Chapter 39

“One week?” she asks softly, and I hate the desperation in her eyes; her affection for my mother is strong. I close my own and steady the internal war. I need to relinquish a little over this. I don’t want to push her away, but this is hard.

“Okay … But you come to me in one week and we go from there. You call me every night, Sophie, so I know you’re okay. And no lies!” I am stern.

She snaps up to look at me and we see each other, deeply. She knows that I know she lied for my mother. She forgets I used to do it too. She nods and bites her lip; another teen Emma trait and I wonder if that’s why she keeps her hair tied up away from fidgeting fingers. I sigh at the girl, the shadow of my past, only this one has a chance at being saved.

“Okay.” She finally pouts, and I nod not fully happy. She makes me think of everything I was when I first arrived in New York. She has a fire inside of her just like I did, a determination to rise from the ashes. She’ll be okay, she’s a fighter and she is no longer alone.

Jake sits up suddenly and fishes his cell from his pocket putting it to his ear, he says a few words then looks across at me with a glance and it catches my interest.

“When then?” he moves to sit properly and plants his feet on the floor, sounding annoyed.

“Okay, well yeah … Sure … First thing … Keep me updated.” He presses the cell and casts me an apologetic grimace.

“No flight home tonight, Emma … Jets grounded; there’s a storm brewing outside Chicago and heading this way. New York is already in a full-blown blizzard.” He shrugs as if to emphasize that there’s nothing he can do, and I curse inwardly. The drop of weight in my stomach at the disappointment is painful.

“When’s the soonest we can leave?” I ask, certain he can hear the edge to my voice.

“Maybe in the morning, we have to wait and see.” He gets up and comes to stand beside me in the kitchen, tucking a loose strand of my hair behind my ear and then moving to lean on the counter between Sophie and me. His touch makes me smile.

“Need any help?”

I shake my head. Jake is a half-decent cook as his mother taught both her sons at a very young age and he told me he does it occasionally.

“We’re about to serve.” I shrug at him. Inside I’m deflated; I pinned my hopes on leaving tonight.

“I’ll head to my hotel after we eat. After I lock this place up and check there are no snooping assholes. I’ll call you in the morning to let you know when the plane is ready to go.”

“You’re not staying?” I snap my eyes up to him, the fear of Ray still in the back of my mind. Still shaken from earlier, despite pushing it to the depths of my brain. He clocks the hesitation on my face and moves close so our noses almost graze. Tilting his head in toward me and stooping slightly to bridge our height difference.

“You just need to ask.” He utters softly and the overwhelming urge to lean forward and rest my face against his grasps me, I move back unsurely.

“I would feel safer.” I say instead; in a way asking without having to say the words. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to do so. I need him to stay with me.

“Well, if I’m staying, I’m sleeping with you, that couch is a no go.” He winks suggestively, grinning at me. I think he’s waiting for my refusal, but I say nothing. Sharing a huge king size bed with Jake is hardly a punishment. It’s not that much different to sleeping beside him on a plane, or the time he fell asleep on my lap when our flight was delayed for two hours and we had to couch share in a waiting room. I shrug as if to say, “fine by me” and ignore the shiver of anticipation running up inside my stomach. Truth be told, the thought of being alone with only Sophie tonight after what happened with Ray is the last thing I want. Having Jake in my bed may actually help me sleep.

Tomorrow I get to leave here for good. I’m never coming back. Not for anything.

I think about my mother for a second, how she looked in the hospital and push it away. An internal pang I don’t want to experience. I know she’ll try and call me when she’s mobile. She’ll try and guilt me about leaving and taking Sophie away, and I don’t want to hear it. She’s betrayed me for the last time. This one is a huge deal. She let the one man back in her life who could have completely destroyed mine, and it’s unforgivable.

* * *

I wake early next morning, completely entangled in Jake’s limbs on my side of the bed, lying on my back. He’s wrapped around me possessively. One arm around my waist, pulling me into his abdomen so that his face is in the nape of my neck, the other behind me. His arm is bent so his fingers are entwined in my hair above. His legs looped through mine and twisted so I’m immobile in every way and I am stiflingly hot because he’s so naturally warm. I try to maneuver out of his grasp, but my efforts only cause him to pull me in tighter, making it near impossible to get out.

Who knew Jake was a cuddler in bed? More like a squeezer; suffocates all life out of you.

Although part of my brain isn’t surprised because he’s so hands-on and touchy-feely in every part of waking life that I guess being this way in sleep is a given. I lay still, staring at the dark ceiling for a moment listening to the heaviness of his deep breathing. He seems so peaceful and being held this way is comforting. I feel cherished and safe. I have never slept with a man; even my ex-boyfriends never spent the night so this is new and strangely nice. I am at ease.

It dawns on me slowly that my usual night terrors have not woken me today, the sound of car alarms outside have instead. Having Jake sleep with me has kept them at bay despite the events yesterday with Ray Vanquis. A little rush of affection swamps me at the thought he can keep me safe, even from my own dreams and my body heats with awe.

I glimpse across at the alarm clock on my mother’s side table seeing it’s only 5.00 .am. I don’t need to get up anytime soon but now I’m wide awake. I try to wriggle to my side to get comfier, managing it very slowly before Jake shifts in his sleep, releasing me for a second. I quickly turn before he’s hauling me back into him in a spoon hold. His body behind me, both arms coming around me snugly, one leg lifting over mine and pulling them against his, so I am literally pulled in tight once more and my butt is nestled in his groin.

For the love of god, Jake!

I wonder how many poor teddy bears in his childhood died this way. I can barely move again as he’s managed to pin my arms against my chest, his nose nuzzled into the back of my neck, so his breath tickles my skin below the neck of my oversized night shirt. I wonder at this position, how I’m completely relaxed, no warning signals going off in my brain. No fear or awkwardness. No nerves because it’s Jake, and with Jake it all stopped a long time ago.

“Emma …” Jake mutters in his sleep and I still to listen. I wonder what he’s dreaming about and wonder if it’s a dream that has him grasping onto me for dear life. It would explain the death grip. I gasp as his hold tightens a tad too firmly.

“… I’ll kill him!” He growls into my hair and his body tenses; my heart constricts causing a wave of fear to wash over me. He’s dreaming about Vanquis, I know he is maybe that’s why he has been wrapped about me all night, holding me close, protecting me. More affected by it than I am, evidently.

I wriggle my arms free of his vice like grip and try to pull them loose so I can breathe; it really is like being squeezed by an octopus, its limbs wrapped all around you and trying to expel the air from my body. I pull at his naked forearms managing to expand the space around my ribs just enough to take a breath. Circling his wrists, I pull some more, releasing me just enough to sag away from his body a few inches. I glance back at his sleeping face; his T-shirt has ridden up showing off the sculpted abdomen and the start of his tattoos on the side of his ribs. He really is the ultimate specimen of man. In every detail.

I turn completely around to face him, still held firmly in his embrace. I study his face, the shadow of his ever-present stubble and the chiseled features that grace magazines frequently. He’s perfection in every line and curve. Dense eyebrows and eyelashes so dark they’re almost black and it pushes the urge to reach up and trace his sleeping features with my fingertips. I’m shocked by the intensity of it and try to move away to give myself some breathing space.

Somehow my movement away from him triggers another sleepy reaction and he reaches out to me, his eyes still closed, his face still relaxed in slumber. His hand grazes my breast on its way to my throat, he cups my jaw and pulls me forward, so we’re nose to nose, and he exhales softly. Our mouths only a hairbreadth apart, his forehead against mine and inhaling from the same air. My body jumps into high alert, my breath held from the moment his fingers grazed the intimate parts of my chest and I’m tingling with so many sensations that I can’t explain what I’m feeling.