Page 61 of Star Struck

His eyes went nova. ‘Skye, you don’t know what I’m like. I won’t be any good for you; I told you I’m a liar and a jerk.’

I was still looking into his face, saw his eyes flicker. ‘You said yourself, life is a learning curve, Jack.’

A cautious hand touched the skin at the base of my throat with one finger. Its touch set my pulse thundering under my flesh, like my body was a prison it wanted to escape, but I kept my eyes on his, saw his pupils widen with desire, become twin black suns, heard both our breathing rates rise and match. ‘Skye.’ It was all he said, just my name, but it held such longing that the word almost warped under the weight of it. ‘Skye.’

He leaned forward to let his tongue trace my lips, and my mouth lifted to meet his. I felt as though I’d been released from a cage whose glass walls had been invisible, but which had held me, nonetheless. How I had been was no longer important, all that mattered here was who I was now. And this was the real me now. The person Skye Threppel had been was dead and buried; this was who I was, crashing to the surface, drawn by Jack’s fingers against my skin, his lips on mine.

I reached my hands between us so that I could lift his T-shirt over his head, strip him of his writer’s disguise, and run my hands over the scattered hair across his chest, hearing the deep growl that built in his throat as I did it. When I touched his scars, finally letting my finger follow that line that led from his nipple to dip under the corded waist of his pyjamas, the growl rose and exploded from his mouth into mine. Suddenly he was on top of me and I could feel the tension in his muscles, the coiled-spring effect as he held himself up, the weight of his spare frame along my body and the heat of him. My ridiculously undisciplined hair coiled under his touch as he dragged it back from my face, kissing my scar where it broke the skin around my eye, moving his mouth down until he met the other scars, where he hesitated for a second. ‘Skye?’ Just my name, again.

I returned the favour. ‘Jack,’ hearing the catch and sob of need in my throat. Pulled down the bodice of the dress so that it flapped like a red velvet tongue against my breasts, lower, until it lapped at my body, passing over my hips like a kiss. ‘Yes.’

His hair traced the scars as he moved over me, losing the rest of his clothes to the scrubby brushland around the gulley. He looked me in the eyes and smiled. ‘Think I just gave up smoking,’ he said and moved forward, fingers leading the way, until I was gasping, all my nerve endings flaming into nebulae.

‘Oh. God. Jack.’ Each word held enough meaning for an entire script. And then his skin was against my skin, each stroke was a move nearer freedom for me. He gave me back my self-respect, my pride and then, eventually, he gave me himself. Utterly unreserved, he threw up his head and blew my name into the breeze on a falling note, until he was gasping and reaching for breath and I was a boneless mass, a new person underneath him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The tension went, exploding into silver filaments, dragged from the base of his spine to leave him bone-heavy. Beneath him, Skye was still trembling, the raised edges of the extra skin layers that marked her body feeling soft and dry against his chest.

He wanted to speak. Wanted to say something profound, something about having found himself. The ice melting. But he couldn’t utter a word, couldn’t even make a sentence line up inside his head, because his brain still felt as if it had liquidised and was, even now, pooling inside his skull. Even the jealousy he’d briefly entertained towards Geth couldn’t stage a comeback with all these good feelings pounding away through his bloodstream. She doesn’t want Geth. She wants me. And, for once, I think I can feel it and return it.

It was like coming out in the land of the living after years in the underworld — everything was suddenly bright and real. He understood all those songs about love and loss as magically as if someone had taught him a new language; the air seemed warmer and the sky a brighter shade of blue. Life was sharper and it was all because of this lovely woman, now drowsing in his arms with occasional shudders still rippling inside her.

He touched her hair, her mouth, and she looked up at him with a slow smile that, against all logic and laws of biology, made him stiffen again.

‘Hey.’ That was all she said. Just acknowledging his desire with one word and a little shuffle of her hips until he thought he was going to die of perfection. This is it. I’m human again. Moving, feeling that pull and tug of her, the silent friction that built towards the ultimate release.

And then remembering. All the things he hadn’t told her. What was she going to say when she found out about those? Would she think he’d had sex with her under false pretences? Will she hate me? His rhythm slowed and broke. Skye made a small noise, slightly disappointed, but he knew it was for the best as he pulled back and coiled his body away from her, ashamed. Feeling the colour leaching from life again, feeling the ice settling in his blood.

I told her I was no good for her. I’m no good for anyone. Kill the feelings. I’m better off this way.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Jack handled the Audi TT like a pro, swinging it across the desert to reach the trackway which led to the road. Neither of us spoke, hadn’t spoken since we’d breathed one another’s names into the rising dawn, as if we were ashamed or trying to forget. I looked across at him behind the wheel. Focused, dark, totally sure of everything, his movements were precise and his eyes never left the track for a moment, not even to acknowledge mine in a glance of shared guilt. The only non-driverly thing he did was to hook two fingers into the thong round his neck for a moment, to roll the leather against his skin, and then we were off again, bouncing along towards the motel. I almost couldn’t believe this was the same man who’d lain with me in that dusty little trench, stroking my scars, smiling down at me with a new, softer expression that almost completely dispelled the stress lines around his eyes. The man who’d touched me so expertly, whose kiss had injected fire into my veins and whose body . . . I felt the echo of an internal shiver . . . was so bloody amazing.

‘Jack.’ I needed to break the stony silence. ‘Are you okay?’ He grunted and twisted the wheel to steer the Audi around some low-lying rocks. ‘Only, I’m starting to be scared.’

That got a look. ‘Scared? What of?’

‘You. That you’re regretting telling me all that stuff back there. You must have been keeping it quiet for a reason.’

‘Not wanting you to know what a bastard I am isn’t a big enough reason?’

I gave a half-laugh. ‘Come on! The great Jay Whitaker? They’d forgive you just about anything.’

‘No. No they won’t. Trust me, Skye, I haven’t told you half of it.’

‘Then . . . ?’ I waved a hand to indicate the air between us. ‘Why all this?’

‘Hey. Moody silence is what I do.’ Still dark. ‘I’m a writer, remember?’ Then he reached down and pulled hard, the little car slid into an expert turn, spinning 360 degrees with wheels locked. ‘Yeah. I’m a fucked-up drunken mess of a writer.’ The engine died. ‘And whatever you’re thinking, don’t. Okay, so we had a . . . moment back there. And it was great, don’t get me wrong; you were great, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your body. At all.’ He turned and I was taken aback by the expression in his eyes. He was furious. ‘But look. This isn’t going to be the start of something big, okay? Like I said, I’m no good for you, I shouldn’t have started it but I did, and I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to think . . . I don’t do relationships. I tried, with Liss . . . kept it going for a while but even then I wasn’t really there. Sex, yeah, I can do that fine, no problem there. But. Nothing else.’ He fired up the engine again and gunned it savagely until the tyres began to scream. ‘Nothing.’ He pushed the lever into ‘Drive’ and the car shot forward so suddenly that I banged my head against the side window and my vision blurred for a moment.

‘You’re right,’ I said, after a moment. ‘You are a bastard.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘Why?’

The car rocked over the rutted track. ‘Maybe there isn’t a reason. Maybe it’s just who I am. Perhaps I like hurting people, letting them get close and then telling them it was all a big joke, ha bloody ha, no compassion here, no understanding, no . . .’ He seemed to bite the word off to stop it coming, but I heard it echo through the empty space.

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