Only You (A Second Chance Romance), page 3
My body trembled with shame at the thoughts. How could I have disregarded them that way? I loved them. Thinking about moments that could never be or traveling back in time wasn’t helping. Yet all married women fantasized, didn’t they? At least that’s what I’d heard the women at my salon gossip about.
The steam room door opened and closed again. I sat up straight, peeling my back away from the slick wooden bench. Someone took a seat across from me. I could barely make out the silhouette through the thick vapor.
That’s okay, I can share.
There was plenty of room for more than one and plenty of haze to keep me covered. I leaned my head back again and my memories swept me away without trying.
Think happy thoughts.
The more I thought about Jackson, the more I could feel him. It was weird. All these years, and the mere thought of us woke my heart. Long forgotten feelings I had stacked away resurfaced. That innocent feeling of love fluttered in my chest. The strength and depth of those lost emotions floated through me, making it more difficult to concentrate. That’s because he was part of me. He always would be, and I was afraid that no matter how many years had passed, I’d never have enough strength to move on.
I took another heavy breath full of steam, wondering where life would have taken us. Would we have any children? Maybe even a dog? I loved dogs, and the kids had been asking for one for years now.
Sweat beads dripped down my body. The steam had somewhat fallen and hovered closer to the floor. I couldn’t remember the last time the valve had opened. I looked across the room and finally recognized that my companion’s silhouette was male. Feeling a little self-conscious, I double-checked the security of the towel knot at my chest just as he cleared his throat. The deep sound drew out goosebumps over my arms.
I wiggled in my seat, trying to find a more comfortable position, and closed my eyes again, but as I felt the cover of the sauna’s steam fade away, I couldn’t find the happy place I’d traveled to moments ago.
When I opened my eyes, I met his. Those gem blue, hypnotizing eyes, the hunger in them — it was unbelievable. And they looked so familiar. His penetrating gaze dug deep into my soul. His need… for me? Was it for me?
And that’s when I realized whose eyes I was looking into. At first, I thought I was still dreaming. It took a long moment of recognition for me to realize that I wasn’t. I sucked in a sharp breath and wiped my eyes clear of the mist.
Jackson.
Chapter 3
No, no, no! This is impossible.
I felt my jaw open and the heat knock the wind out of me. His penetrating gaze dug deep into my soul. My lungs collapsed as the same blue eyes I remembered from twenty-two years ago when we’d first met held me prisoner. Jackson smiled and I blinked a few more times, shaking my head.
Is it possible that I passed out?
“Hi,” he said, and I sucked in a sharp breath of disbelief.
Air. Where did all the air go?
“Alex? Are you okay?”
The room spun, my eyes overfilled, and I grasped the end of the wooden bench to hold on.
“Is this real?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Hot and cold sweats covered my body in flashes. My sight blurred and I felt lightheaded. The next thing I knew, I was down on the floor, outside the sauna, as Jackson hovered above me.
“There you are. I lost you there for a minute. Are you all right?”
Am I all right? Jackson just came back from the dead, and he was asking me if I was all right? He smoothed his hand over my cheeks, and I closed my eyes for a moment. I wanted to believe what I was seeing, but a ghost?
“Is this real?” I breathed heavily.
“Yes, it’s real. Drink some water.”
But instead of taking the offered bottle, I sat up and threw my arms around his neck and shut my eyes, clinging to him, wanting to feel just how real he was. Nothing except for his loving arms that held me in his could convince me. He enveloped me, pulling me into his body, and I couldn’t stop shaking. Even in this moment, when his body was pressed against mine, I was afraid that if I opened my eyes, he’d be gone.
How?
The word kept bouncing in my head but I had no mind, or strength, to ask him.
Jackson didn’t say anything, and we sat like that, embracing for a while. I didn’t count the minutes. In my mind, any time spent with him was already not long enough. There weren’t enough days, hours, and seconds in a lifetime to give me back the time I’d already lost. Right now, during these few stolen minutes we sat together, as one, I felt like I’d traveled back in time, to when I was twenty-two, about to marry the love of my life.
When I finally pulled away, the dreadful thought that he wasn’t actually part of my life right now filled me, and I knew that I couldn’t ever let him go again. He passed me a bottle of water. I was still wrapped in my towel, and so was he, from the waist down. That moment I took a sip was the first one I used to assess this new man at my side.
Jackson used to sport a short beard, but he was now clean-shaven. An urge to touch the soft face tingled in my palm. And so I did, in disbelief, slowly pulling my hand over his cheek. He covered my palm with his and closed his eyes as if to savor the moment.
His shoulders were broad and defined. The towel he had wrapped around his waist did little to curb the sudden rush of long forgotten feelings. Jackson wasn’t a twenty-year-old skinny boy any longer – he was a man, and Jesus, did he ever look good. I couldn’t see the passage of time on his face. Yes, he was mature – the contours of his jaw had hardened, the muscles on his body had grown – but that smile and the spark in his eyes, the same ones I’d fallen in love with, were still there. They were still the same, and the feeling that they still belonged to me wouldn’t pass. My heart fluttered.
“How is this possible?” I shook my head.
“You asked me to meet you here.”
I was pretty sure I would have remembered that, which I didn’t; yet he was still here, in his own flesh — not my imagination. Fearing my mouth would spawn a bunch of gibberish sounds, I took a moment, and another sip of water, before replying.
“Back up a little. How did I ask you to meet me here? Jackson, up until a moment ago, I thought you were dead, or at least held captive in some abandoned warehouse.”
His brows narrowed in confusion as he assessed me. “Now, I know you didn’t hit your head in the sauna because I caught you. How long were you sitting in there?”
“What does a sauna have to do with anything?”
He ignored my question.
“Come on, let’s see if you can sit on your own.” Jackson helped me up off the floor.
I reached for the wooden bench outside the steam room. My knees were shaking, my hands were barely able to grip the side of the seat, and my heart was beating as if it had been fed ten times the amount of blood it needed. In fact, not only my mind but also my whole body was overwhelmed and distraught at the same time.
While my head spun, my breasts chose that moment to react to this half-naked man who had completely transformed from a skinny boy I was going to marry to lean, muscled perfection. He looked so different. Strong and built, yet that touch of his hand on mine was as gentle as I’d remembered years ago when he’d covered my hand with his on our first date.
Resting my hands on the seat, I leaned forward and lowered my head. “Explain.”
“You look as beautiful as you did the day I met you.” The slight rumble in his chest shook me awake. What was happening to me? I could barely think, let alone remember to breathe, and I thanked my body’s natural instinct to inhale.
My mind ignored his compliment, but my heart still managed to do a little somersault.
“Jackson, how?”
“Are you feeling any better?” he asked.
“So so.” I forced a weak smile. “I’m just a little shocked.”
“Why shocked?”
“Because you were kidnapped on our wedding day fifteen, almost sixteen, years ago. Do you remember that?”
“I know, but I told you that I was back.”
“Well, then it must have been when I passed out, because I don’t remember.”
“Alex, I’m getting the feeling that you weren’t expecting me to be here.”
Why was he saying that? Why was he acting as if his resurrection wasn’t a big deal?
“Is this really you?” I asked.
“Yeah, baby. It’s really me.”
I threw my arms around his neck again and for the first time allowed my body to do what it wanted — to be close to his and to be held. He felt wider and warmer. He felt like exactly what I needed and the embrace was so nurturing, that I didn’t want to let go, yet I did. Something drew me back to earth and to reality.
“Explain. Tell me what happened.”
“I thought I did. That’s why I reached out online. I didn’t want to shock you by just showing up.”
I wiped off the cold sweat that was dripping down my forehead. “Wait – you talked to me online?”
His brows narrowed in slow motion, and I knew by the look in his eyes that we were thinking the same thing.
“Lou!” we said at the same time.
“I’m going to kill her,” I added.
“Jesus, Alex. I’m so sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was to scare you like this.” He pulled his fingers through his hair, the move as sexy as it had been in high school. “I can’t even imagine what you must be thinking.”
How about, welcome back to life? Did that sound appropriate?
“I came here for a conference as a motivational speaker.”
“I know. I saw you yesterday.”
“You did?”
“I couldn’t resist. I was in the back of the room. You were wonderful.” He looked at me from underneath his thick lashes, taking me to that wonderfully mesmerizing moment that always happened when our gazes connected. He reached out to touch my face again. “And you’re even more stunning than I remembered.”
“Jackson…” Speaking his name out loud made the moment that much more real. “Oh, my God, touching you feels so good. I imagined it, but even my imagination didn’t do reality justice. I’ve missed you so much.”
I couldn’t help but lower my gaze to his tenting towel. He noticed, and I felt my cheeks heat.
“Yes, you still turn me on as much as you used to.”
My mouth dropped open. Was he flirting? Where was my wedding ring to remind me that I was married? Wait, I shouldn’t need a wedding ring to remember that, should I? I had to stop him. I had to tell him that I wasn’t available before his hopes lifted any higher.
“Jackson, a lot of time passed.”
“That’s okay, baby. We can start over now. I know we can’t get the past sixteen years back, but I promise to make it up to you for the rest of our lives. I’m going to love you and take care of you. I’ll take care of anything you need, baby. We can build that house by a river with a white picket fence we always talked about and get a dog. Any kind you want.”
I held my breath. There were so many questions running through my mind, I thought it would explode. But only one reminder came to the fore.
“Jackson, I’m married.”
Chapter 4
I hit the phone keypad in my room, dialing Lou as if I wanted to murder the device. My hands were shaking with madness, my mind spinning with all the cuss words I was about to call her.
“How could you do that?” I said as soon as she picked up.
“Hi, how are you? I’m well. Thanks. And you?” she quipped.
“You don’t deserve a how are you, Lou!”
“Now, Alex, calm down. This was for your own good.”
“How is running into a man I thought was dead for my own good?”
“Now, I remember you telling me that you’ve always had a feeling that Jackson wasn’t gone. You were right, Alex.”
“Don’t twist this, Lou. Do you even know what’s happening here? Jesus, what were you thinking?”
“You can thank me later.”
“Like hell. What am I supposed to do? You didn’t even tell him that I was married!”
“I may have skipped that part in our conversations.”
“Lou!”
“Look, there’s no harm in going out to dinner and some dancing. You two used to rock the dance floor. Remember how he dipped you back?”
Not giving the slightest shit whether other guests heard me, I raised my voice even higher. “Lou!”
“Come on! You can’t tell me that you haven’t thought about him over the years.”
Of course I had thought about Jackson. I would never stop thinking about him. The worst part was that now I would think about him in ways I wasn’t supposed to. How had I survived so long without him?
“You two were soulmates,” she added.
“I married my soulmate.” I gritted the lie through my teeth.
“I’ll call bullshit on that one because if you’re honest with yourself, that’s what your marriage is. A pile of bul—”
“How can you say that to me?” I interrupted, and she sighed.
“Jackson still has feelings for you.”
What? How did she know that? What had she said to him about me? I could only imagine all the hope he must have had coming to this resort and meeting me, thinking that I was single and available.
“It doesn’t matter what feelings he has for me.” And it didn’t matter if my heart skipped a beat each time I said his name. It didn’t matter that he had become the center of my world again the first moment I saw him in that steam room. I felt my throat tighten and my eyes swell with tears again. “Lou, it’s been sixteen years. I don’t know anything about him. I don’t even know what to say to him.”
“I’d start with a good fuck. That usually solves a lot of problems and answers most questions.”
“I swear to God, Lou, if you don’t stop being you right this moment, I will take a broomstick out of the janitor’s closet and earn some air miles on my way to kill you.”
Of course she would dismiss my threat. “Oh, honey, just talk to him. And no, I wasn’t kidding about the fuck, but you should take it one step at a time. Use this week away to get to know your soulmate all over again.”
I listened to her, thinking of another important point I wanted to make. It hit me a few seconds too late. “And, I’m married, Lou.”
“I like how that marriage part is the last of the obstacles on your list.”
“My marriage is not an obstacle.”
“Okay, look. Maybe I should have told you that I found him by accident, online. But I had to verify it first. What if it wasn’t him? Imagine the shock if you thought you were meeting Jackson and it wasn’t him? I kept this from you because I didn’t want you to be shocked.”
“Well, that part of your plan failed. Shock isn’t strong enough to describe what happened to me when I saw him.”
“It felt good, didn’t it? To see him?”
Of course it did, but I wasn’t about to give Lou any more fuel. She usually dragged a tanker of self-confidence behind her.
When I didn’t reply, she continued. “Is he still hot? Because his profile picture is mouth-watering.”
Yes, he was still hot, but again, there was no need for Lou to feel like she’d done the right thing by keeping this secret from me.
“Well, he’s single, and he still loves you. And I know that you love him too. Now shimmy into that black little dress I packed for you and make sure you wear nice panties to dinner. Actually, go commando. Men like that.”
“I hate you!”
“I love you too, and I’m expecting a big fat thank you when you get back.”
“I’m hanging up now!”
“Details! I want det—” I didn’t give her a chance to finish, and instead pushed the end call button on my phone. What happened to the good old-fashioned phones with a cord, which you could physically slam? Somehow that would have been more satisfying than pressing a stupid button.
Jackson’s last words before we parted still rang in my ears. “Would I be too forward if I asked you out to a friendly lunch, then?”
How could I say no to a once in a lifetime chance of catching up with my dearest friend; with the first man I had ever loved? I couldn’t, and I didn’t want to. Whatever Lou’s blatant plan was, I hoped she had an emergency kit for heartache because that was the only way this meeting would end: with me suffering the loss of my first love for the second time.
And so, that’s how I agreed to a dinner with Jackson — because of course by the time we left the sauna, lunchtime was over, and I needed time to pull myself together. You’d think that sixteen years would be enough time to prepare for such a moment, but who in their right mind would think that their kidnapped fiancé was still alive?
Each time I thought about him in my life now, it was as difficult to accept as the first time. We’d searched for him for days, then months, and years.
I shook my head in disbelief, then smiled to myself.
Jackson’s back.
With an hour to spare before dinner, I knelt in front of my suitcase, debating my outfit. Fuck Lou if she thought I was going to wear the sexy, curve-hugging little black dress she’d packed for me. I rummaged through my clothes, found a fresh pair of panties and a bra, and then gave up looking. I took a quick shower, shaved in all the places possible, moisturized my body from my head to my toes, and put on my white lace undergarments. I shouldn’t have been that thorough; after all, no one would be looking underneath my dress. Suddenly I felt torn in two. What was I expecting from this dinner? Because it certainly felt like I was expecting too much. The hope that blossomed in my chest from the moment I realized that he was alive would also tear me apart. It was hope for something that could never be. I was suddenly craving so much more out of life, and it was a craving that I knew would never be satisfied. Tonight would be difficult because the two of us in one room was more dangerous than playing with fire. I had a feeling that I was about to jump straight into an inferno.
I’m married, I repeated in my mind. Hopefully by the time dinner rolled around, I wouldn’t forget it.
