The sick nausea in his stomach was nothing to the surge of fury making his chest hurt. This was why he had never confided in anyone. Why the hell had he confided in her? Giving her ammunition against him? It made no sense, and the compassion in her gaze shook him to his core.
She nodded, the emerald eyes sparking with a sympathy he despised.
He didn’t need or want her pity. He’d made a staggering success of his life, despite his squalid and violent beginnings—maybe even because of them.
‘I hope he paid for what he did,’ she said, her voice breaking slightly, as if she were holding back tears.
‘He had his reasons.’ He had no desire to talk about the man who he had feared and loved in equal measure until he had realised Harry Wolfe had never wanted him any more than Daniel Smyth had.
Her eyes widened, the shocked distress calling to something deep inside him that he had no intention of acknowledging.
‘What possible reason could he have for mutilating a child?’ she whispered.
‘He discovered I wasn’t his son,’ Jack said, his thumb stroking the ragged flesh—until he became aware of what he was doing and dropped his hand.
Instead of ending the conversation as he’d hoped, Katie simply stepped towards him, invading the personal space he so desperately needed.
‘That’s not a reason, Jack,’ she said softly. ‘To hurt someone who loved him.’
‘I didn’t love him.’ The denial scraped over the jagged boulder which had formed in his throat. ‘He was a violent, abusive bastard to me and my mother for as long as I can remember. I was glad I wasn’t his. It gave me an excuse to leave that place and never look back.’
Except he had looked back, many times, the brutal shame still lurking in some dark, unbidden corner of his heart. The picture he’d tried so hard to suppress flickered into his memory of his mother’s face the last time he’d seen her. The once soft, beautiful skin had been strained and tear-streaked, puffy with exhaustion, desperation and the drugs she’d used to forget as the paramedics had arrived.
Don’t tell them who did this, honey. Please don’t, or he’ll be even angrier.
Who had really been the monster? The man who had destroyed his mother, or the boy who had forced her into his arms then left to save himself?
Stepping closer still, Katherine placed her warm palm on his scarred cheek. ‘I’m glad you got out.’
He jerked back, jolted out of the miserable reminiscence. Grasping her wrist, he pulled her hand from his face. ‘Don’t...’ he said.
She stared at him, her eyes bold and unashamed.
Vicious sensation prickled across his sun-warmed shoulders and sank deep into his abdomen, the need as swift and visceral as it had ever been.
To hell with it. There was no containing it. And he’d be damned if he’d even try any longer.
‘Don’t touch me,’ he said, his thumb pressing against the inside of her wrist, feeling the rampant pulse, her instinctive response only making the swift, visceral need all the more brutal. ‘Not unless you’ve changed your mind about sleeping with me.’
He expected her to retreat, to fall back on the lie she’d told him before they’d arrived on the island, but instead her expression remained open and unguarded, the hunger clear and unashamed. He dragged her into his embrace, until her soft curves pressed against the hard line of his body.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t fight him, her breath coming in ragged pants. Then she licked her lips and the fierce arousal turned to pain, his yearning flesh hardening against her belly. He breathed in a lungful of her smell, the rich, earthy scent beneath the aroma of sun cream and sweat sending his senses into overdrive.
‘Admit you want me, Katherine,’ he demanded. ‘And I’ll stop avoiding you.’
Shocked arousal dilated the vivid green of her irises to black. ‘I want you.’
His raw groan echoed across the pool terrace as he lifted her into his arms. ‘Wrap your legs around my waist.’
She grasped his shoulders and obeyed him as he captured her mouth, devouring her in greedy bites—the way he’d dreamed of doing for days. He thrust his tongue deep to capture her startled sobs and marched across the pool terrace and into the house.
All that mattered now was sinking into her again, driving them both to oblivion and claiming what was his so he could forget the things she’d wrenched out of him.
She didn’t know him—not really. And he didn’t want her to know him.
This was all he wanted from her, the only connection that mattered to him.
This is dangerous, and you know it.
Katie’s brain tried to engage, but the rush of adrenaline and the swell of tenderness was unstoppable as Jack strode into the house and took the stairs to the mezzanine.
Her heart pumped hard, sensation spreading through her body like wildfire. He held her easily, as if she weighed nothing at all, while his kisses devoured her neck, her collarbone.
At last, he dumped her onto the huge, canopied bed where she’d slept alone the night before.
A glass wall looked out onto the bay, the diamond-white sand giving way to the iridescent turquoise sea. She lay dazed and disorientated as he dragged off the towel. His arousal jutted out from his belly, thick and long and aggressive, somehow. Her gaze lifted to the tortured expression on his face that matched the giddy, relentless desperation in her heart.