I nodded against his chest, not really knowing what to say.
He pulled away then, and grasping my shoulders, turned me around gently to face away from him. I looked quizzically back at him over my shoulder, but he was reaching for the shampoo. He squirted some into his hand, and lathered it, then reached his fingers up to my hair.
Oh, yes.
I acquiesced and dipped my head back.
The smell of the piney shampoo flowed around us, the source of Jack’s scent I remembered from when he was here last, uncovered. I was almost sad to know the mystery but closed my eyes with a barely suppressed moan as Jack’s fingers slid against my scalp, massaging the lather in. There was nothing sexual, but everything sensual about what he was doing. It was confusing but too exquisite to question. He gently massaged and worked the lather through to the ends, his hands then sliding the suds down the exposed skin of my shoulders and back. I felt a tug at my bra closure and tensed as it came loose. Jack, still behind me, slid the straps off my arms and tugged the wet material forward and off my body.
I froze.
“It’s ok, Keri Ann,” he whispered. Then he gently pulled me back into the spray, letting it rinse my hair and washing the suds down my body. I realized I had coarse sand on my breasts as the water washed it down my belly.
Jack’s tender, reverent ministrations seemingly without ulterior motive, were doing me in, melting my concerns away.
His hands never ventured around me. Instead, they slid down either side of my waist to my hips and tugged at my panties. My breathing stuttered, and an edgier warmth than that provided by the water sluicing over me, traveled languidly through me.
He pulled down, crouching behind me and I stepped out of them, my heart now pounding in the region of my throat. The thuds echoed throughout my body. We’d made love before, but this felt like the most intimate moment we’d shared.
He moved to the side and the water hit me once more. Then it stopped, and Jack stepped around me without turning and reached out the gate for a large white towel he’d brought. It unfurled, shielding my body from his eyes that didn’t stray from mine as he offered it.
That was it?
Ideas raced through my head about ignoring the towel, or tossing it aside, undressing him as he did me, washing him, washing his hair … touching him. I looked back down at the towel, but in the end, I took it gratefully and wrapped it around me.
Jack smiled.
We were lying on Jack’s bed. We’d been waiting for my clothes to dry downstairs, and they were done now and lying in a heap on the floor by the bed. Neither of us seemed to want to leave this moment.
I was wearing a sage green t-shirt of his that reminded me of the color of his eyes. Unfortunately, it had been clean when he’d given it to me so it smelled of detergent rather than him when I’d put it on, inhaling as I went, like a love-sick puppy. And I was wearing a pair of his boxers. They were black and a little loose. His waist was fairly narrow, despite his frame, so it wasn’t too bad.
It was strange being in this room again. The memories of the last time I was in here, naked, giving him all of myself, flickered like disjointed images around the edge of every coherent conversation I tried to have between kissing him. And we kissed. A lot. “There are months ‘til filming, right?”
“September, so yeah, about four months,” Jack answered.
We rolled onto our sides facing each other.
He was bare-chested still, but wearing a pair of worn and comfy jeans. He must have seventeen pairs of them, I mused.
“What are you going to do here for four months?”
He grinned, his dimple teasing me. “Learn to fence. And annoy you, probably.”
“Never. Anyway, why is it so long until filming starts?”
“There’s the entire set to be built first,” he answered. “Most will be built and stored in warehouses around Savannah. I’m not really part of that. SCAD students are doing some stuff too, a summer project I guess. They have to re-create the Pirate House. I don’t think Savannah tourism could stand to have the original one blown up,” he added in mock seriousness.
“I can imagine.” I smirked. “But seriously? That’s so cool. It’s a pity I’m not already enrolled there, I’d totally beg to be on that project.” I thought about the old weathered grey wood of the Pirate House and the doors and shutters painted haint blue to keep the ghosts out.
He smiled. “I had this crazy idea to turn the whole script kind of Steampunk and magical, especially the ship Revenge, to make it different. I told Devon and he was all over it, so we’ve been re-working it with the scriptwriter. But mostly it’ll translate in set design.”
“You really love this stuff, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” He looked at me seriously and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “I really do. Books, movies, they were my escape growing up. It’s only right that I be a part of creating that for other people now.”
“I just wish it didn’t come with all the bad stuff,” I whispered, thinking of his lack of privacy and having to think through and second-guess every single action he took, even going out for a burger when he had no food in the house.
“Keri Ann, I don’t want to not do what I do.”
“I know. That’s not what I meant. I can see how much you love it. I’d never want to get in the way of that.”
Jack sighed. “I did almost give it up. When I was here last time I was so disillusioned, so controlled. I’m still working through all that, and after Audrey threatened all the things she did, I thought I should just walk away from it all. Give it up, so no one could coerce me anymore. But, I realized giving it up wouldn’t solve anything. In the end, the way I chose to handle what was dealt to me, getting out of the contract and getting the chance at the project in England, ended up being the best thing I could’ve done.”
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities,” I quoted.
“Oh my God, are you quoting Harry Potter at me?” Jack laughed, rolling me onto my back.
“Well, you are a self-professed book and movie nerd. I’m just a book-nerd.”
“Damn, I know. I remember your mountains of books. I want to build you a library.” Jack lowered his mouth and kissed me.
I swallowed as emotion clogged my throat. He might as well have asked me to marry him.
I didn’t want to break the moment, but what he mentioned about Audrey troubled me. “You alluded to it in your journal, about Audrey threatening you. What did she do?”
Jack stiffened.
“I’m sorry,” I offered. “I … I just really want to know. And you just mentioned it again, so …” I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth nervously.
He sighed. “Actually, part of why I didn’t come right back was—” He sat up, pulling me with him, and faced me.
I folded my legs up and crossed my ankles.
“I did come back actually,” he continued. “Got as far as Butler Cove, but I didn’t stay. I couldn’t stay. I found out Audrey had paid a guy to take pictures of me when I was here.”
“Then? When you came back?” I was confused.
“No, before.” He laced his fingers through mine. “Of us.”
A thud of dread echoed in my chest.