“This
is supposed to be about you,” he said, as if he were accusing her of trying to
turn the conversation.

 
          
And
maybe she was, she admitted. But conversation was a two-way street. Give a
little, get a little.

 
          
“No,”
she said. “It’s supposed to be about us getting to know each other better.”

 
          
He
let go of her hand and leaned back against his seat, his eyes hard. She didn’t
feel like she’d won a victory. Instead, she felt as if she’d taken a wrong turn
on a dark road.

 
          
“Fine,”
he said, his voice clipped. “I was indeed born rich. It was a bit of a chaotic
childhood, however.”

 
          
“Because
your mother died and you hated your father,” she said softly, annoyed now that
she’d pushed him down this path.

 
          
“My
father was a tyrant,” he snapped out. “A beast with a temper. You asked how I
could tell my ribs were bruised and not broken. I learned it from my father.”

 
          
Her
heart constricted at the thought of him cowering from his father’s rage. What
kind of man could beat children so severely? For all her father’s faults, he’d
never been violent. A liar, yes. Violent, no.

 
          
“I’m
so sorry, Jack.”

 
          
He
looked murderously angry. His eyes burned so hot they seared her. But this time
the heat wasn’t good. It wasn’t the flame of desire and passion, but the frozen
burn of despair and pain.

 
          
She
hurt so much for him she physically ached. And she suddenly knew she didn’t
need him to say another word. “You don’t have to—”

 
          
“Yes,
I hated him,” he bit out. “If I’d been the one who killed him, I wouldn’t have
run away.” He leaned forward, his eyes still burning. “He scarred Annabelle for
life, Cara. He beat her so severely with a whip that she almost died.”

 
          
Tears
filled her eyes. She couldn’t stop one from escaping and slipping down her
cheek.

 
          
Jack’s
gaze hardened, but he didn’t cease talking. “Jacob tried to stop him. He fell
and hit his head and died instantly. It was an accident.” He sucked in a breath
as his fingers clenched into a fist on the table. “But you know the worst part,
Cara? I’d have gladly killed him myself if I’d been there instead of Jacob.”

 
          
“Don’t
say that, Jack—”

 
          
He
shoved away from the table and stood. He was breathing hard now, as if he’d
fought his way through a jungle. She imagined that he had. A jungle of dark
memories and bitter emotions that he couldn’t escape no matter how he tried.

 
          
“No
. That’s the kind of man I am, Cara.
You wanted to know the truth about me. Now you’ve got it.”

 
          
SHE
let him hide out in his office for several hours before she decided enough was
enough. Cara put down the book she’d been reading—she wasn’t doing a very good
job of distracting herself anyway—and marched down the hall to Jack’s office.
She could hear him behind the door, hear the clicking of the keys and the
smooth timbre of his voice as he spoke to someone on the phone. She pressed a hand
to the door and just listened.

 
          
He’d
been awake for hours now, working nonstop, and she was worried about him. After
his confession at breakfast, they’d returned to the apartment. He’d gone out
for a while—on business, he’d said—but when he’d returned, he’d retreated to
his office with hardly a word.

 
          
She’d
wanted to give him his space. He’d pushed her away earlier; perhaps he thought
he’d pushed her away for good with that confession about his father, but it was
time she disabused him of the notion.

 
          
She
hurt for him so much. If she could, she would take his pain way. It had
horrified her when he’d said he’d have killed his father if he could have, but
she understood where that kind of emotion came from. She’d never wanted to kill
her father, but she’d been so angry with him for what he’d done. It had taken
months to explain it to Remy, who only knew that his routine had been upset. He
didn’t understand why Daddy was gone, had cried and screamed endlessly when
Daddy didn’t come home as expected.

 
          
Cara
shuddered with the memory. Then she gathered herself and pushed open the door.
No knocking, because she wouldn’t give him the chance to rebuff her.

 
          
He
looked up as she entered. He was still on the phone, but she didn’t care. She
knew enough about Jack to know he always got what he wanted when it came to
money. If the call were important, he’d find another way to complete the
transaction later.

 
          
He
looked so starkly handsome behind his desk, with the city spread out behind
him. She walked over to the windows and calmly closed the blinds. Jack’s eyes
followed her, but he still hadn’t put down the phone.

 
          
Cara
began to unbutton the long sheath dress she’d put on this morning. Buttons ran
down the entire front of the formfitting black cotton.

 
          
“Yes,”
Jack said to the person on the other end of the line. But his eyes were glued
to her. Cara smiled wickedly as she peeled the first part of the dress open to
reveal the red lacy bra she’d put on beneath it.

 
          
“Um,
whatever you say.”

 
          
Cara
unbuttoned the dress enough to step out of it. Then she turned around and laid
it over a chair, knowing he would get an eyeful because of the matching red
thong she’d worn.

 
          
“No,
no. Nothing’s wrong,” he said, but his voice sounded strained. “Look, can I
call you back?”

 
          
Turning,
she marched over to him, reaching him right as he hung up the phone. She didn’t
give him a chance to say a thing before she pushed his chair back and straddled
him. Gripping his face in her hands, she tilted his head back and crushed her
mouth down on his.

 
          
Their
lovemaking was not in the least bit tame. Cara tore at his clothes as he filled
his hands with her breasts. He pulled the cups down and tweaked her nipples
into tight points while she kissed him. Then he slipped a finger beneath the
lace of her panty and began stroking her in that most sensitive of places. Cara
shuddered and ground her hips against him.

 
          
But
as much as she wanted to let him bring her to fulfillment, she wanted to take
care of him first. This was about him, about how much she wanted him to
understand that nothing he could ever tell her about himself would scare her
away.

 
          
She
shoved his shirt off his shoulders, then started to unbutton his pants. The
instant she’d unzipped him, she slipped down his body and took him in her mouth.

 
          
“Cara,”
he gasped as she swirled her tongue around his hot shaft. She loved the size of
him, the feel, the way he bucked against her tongue. It turned her on to know
she was doing this to him, that he was fisting his hands in her hair and
groaning because of the way she made him feel.

 
          
But
before she could bring him to completion, he pushed her away.

 
          
“Inside
you,” he said, standing and lifting her onto his desk. Another moment and she
was clinging to him as he thrust into her body.

 
          
Everything
about the way they made love was intense. Cara’s head fell back as pleasure and
emotion overwhelmed her. Was that her voice moaning and pleading for more? It
shocked her, and yet she shouldn’t be surprised. She loved what they did to
each other, loved the way he made her feel, and she’d missed this last night
much more than she’d have thought possible.

 
          
They
exploded together, gasping and grinding into each other for that last little
bit of bliss, before collapsing on the desk in a boneless heap.

 
          
Sometime
later, they made their way into the bedroom and made love again, slowly this
time, with more control and more focus on making the pleasure last as long as
possible.

 
          
Cara
fell asleep in his arms, her body temporarily sated of her craving for him.
When she awoke, he was gone. She sat up, disappointed. Had he gone back to his
computer? They’d never spoken a word, other than those of hunger and need and
pleasure.

 
          
And
speaking of hunger, she smelled something cooking. Cara got out of bed and
slipped into her robe.

 
          
Jack
was at the stove. The smells of oil and garlic and tomatoes wafted up from the
pan he was tending. He tossed in a handful of mushrooms and stirred. She took a
moment to watch him, to marvel at the sight of an unbelievably sexy man moving
around a kitchen like he knew what he was doing.

 
          
“It
smells good,” she said.

 
          
He
turned. “I thought you might be hungry.”

 
          
She
leaned against the center island and watched him work. “I’m starved. What are
you making?”

 
          
“It’s
just pasta with a few fresh ingredients.”

 
          
“Wow,
I’d have thought you had someone do your cooking for you.”