Jack pulled away and watched me. His fingers flowed over and around my belly. They skimmed my inner thighs, reaching between us, sliding over my slick and sensitive flesh, easing inside me and triggering whimpers from my throat.

"You're so G.o.dd.a.m.n beautiful, Keri Ann," he murmured. Then he lifted me, one hand pressed to the small of my back, and guided me over him.

Oh G.o.d.

I was so ready, so wanting, but I'd also only ever done this once with him.

"This okay?" he whispered brokenly, his eyes searching mine. Rigidly still, his shoulders under my fingers were quivering.

I got the feeling he was physically struggling not to surge up into me. I nodded because I couldn't talk over the emotion clogging my throat.

His hand skated up my spine into my hair, and he wound it up in his hand and kissed me.

As my tongue found his and slid deeply into his mouth, he pulled me down, easing me onto him. Taking me.

It was just too good, and we'd waited so long. The feel of him inside me filled my entire being with sharp and exquisite needles of ecstasy. My skin was on fire, every nerve-ending I possessed experiencing it firsthand. I pulled my mouth from Jack's just so I could focus. So I could try and hold onto the cry that seemed about to be torn from my throat.

"s.h.i.t," Jack hissed and then groaned. "You feel so good."

He rocked his hips, and I opened my eyes, my teeth clenched, as the sensations barreled through me with his movement.

"How could you possibly feel this d.a.m.n good?" His eyes implored me desperately, like I could answer him. As if I'd woven some spell over him.

I didn't know. I'd certainly never known anything like this. Even the unbelievable first night we'd shared paled when compared to the depth of emotion that was attached to the feel of Jack beneath me. Jack inside me. Jack holding me and sliding in and out of me as I moved on him. And G.o.d, I was moving. I couldn't help it. I was propelled by a need so strong, I couldn't catch my breath over it. "G.o.d, Jack ..." I sobbed out, no longer able to hold anything back.

The climax when it came, ripped it's way through me so fast I barely heard Jack as he held me tight to his chest murmuring calming words and sliding his fingers through my hair, keeping me anch.o.r.ed to him.

Afterwards we moved into a tangle of naked flesh, limbs, and sheets, his mouth making love to mine, and then finding my aching nipples. I arched into his kiss, his arms under the bow of my spine, holding me up. His hands and mouth roamed the landscape of my body, searching out all my secrets, creating future fantasies, and coaxing me into a trembling mess of hot torturous need that only existed for some kind of release.

"Please," I managed at some point.

"I want to go slow for you," he breathed. He settled between my legs, and I flashed back to our first time, when we'd made love in this same position.

My hands raked through his messy, dark brown hair, and I lifted his face to mine. "I don't," I said. The imaginary images of him and Audrey were fading with every moment we spent together, but I wanted them gone. I wanted it to be us I saw when Jack was wild and not gentle. "I like slow ... but also fast," I murmured, echoing his words from the other night.

His lower body surged against mine, hard and heavy against my thigh, so close to where I was aching and needing. Again.

"Soft, but also rough," I sc.r.a.ped my nails over his skin and up into his hair. He hissed in a breath, his green eyes darkening, watching my mouth, waiting for the words he knew were coming. "Gentle ... then really ..." I closed my hand firmly in his hair and swallowed, building up courage, looking him straight in his eyes. "Really ... hard."

Jack expelled a rush of air, sharp and deep. Seconds pa.s.sed, his mouth tightening like he was struggling for control.

I moistened my lower lip and caught it between my teeth, a little nervous at my own boldness, waiting for what he would do.

He lifted his body, a dark carved shadow in the low lamp light and took my hands, pinning them on the bed either side of my head. Eyes blazing, his mouth curving into a lopsided grin, his knees pushed my legs wider. "You asked," he said finally and slammed into me hot and hard.

I cried out, but he didn't stop.

I didn't want him to.

He knew it.

Jack was fierce, and glorious. A face etched with determination, with need, and with an aching reverence that had me shuddering beneath him. An animal, yet also a man. A driving force of nature whose eyes blazed as his skin glowed with sweat, and in that moment, and that moment alone, I became a woman. I was no longer the girl he knew. I was a woman who'd forged her own future, made her own choices, had experienced heartbreak and first love and now demanded to be made love to as an equal. I had wants, I had needs, and right now my need was to watch Jack Eversea, my Jack, my sweet, vulnerable, yet closed and guarded Jack, lose it.

Surging and arching up, I wrapped my legs around his waist and matched him, stroke for stroke. The feel of him overwhelming, and so right.

His eyes closed and his hands gripped mine tighter, his weight pressing them into the bed and his body quaking. "Jesus," he growled.

"Look at me, Jack," I whispered through my labored breathing, echoing his words to me when we'd first made love.

He obeyed, his eyes almost black, his pupils were so large, and I felt him slowing.

"No, I need you, Jack. Don't ... don't stop." Please. Don't ever stop. I arched up further, tilting my hips, the momentum coming from some deeper, primal part of me.

"Ahh, G.o.d, Keri Ann, I-s.h.i.t." He gasped through clenched teeth, his thrusts coming faster. Harder. "I can't," he managed. One hand left mine and thrust under my spine, yanking me up to him so our bodies were flush, skin against slick skin.

The contact made me shudder and cry out, igniting the fuse inside me and pulling me with him as he lost all semblance of restraint. My hands both suddenly free, I clutched his back and my fingers dug in, holding on as we moved, straining against, yet pulled willingly into the tide of release.

Daylight piercing through the slits between the drapes found us still wrapped around each other. I came awake slowly, taking stock of our surroundings and the feel of Jack's heartbeat thudding steadily against me. Images of all the things we'd done last night, interspersed between sleeping and more talking, replayed through my mind, sending another wave of longing through me. That thing where he'd flipped me onto my belly and run his tongue down my spine ... G.o.d. And the things he said ... I felt like a G.o.ddess to Jack. A worshipped, fall-to-his-knees G.o.ddess.

He'd never called me any term of endearment, like baby, or sweetheart, always my name. Over and over, my name. Like a prayer falling from his lips. It was raw. A reminder with every sensation that it was us, right there in that moment. Me that was making him feel the way he was feeling.

Jack had been right, our being together was as real as it got. It was more than real. It made everything else, every thought, every idea that didn't include him, seem muted and faded. How on earth was I going to exist as anything but an extension of us? How the h.e.l.l were we going to keep this secret?

"Stop thinking so hard," I heard Jack's m.u.f.fled voice next to me.

I gulped guiltily then laughed. "Sorry, I didn't realize I was so loud."

His head emerged from half under a pillow, his hair sticking up in all directions. d.a.m.n that wasn't fair.

I sat up and instinctively pulled my own hair back and secured it with the band I kept around my wrist then quickly covered my bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s with my arms.

"Are you joking?" he asked with a grin, reaching out and pulling my arm away. "That's the most beautiful sight I can imagine waking up to."

I swallowed, feeling heat bloom in my cheeks, and sank back under the covers with him. "I think I'll have to take advantage of that gorgeous clawfoot bathtub. I'm aching in muscles I never knew I had."

Jack leaned up on an elbow and turned my face to his, kissing me softly. "Sorry," he murmured with a grin that said anything but. Then he laid his head down and just watched me, his hand tracing lazy circles over my neck and chest.

I looked back at him, counting the tiny bright flecks among the sea of iridescent greens surrounding his dark pupils. "Sometimes your eyes are translucent like green sea gla.s.s and other times they're dark, almost grey, like a deep forest," I murmured. "And sometimes, like now, they're like pools I want to throw myself into." I smiled at my own ridiculousness.

His hand that had been lazily tracing my skin now took mine and pressed it firmly against the hard smooth skin of his upper torso, like I could ease an ache for him.

My own heart lurched up to thump heavily in my throat, making it hard to breathe. I swallowed, not trusting myself to speak, hoping he could see in my eyes what I couldn't get out of my mouth.

And hoping I was strong enough to handle this beautiful man and all he was offering and not let my fears break both our hearts.

Jack and I sat on the front porch before we left, eating our scrounged up breakfast of eggs and biscuits. The latter he'd looked at curiously before declaring them freaking awesome. Biscuits were cookies in England, apparently.

My eyes were on the beauty of the ocean before us, but my mind was awash with worry about my art opening. Still being nervous of the attention and not having anything to wear to it was trivial compared to my new concern of how Jack could be at the event without eclipsing everything I'd worked so hard for.

"I've been to some amazing places all over the world," Jack murmured, his eyes on me. "And all I can think about is how much I want to take you to each and every one of them. See them all through your eyes, be there with you ... make love to you in every single one of them."

His dimple flashed, and he cut his eyes away.

Warmth pooled low in my belly, but it came along with a shiver as Joey's words came back to me. Would Jack expect me to follow him around the world? Not that I didn't want to go places with Jack, I did. But ...

The breakfast we'd just eaten began to feel like cement the more I considered his being with me for the event. I should want him there at the party. I should want him there for the support. I should want him there, even to help with my fear of attention, because truly, who would give a s.h.i.t about a small town waitress and her sculptures when they could focus on Jack? That thought gave me pause. So I was nervous of the attention, but yet I didn't want Jack to overshadow me? I was so confused.

The added concern of the house and how I would even go to SCAD added its weight to my churning thoughts.

"What's wrong?" Jack's voice broke through my thoughts.

And I hated that we'd shortly be leaving this coc.o.o.n of privacy. "How do you always know when something's wrong?" I asked, c.o.c.king my head to look at him.

He shrugged. "Honestly? I seem weirdly attuned to what's going on with you. It affects my mood." He glanced at me then got up and stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. Leaning a shoulder against the pillar, and turning to the view I was so mesmerized by, he shrugged. "Right now, I'm starting to feel anxious and on edge. And since I know I'm not afraid of golf carts, or boats, which are both in our near future, I can only a.s.sume I'm catching a vibe." He winked.

"I know I've talked to you about being nervous to be seen with you. What that will mean. What that will look like ... for me."

"Yeah," he murmured. "I get it. Living in a fishbowl has been my life for six odd years, and to be honest, I'm still not used to it."

"So how do we do this?"

He blew out a breath.

I stared at his profile and the lump in his throat moving as he swallowed. His shoulders, which had made to shrug again, stayed up in an expression of tension, muscles outlined through his thin white cotton t-shirt.

I waited.

Then his face transformed, and he pointed out straight ahead. I followed the direction of his hand and looked in time to see another splash and dark glossy fin. A pod of dolphins frolicked just off the sh.o.r.e, not a hundred yards from us.

I jumped up and grabbed his hand, and we jogged to the water's edge, the gra.s.s cool and wet under our bare feet. There was no sand here but rocks that had been placed to stabilize the coastline.

The dolphins swam in a group, first one way then the other, all shining backs and blowing mist, undulating and vanishing in turn.

"Wish I had my kayak," I murmured.

Jack slung an arm around my shoulders and tucked me in close, dropping a kiss on my head.

"You know people get bored and move on to a new story quickly, right?" he asked, continuing our earlier conversation. "I mean, if we just do this and go out there, it will suck for a period of time. People will want to photograph us together, photograph you. Ask about you. But then when there's no drama, it will get easier. It won't be gone, but it will get easier."

My heart rate picked up a panicked rhythm. I shook my head. "I don't think-"

"Let's not think about it right now. Okay?" He turned me to face him, threading his fingers through my hair and tilting my head back.

I blinked up at his beautiful face and tried to calm my heart.

"I'll do whatever I can to keep you out of the madness, I swear," he said softly.

I nodded, and he kissed me softly, wrapping me up in his arms. It wasn't the madness I was nervous about. It was the fact that that's all I'd be known for.

We locked the cottage behind us and left the key for the cleaning service. I hated to leave. I wasn't sure when Jack and I would next get to spend time like that again. We headed back toward the dock on the golf cart.

It looked like the boat was already here. And Jazz was on it, pacing.

"What the-"

"Oh my G.o.d, you guys," she screeched, leaping off the boat onto the dock. "I've been calling like a maniac-"

"What? Why?" I said, as we headed toward her.

"It's a freaking nightmare. Jack," she speared him with a sharp look. "Why don't you tell me which 'source close to the actor' knows about Keri Ann? Because I'll freaking cut them."

A rush of cold ice poured through me as my blood drained. "What?" I repeated, but without sound. My ears rang and my vision turned black at the edges. Orange juice and coffee turned into a vile mix in my belly.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" Jack asked.

I stared at Jazz, hoping beyond all hope I was reading the wrong thing into her question. But I saw her face, and I belatedly noticed the pages she held in her hand and was now shoving in Jack's face.

As Jack's expression of shock confirmed my worst fears, I stumbled backwards.

"f.u.c.k!" Jack yelled and grabbed his hair, sinking down to his haunches. Then he lifted his head and turned in slow motion to look at me, his face bleak.

My stomach heaved.

The pictures? The thought flitted through my mind.

Jack nodded. He looked destroyed. G.o.d, and in pain. He'd been betrayed again, but all I could think about was me right now.

Jazz stepped past him and marched to me, her face a mask of concern and rage mixed together. I shook my head, like if she didn't get to me and show me, then it wouldn't be real.

"I don't want to see them, please don't," I said as Jazz got close. She wrapped me up in her arms. I buried my face in her vanilla hair.

"It's bad," she whispered against my ear. "Really bad. It's a reporter. He showed up and spoke to Joey this morning, gave him this, he wanted a statement from you. Joey would have come here himself but didn't want to lead him to you, so he called me. You can deal. Okay? You can totally handle this."

I peeled back.

She grabbed my face, morphing into a pillar of strength as she realized I wasn't coping. "Seriously. You can deal with this. You've gone through worse."

I nodded, though I didn't know what I was agreeing with.

Behind Jazz, Jack conversed briefly with Dan, the captain of the boat, then started talking on his phone. He paced back and forth and kicked an imaginary object. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms for having to always go through this. I wanted him to wrap me up and tell me it was all a joke.

Taking a deep and bracing breath, I looked back at Jazz. I needed to see it all and know what I was dealing with. What we were dealing with, I corrected myself.

"All right, show me," I said to Jazz. The buzzing in my ears from nerves and dread made me feel off-balance.

The moment I saw the pictures of Jack and me from seven months ago, just as Jack described, my stomach finally rebelled. I turned, making it to the edge of the dock. As I looked down, the churning coalesced into a sharp spasm and I gave in to it, opening my throat and throwing up my breakfast and my worst nightmare into the marsh reeds and black pluff mud.

Nice.