Kaleidoscope (13 page)

Maybe she had awesome mental powers like Jacob.

She leaned over the side of the couch she was sitting by and into me before she continued.

“He’s into you and, just sayin’, he’s into you because of all that you got goin’ on. Don’t lose that because of who he is, how he is, or that he can give it to you like you like it. Don’t lose it for you. And don’t lose it because, you do, you might lose him.”

Fear gripped my insides as my mind reeled back wondering if, even at this early juncture, that was already happening.

“Krys, you’re freaking her out,” Faye murmured.

She totally was.

“Good,” Krystal stated as she sat back. “She’ll have a mind to all this and not let it happen.”

“You’ll be fine. Deck will be fine. Krys is just a little cynical,” Lauren told me. “Don’t worry, Emme.”

Too late. I
was
worried.

So worried, I was immensely relieved when I heard my cell phone ring in the kitchen and that meant I had an excuse to mumble my apologies and hurry out of the room.

Unfortunately, I was so intent on taking the call I took it even though the display said “Unidentified Number.”

“Hello?”

“Em.”

Oh no. It was Dane.

I said nothing.

“I… Em… do you know where I am?”

“I know where you are,” I whispered.

“I figured you did. They said they have your ring.”

My
ring?

It wasn’t
my
ring. I didn’t even want it to be
my
ring when I didn’t know it was a stolen ring. But it being a stolen ring, it was never
my
ring.

I again said nothing but I did start fuming.

He said something.

“This is my one call. I’ve been waiting to make it so I didn’t wake you or something. I… things aren’t good and I fucked up with that ring. I fucked up with a lot. I know you’re probably freaked but I need to talk to you. Babe, please, can you come down to the station? I can have visitors.”

He wanted me to come to the police station where he was incarcerated and have a chat?

Was he insane?

“Today, I was going to break up with you,” I informed him.

“Shit,” he whispered.

He knew it.

He didn’t like it.

And, I guessed, if he wasn’t currently residing in lockup, he would have tried to talk me out of it.

“So, no. I can’t come down to the station because we
were
done and now we are so totally done, we’ve redefined the word done.”

“Em, this is fucked up. They don’t have it right. I mean they do, parts of it, but other parts—”

I interrupted him, “Please don’t call me again, Dane.”

“Emme, honey—”

“Ever.”

Then I hung up.

I stood there staring at my phone in my hand trying to figure out what I was feeling.

Outside of feeling totally stupid that I said yes to a date, continued to date and let that man in my bed, I realized I didn’t feel much of anything else. Other than the fact I was relieved I didn’t have to break up with him face-to-face and could do it over the phone during his one phone call after being arrested.

That was weird, insane and made me feel creepy.

But at least it was done.

“Emme?”

I turned my head and saw Faye standing there, watching me closely.

“Hey,” I replied. “You need more tea?”

“Who was that?” she asked, still watching me closely.

“No one,” I answered. “Tea?” I dipped my head to the mug she was still carrying.

She got closer. “Chace can’t say much but I kinda know what’s going on.”

I didn’t speak.

She continued, “That, well, we all, since the kitchen is right off the living room, we all heard it so I know that wasn’t no one.”

They all heard it because they were all listening. Not a surprise or annoying. I figured that was law for girl posses.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “It’s over. I’m good.”

She got even closer and her crystal blue eyes (that were seriously pretty) didn’t leave mine.

“He’s calling,” she said quietly, maybe so the other girls wouldn’t hear, maybe seeing to my state of mind. “You should tell Deck.”

No way. Jacob got bossily serious about Dane and didn’t want to discuss him anymore. I was just getting to know him as Jacob, the man who gave me orgasms during sex, but I knew enough to know he’d lose his mind if he knew Dane used his one phone call to call me.

Not to mention, Krystal was right. I was my own woman who’d taken care of myself for a long time. This wasn’t a big deal. I could deal with the little deal it was, and I didn’t need to drag Jacob into an issue with my recently ex-boyfriend he didn’t like to talk about.

“Really, Faye,” I told her. “It’s all good.”

She got even closer, reached out and took my hand.

“Okay, this is going to seem weird. I don’t know you, but those women in there, I know their stories and I have my own. I know that things happen. And some of them aren’t good things. And I know the men attached to those women, what kind of men they are, having one myself. And last, I know Deck. I know the way I saw him holding you and looking at you when we walked up to your house. I know in the time I’ve known him I’ve never seen him look or hold another woman like that.”

That felt really, really good. Like, blow my mind, make me want to run around singing and dancing, or better, finding Jacob and kissing him hard kind of good.

She kept talking.

“So I know two things. One, it’s important
he
knows everything that might be going down around you just on the off chance it might turn bad so he can stop it from doing that before it starts. And two, a man calls his woman, it is not good to keep it from him, because that’s sure to turn bad.”

It was then I was seeing the wisdom of doing what I could to amass a girl posse who knew how to deal with “uber-alphas” because they could share
their
wisdom.

And because it felt nice she cared enough to take the time to advise me.

But bottom line, she wasn’t wrong.

This county had seen serial killers, innocent men being framed for murders and women being buried alive.

Heck, the guy who owned the yard before Dad had murdered a bunch of people and successfully conspired to murder another guy. If town lore could be believed, Nina and Max were involved in this in a bad way, with Nina nearly being a victim and Max rescuing her seconds before that happened. Though, I’d never asked Max about it, seeing as, “So, is it true your ex-friend, the ex–lumberyard owner almost killed your wife?” wasn’t idle chitchat.

Now a gang of thieves that were worse than your average everyday thieves had run amuck throughout the county. And I’d been dating one. One who called me from jail after getting arrested for running amuck.

Perhaps I should tell Jacob that Dane had called.

“I’ll go tell Jacob,” I decided.

“Good thinking,” Faye replied on a smile and a hand squeeze.

I squeezed her hand back and realized this might be my shot at having genuine, real, true friends close to home (and a lot of them, shocker!). They’d given all the signs and even if I was the latecomer, they still were letting me in.

I liked that.

I let her hand go, put the phone down, walked through my house and up two flights of stairs to the opening that led to my attic.

There were stairs folded down. There were also two dozen huge rolls of insulation lining the hall. And at the end of the hall, a massive pile of old insulation that didn’t look nice, fluffy, pink and clean like the new stuff.

I actually felt my heating bills decreasing, and the warmth wash through me that Jacob was doing that for me, as I called up the stairs, “Jacob? Honey?”

“Yeah?” he called back.

“Can I talk to you a sec?”

“Can it wait a minute, babe?”

“Well, not really!” I yelled.

Five seconds passed and I saw his head appear in the opening, leather-gloved fingers curling around the side.

It was then I noted, even just seeing his head and fingers encased in work gloves, or maybe
because
his fingers were encased in work gloves, Jacob Decker was all kinds of hot.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Can you come down?”

His eyes moved over my face.

Then his head disappeared but his whole body appeared as he climbed down the ladder.

There it was. Proof. Jacob Decker was all kinds of hot and it wasn’t about the work gloves.

He had magnificent thighs. They were thick. Pure muscle.

This was a good thought to hold on to (and a good visual to have) while I waited and watched him reach the bottom and turn to me.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Dane used his one phone call to call me,” I answered.

After I said that, I took a step back.

This was because his face turned to stone but his hazel eyes started glittering in a way that freaked me right out. It was a look I’d never seen. It was weirdly sexy. It was also totally scary.

Then he thundered,
“Chace!”

“Honey—” I whispered but he didn’t reply or even look at me.

His head was tipped to the opening to the attic.

Chace’s head appeared there.

“Jesus, what’s happening?” Chace asked upon one look at his friend.

Jacob was yanking off his gloves as he said, “Come down. We need to take a ride to the station. McFarland used his one call to phone Emme and I need him in a room where I can explain that Emme ceased to exist for him the minute his fuckin’ fingers dipped in the print ink.”

Chace said nothing but his head disappeared. I heard him talking to the guys as his body appeared and he moved down the ladder.

Just to say, he had nice thighs too.

I didn’t think on that too hard. I moved to Jacob and put my hand on his chest.

His eyes tipped down to me.

Still glittering.

“Really, I made my point on the phone,” I told him.

“And I’ll make my point in person,” he told me.

“Ja—”

His hand came up and cupped my jaw and his face filled my vision.

His voice was scary when he stated, “Emme. No. Get this and get it now.
No
. I know this guy. You dated him for four months and you don’t know this guy. But
I know this guy
. And he needs to get my point
in person
. Yeah?”

My first thought after this pronouncement was,
What would Faye do?

And I decided by his scary-glittery eyes, his stony face and his even scarier voice that Faye would advise I just nod and agree, “Yeah.”

So that was what I did.

He nodded back, stepped back and dropped his hand from my jaw.

Chace broke into our exchange by saying (also in a hard, kind of scary voice), “Let’s go.”

There it was. I was right to stand down. Even Chace thought this was important enough to get this done and get it done now, whatever it was.

“Well, uh… good luck,” I said, looking from Jacob to Chace.

Chace was scowling at me, but at my words, he smiled a smile that fortunately reached his eyes.

Jacob’s hand came back to my jaw, his fingers dug in and I was compelled to roll up to my toes, which was good seeing as that meant his head had less distance to go when his mouth landed hard on mine. The kiss was closed mouthed, short, but undeniably angry.

Even so, it still felt good.

He lifted away and muttered, “Be back soon, babe.”

I nodded.

He dropped his hand and moved away.

Chace moved in. “Boys’ll keep working.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Thanks.”

Chace jerked up his chin and moved away.

I sighed, tipped my head back and called, “Anyone need anything?”

“Beer!” was shouted back in a deep voice I didn’t recognize. But then again, I’d only been briefly introduced before Jacob put them all to work.

“Fuck, Deke, it’s barely eleven,” another deep voice said.

So that was Deke.

“I sweat, anytime I sweat, I do it drinkin’ beer,” Deke returned.

“Beer it is!” I shouted, thinking that wasn’t a bad way to go about life.

I hustled downstairs, got a bunch of beers and a bunch of bottled waters.

Then I went back to the girls and hoped that Jacob was not soon going to wipe the floor with Dane in an interrogation room at the Gnaw Bone police station and thus be fingerprinted just like Dane.

The girls knew this was my fear and further proved their genuineness when they had a mind to it and a mind to taking my mind off it.

So yeah.

Girl posse.

Maybe not so bad.

Nine and a half hours later…

Oh God, this was…

Oh God.

“Jacob,” I whimpered, taking my hand from between my legs where I’d split my fingers to feel where I was taking his big, wide, rock-hard cock and darted it to lay my palm flat on the headboard to steady my jerking body that was on all fours, taking his thrusts.

This was extreme.

Too much.

But somehow, I wanted more.

“Hand back between your legs, Emme,” Jacob, powering in behind me, grunted.

“I can’t,” I panted.

A second later, I felt him bend over me.

He wrapped an arm around my ribs and hauled me up, impaled on his cock.

Oh
God
. Fabulous.

His forearm stayed around my ribs but he lifted a hand up to cup a breast, his finger and thumb found my nipple and rolled just as his other hand plunged between my legs. His middle finger found me, pressed hard and circled.

My head fell back to his shoulder. I turned it, pressed my forehead into his neck and moaned.

“Fuck. Strawberries,” Jacob murmured against my temple. His finger between my legs started twitching and his fingers at my nipple started pulling. My hips jerked, I felt my sex clench tight around his cock and he groaned, “Hurry, honey, need to move in that pussy.”

Oh God.

Too much.

“This is… this isn’t right…” I whispered.

“It is. Hurry, Emme.”

Another pull, more twitching.

Oh God!

“Hurry, Emme.”

“Jacob… I can’t… this is… I’m gonna—”

I didn’t finish when my hands flew to his as it ripped through me, huge, leaving me raw.

Jacob bent forward, pushing me down. I felt his hand between my shoulder blades so I was cheek to the pillow, both his hands went to my hips, hauling me back as he drove in and I took him, still coming, being devoured by a climax.

I opened my eyes, hands clutching his pillow at the sides of my head and felt his thrusts, the power of his body, the fullness of his invasion, and it came back.

I slid my hand out under the pillow, pressing it against the headboard, rearing back.

“Fuck.
Fuck
,” Jacob growled and proved what I thought was impossible—his ability to fuck me harder than he already was, because he did it.

My head jerked back, my hips tipped up and I cried out as it tore through me yet again.

“Keep givin’ me that,” Jacob grunted, slamming in again and again. “Give me that, Emme.”

“Honey,” I breathed, still coming, then I listened as he grunted then groaned through thrusts that were no less powerful but no longer had rhythm. They were out of control—
he
was out of control—and it was fantastic.

He’d found it.

I’d given it to him at the same time he’d taken it.

I loved this. I loved that I gave that to Jacob.

I also loved knowing it wasn’t me who didn’t know what I was doing.

I’d just been with two guys who didn’t know what they were doing.

I knew it was leaving him when he planted himself inside and stayed there, not moving, hands gripping my hips, pads of his fingers digging in and there was something about being connected to him like that, held by him like that, no movement, just that.

All that he had was his. My sex. My hips. My body on its knees before him. Just his.

I was Jacob’s.

I shivered.

Jacob pulled out. I felt his lips trail across the small of my back as his fingertips drifted down the side of my thigh before he leaned over me.

“Now, baby, you curl up under the covers,” he said gently in my ear. “But, want you to know, there’ll come a time, later, when you’re used to me, I’ll leave you like this. You’ll stay like this. So when I come back, I can get under you and eat that wet you give me.”

That sounded decadent and thrilling and it kind of scared me, but I wanted to do it now.

“Drop and curl up for me, Emme.”

I fell to my side and curled up.

Jacob yanked the covers out from under me and pulled them over me. He slid my hair off my neck, kissed my jaw and I felt the bed move as he exited it.

When he disappeared in his bathroom (that would be fabulous bathroom, massive sunken Jacuzzi tub, the room also decorated in creams and blacks with the rich addition of midnight blues), I tore my eyes from their avid contemplation of watching his muscles move while he walked and spied the kaleidoscope sitting on the carved wooden box on his nightstand.

Even as this sight warmed me, knowing and seeing the proof Jacob kept me close, I didn’t want my mind to go where I felt right then it was taking me. I was sated. I’d come twice. Hard. And I was naked in Jacob Decker’s bed, he was Jacob and he was also a man who could make me come while making love to me (twice).

But seeing the kaleidoscope I gave Jacob so close at hand, my mind went there.

I was happy to live my life disconnected.

Until that day I handed that kaleidoscope to Jacob.

I’d seen it in a shop and thought it was stunning.

I didn’t know what drove me to go back and get it when I heard what happened with Jacob and Elsbeth. I just went, found out from a mutual acquaintance where he was staying and took it to him.

Once I knocked on that hotel room door, he didn’t make me wait. I knew he saw me through the peephole and didn’t have to think about it before opening it to me.

It hurt he didn’t let me in but I understood. So I handed him the box, watched him open it, pull out the kaleidoscope and handle it with care, turning it in his big hands.

I also remember thinking, as I watched him handle that stained glass, it felt almost like he was touching me with that kind of care.

You think you lost beauty, Jacob, but you didn’t.
I’d said and I’d smiled what I was sure was a sad but stupid smile.
Just turn the dial.

I’d wanted him to know she wasn’t good enough for him. I’d wanted him to know I understood she made a bad mistake and he was worth taking any way he’d want to give himself. I’d wanted him to know he could, and should, find better.

I’d wanted to take his pain away.

I’d failed in that.

What I didn’t see was what neither of us saw but what Elsbeth did. Right under her nose, he’d found better.

Me.

But when he kissed my cheek, said sweet words to me and closed the door, I walked away.

I didn’t try to go back.

I wasn’t happy living my life disconnected, especially not disconnected from Jacob. I just didn’t realize it and went about my life like I’d been doing before, burying the fact that I’d found the man who was meant for me, and let him go.

Of course, he was my ex–best friend’s boyfriend.

But then he wasn’t.

And I let him go.

Just then, looking at that kaleidoscope, I knew why.

Harvey did that to me.

Jacob sauntered out of the bathroom, taking my attention again, giving me the opportunity to debate if his front was better than his back (front won because it included his face, which had a hank of hair that had fallen over his eye).

It also gave me a brief but happy moment to study all that was him.

My first viewing was that first night we made love, so turned on, I didn’t know a person could get that turned on, watching him at the foot of the bed taking his clothes off, exposing the power that he hid underneath that I thought was only barely hidden.

But seeing it all, he was hiding a lot.

What seemed like miles of defined muscle, broad shoulders, ridged abs, thick thighs, expansive smooth chest, bulky arms and how he was endowed, the biggest I’d ever seen, and also the most beautiful.

Watching him expose it to me, I got even more turned on.

And even just coming twice, watching him walk that power to me right then, I again got turned on.

He joined me in bed, hauling me over him so I was lying on top, flat out.

His eyes came to mine, his head gave a short jerk and his fingers at my hips dug in.

“Emme,” he whispered.

Clearly, I was wearing my thoughts on my face, and not the ones about his big, beautiful body.

“There’s something you need to know about me,” I announced.

His hands at my hips slid up and around so he was holding me lightly as his eyes held mine.

“Tell me,” he encouraged, his words quiet, interested, coaxing but not demanding.

Such a nice guy.

“When I was twelve,” I started swiftly so I wouldn’t back down from saying it, “I was kidnapped.”

He closed his eyes and his arms convulsed.

“He was a good man,” I declared.

Jacob’s eyes shot open.

“His name was Harvey,” I shared.

“Em—”

I kept going, talking over him to get it out.

“He’d lost his daughter and wife in a car accident. I looked like his daughter. He went a little loopy, which is understandable, saw me, snatched me from recess at school and took me to his house. He had me three days. He did five years in prison for three days.”

“Baby—”

“He asked me to wear his daughter’s clothes. I did. I was too young to know that was weird. He fed me her favorite foods. That was okay because hers were mine. He didn’t let me leave the house or get near windows. And he cried a lot.”

One of his arms wrapped tighter around my lower back, one of his hands slid up my spine and into my hair as he said, “Emme, honey—”

I kept going.

“Outside of snatching me, which was scary, he didn’t touch me. Nothing bad happened. He didn’t even call me her name. He knew I wasn’t her. He was just messed up. Sad and messed up.”

“Baby, can I say—?” he started, but I kept talking.

“In the end, he knew he did wrong and took me to the police station himself. When Mom and Dad got to me, that’s the only time I knew that something really bad had happened. I mean, I knew things weren’t right, I missed them and I was worried about them, knowing they would be worried about me, but that’s the kind of care Harvey took with me. Mom and Dad were beside themselves. Then Dad got really mad. If I wasn’t so young, I would have talked to them. Told them not to press charges. Encouraged them to get him the help he needed. I was too young. Dad lost it. They threw the book at him. And Harvey took it because he thought he deserved it. He had a daughter. If someone did that to her, he would have done the same.”

Jacob’s eyes were intent on me when he asked, “How do you know that?”

I didn’t answer his question.

Instead, I shared, “But he marked me.”

Another arm convulsion but this one didn’t loosen. “It would anybody.”

“No, Jacob, not like you might think. See, seeing him and how much he loved his wife, his daughter, how much he missed them, I changed. I was careful about letting people in my life. People I could lose. People who, losing them, could hurt me. Even the ones I loved, I held myself remote from, so if I lost them, I didn’t allow myself to feel that hurt. Not hurt like Harvey’s that slipped over the edge of sanity.
Any
hurt.”

My eyes slid to the kaleidoscope then back to him.

“Like losing you,” I finished.

His eyes closed again, his arms tightened further and he rolled me so he was on me, weight held up by a forearm in the bed but his forehead was resting on mine.

Then he opened his eyes and they were all I could see.

Concern.

Warmth.

Beauty.

Have mercy.

Looking into his eyes in that moment, I realized I’d been in love with Jacob Decker for fourteen years.

Fourteen years.

And I let him shut the door on me.

“Yesterday,” I started on a whisper, “I was angry and I said it was you that had to open the door because I would be a reminder of Elsbeth so that was up to you. I was wrong. I could have opened the door too.”

“Emme, stop talking.”

I closed my mouth.

“I knew all this. Elsbeth told me.”

“Pardon?” I breathed.

His eyes held mine as he lifted his head. Then his hand came up and his eyes watched as he brushed my bangs across my forehead so the ends didn’t spike in my eyes.

His gaze came back to me.

“Elsbeth shared that, baby,” he said gently.

I felt my jaw tighten before I stated, “That wasn’t hers to share.”

“No. You’re right. But she did.”

Outside of her breaking up with Jacob, which, belatedly, was a very, very good thing, that was the first time I was mad at her.

Really mad.

Fucking angry.

“That wasn’t fucking hers to fucking share, Jacob,” I mostly repeated.

“Shit, you’re cursing,” he muttered.

“Damn right I am!” I snapped. “What the fuck?”

His hand came to my jaw. “Emme, what I’m saying is, I know this and I know why you were remote. So, knowing it, it
was
me who should have opened that door. I didn’t. I took that kaleidoscope and closed the door in a way you couldn’t misinterpret and I didn’t open it, babe. It was you who came to me on the street and asked me to dinner. You got your shot, you took it and you opened that door.”

This was true.

I relaxed under him and the anger ebbed out of me.

He felt it and continued.

“Now, some of the shit you shared makes me uneasy. You got it in you to go over it?”

I didn’t have an answer to that because I couldn’t fathom why he’d be uneasy.

“Why are you uneasy?”

“Because, at twelve, you were snatched from recess at your school by a man you didn’t know who made you wear his dead daughter’s clothes, eat the food she liked and kept you away from your family, and you don’t seem much to mind.”

On the face of it, that sounded crazy.

It just wasn’t.

“He didn’t hurt me,” I reminded him.

“He scared you and marked you, babe, you said both.”

“He was sweet,” I whispered, and Jacob blinked. “He was sweet and sad and grieving, and,” my arms around him got tight, “adults miss a lot of things, so involved in themselves, their lives, their stresses, their responsibilities. But kids don’t miss much. I knew he’d never hurt me. I also figured he’d eventually let me go. I knew he was in pain. It was weird and it was wrong but he was kind to me, it didn’t last long and then it was done.”