She glared at him. Then her lips curved and she burst into laughter.
“Me, too,” she said—and that was the moment when Jake realized that against all odds, despite the ugly reality of his life, his smart, sexy, sophisticated-but-trailer-park-tough Adoré was starting to mean something to him.
Something that scared the hell out of him even to contemplate.
They drove home with the windows down and the radio on, singing along with Willie and then Waylon.
Well, no, Addison thought, as Jake switched stations so he could harmonize with Johnny Cash. He was singing. She only hummed.
She’d never listened to country music before tonight.
Turned out, she liked it.
The lyrics were honest and real.
Like her Jacob.
He was a man who’d grown up with wealth, and yet there was no pretension to him. He was a warrior, and yet he could be tender.
But there was a darkness in him that had to do with the war.
Travis and Caleb hadn’t told her much, only that he wasn’t comfortable in the role of hero.
She could understand modesty, especially now that she knew him, but there was more to it than that….
“Addison?”
She swung toward her lover.
She’d been so deep in thought that she hadn’t even realized they’d reached the ranch and were parked in the driveway.
Her heart swelled at the way he was looking at her.
“My Adoré,” he said softly, and she stopped thinking and went into his waiting arms.
The first faint light of dawn, touching the bedroom with crimson and gold streamers, woke him.
Addison was curled against him, sound asleep.
Jake looked at her, drinking in her beauty, her honesty, her essence.
He had never known a woman like her.
No pretense. No girlish gushing. No treating him with breathless wonder because he was rich or because he was a so-called hero. No averting her eyes from his damaged face or displays of cloying sympathy,
He just made her happy.
God knew, she did the same for him.
He was happy. And he’d never expected to feel that way again.
Gently, he kissed her bare shoulder.
Then he rose from the bed as carefully as possible, so he wouldn’t wake her.
He pulled on his jeans, made a face when he realized that though they’d showered a couple of times, he hadn’t changed them in—hell, in however many days he’d been here.
He’d lost track of time.