The Effect of James Whistler, Chapter Eight
Title: The Effect of James Whistler, Chapter Eight
Author: domfangirl
Starring: Lincoln and Jane with guest spots by Sara, Michael, LJ and Sofia.
Category: Multi-chapter (part of The Effects Series)
Rating: NC-17 to be safe
Summary: It was S3 with Jane added to the mix. Now it’s still set in S3, but it takes into account S4 in various ways.
Author’s Notes: This chapter, and the next (final) chapter, of this story are especially for happywriter06. Did someone order a Vegas wedding? *g*
With his hands tangled in her hair, holding her face directly over his, he made the declaration for two reasons: one, because it was true, and two, because he knew she loved him too. He wanted her to know they were on the same page.
He could tell he’d surprised her, but her lack of response immediately started to make him feel uncomfortable. He was soft now, but still snugly inside her body, and she was draped all over him in the way that only a completely satisfied woman could be. But with his announcement, which seemed suddenly louder as well as echoing off the walls of the air-conditioned room, he felt her tense up, and then she said nothing.
Either she had been struck dumb, or she didn’t return his sentiments and at that moment, Lincoln knew which he preferred. He couldn’t have read her wrong; every day for the last six days, no matter what she was doing, he had been able to feel it from her. Several times, he’d been sure she was about to say it, and that had terrified him. But in this moment, it had unexpectedly been the right thing for him to say, or so he thought.
Her eyes never wavered from his, but she still made no response. Maybe it was only five seconds, but it felt like a lifetime to Lincoln, and just as he was thinking of retracting his statement altogether, her cell phone rang, disrupting the moment even more efficiently.
Jane’s gaze jumped to the bedside table, and then she looked back at him, perhaps a little regretfully. He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t tell, and it drove fear into his heart. Easing herself off of him, she settled onto her knees beside him before she grabbed the phone. As he listened to her side of the conversation, he realized it was nothing more than a check-in from one of the team who had promised to survey the hotel, looking for anyone suspicious or Company-like lurking nearby. Jane said, “That works for me. You’re free to go. Wilcox will meet you back in Colorado in a few days,” and after another short pause, she added, “I hope so, too. Thanks, Gates.”
She closed the phone, but held on to it, the device folded in her hand protectively. Lincoln still lay flat on his back, in just the position she’d left him, and the vulnerability was killing him. He wanted to cover himself, he wanted to sit up and turn away from her, he wanted to do something, but he felt almost paralyzed with some emotion that was so new as to be unnamable.
Watching the graceful, naked lines of her back, he also longed to bury his face at the base of her spine and his kiss his way up to her neck, but that was hardly what a guy should do when he’d been rejected. And that’s what had just happened, right? She hadn’t said she loved him too, so it was rejection. That was his problem, really. He’d never done this with anyone except Veronica. You know, loved someone, and he wasn’t real clear on the protocol when someone didn’t love you back. She clearly liked having sex with him, so maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. He could have the sex, at least for a while.
The only problem was, he didn’t just want the sex. He didn’t just want anything. He wanted everything-everything that Jane was and would be, and he wanted it with an intensity that took his breath. And he wanted her to want him. To love him. To never leave.
She exhaled loudly, her whole body moving with the sound, and then she looked over her shoulder at him. “Doesn’t this scare you?” she asked.
Lincoln blinked, and then scrambled into an upright position because he didn’t know what was coming, but he felt certain he needed to face it-literally-head on. “What?” he asked softly.
Setting the phone carefully on the table, she pointed at him and then at herself. “This. Us. Whatever this is. I mean, a week ago we were in a different hotel and you wouldn’t have sex with me because I could die. Today, you’re saying you love me. That’s quite a journey in seven days’ time, don’t you think?”
“A lot’s changed in the last week,” he said. He could sense the defensiveness rising within him and he felt helpless to stop it.
“Not really, Lincoln.”
“You’re not dead,” he pointed out.
Jane turned her body toward him, but reached for one of the pillows and held it against her chest, blocking her nudity from his gaze. “No,” she agreed softly. “I’m not dead, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get hit by a bus tomorrow.” She looked up from the pillow in her arms, snagging his gaze firmly with her own. “Is this suddenly okay because Sara’s alive?”
Something that had grown tight in Lincoln’s chest the moment after he’d said he loved her loosened as she asked that question. He felt his shoulders relax, like something had unraveled inside him, something that had been so tightly balled together that its release was more powerful, even than the moment when he’d known he loved her. “No,” he answered. “Well, yes. But no.”
A small smile touched her mouth, her beautiful mouth, and Lincoln wanted nothing more than to lean forward and grab that smile with his own lips. The pity there was misguided, and he had to find a way to explain it to her, even though he’d never been good with shit like this. “Listen to me, Jane,” he said, reaching a hand out to touch the arm that clutched the pillow to her chest as if it were armor, as if something like that could keep him from her now. “It’s hard to understand-for me too. But, it’s like…it’s like…” and then, with an eloquence he never knew he could possess, he was able to give her what was in his heart. “It’s like my world was burning down. Flames everywhere, you know? And suddenly out of the fire, there you were. You came out of nothing, Jane. You took me by surprise, and I know I did and said things, from the very beginning, all wrong.
“But then Sara was alive, and the difference that made…” he stopped for a moment, just trying to rein in his emotions in the same instance he was trying to make them vividly clear for her. “You’ve lost people, too, important people. You know how it is, but losing Veronica, for me, the way it happened-it just,” and here he gave up trying to say it right, because he knew he’d never be able to express what that had done to him. “It just destroyed my faith in anything like this. It’s not that I couldn’t love you, but that my loving you would be bad, for all of us, but especially you.” He stopped again, and he knew he wasn’t finished, but he didn’t know how to wrap it up, how to bring it all back together. So instead he went back to why he’d told her how he felt in the first place. “But I couldn’t let another minute go by without saying it. Without you knowing it. Because maybe it’s not good, but it’s still how I feel. You did save me, just like you said, but it was more than dragging my ass outta the fire.”
Jane’s eyes shimmered with tears by the time he finished, by the time he didn’t think there were any more words he could string together coherently anyway. So he just tightened his hand around her wrist, and pulled her towards him. She flung the pillow away and threw herself against him, her arms wrapping around his neck speedily. “I love you, too, Lincoln. I love you, too.” She sank her face into the place where his shoulder and neck met and she whispered, “I know it’s good. I know it’s good because it scares me so much, and only the things most worth doing have ever scared me.”
He tried not to get sidetracked by her naked body sliding against his, but the truth was, unleashing his thoughts the way that he had seemed to make his need for her all the greater. Her response-finally!-being what he had thought, what he’d hoped, what he needed, made desperation claw at him uncontrollably. His lips found the skin of her throat and their continual declarations of love filled the air around them. Before he knew entirely what was happening, they were rolling across the bed and Jane was gasping his name and opening her legs and in the moment of penetration, Lincoln knew she was right. There was nothing but goodness between them, and he wanted it to last forever.
*
Jane, for all the places she’d been around the world, had somehow managed to never travel by ferry or boat. She found that it was relaxing, but that idea was quickly followed by the knowledge that in all her travels, she’d never gone many places for pleasure. She’d needed to get in, get the job done, and get out, and things like that didn’t include traveling at a leisurely pace through any body of water.
Sara was still recovering, so she was happy to stay in her cabin and rest. Wilcox, for whom Jane hadn’t intended to play nursemaid, had been happy to come with them, but also liked staying below deck.
So with Lincoln at her side, with the breeze caressing her face, Jane experienced a little bit of a holiday. They held hands, they walked around, they sat and watched the passing scenery-expanses of water she’d never marveled at in all her life, but suddenly found more beautiful and breathtaking than she could explain.
In the small shower of their cabin, they made love; both remembering the first time they’d been naked together so vividly that the whispered words of how each of them had wanted to do this, or do that had had them so combustible that by the time Lincoln braced himself against the convenience ledge and pulled her down on top of him, they’d already been in the throes.
She’d teased his cock with her mouth, expressing how much she’d wanted to give him a blowjob that first time and how hard it had been to resist. He had gently removed her from her kneeling position to explain that he could not be expected to stay on his feet during an act like that, either then or now. Turning her around so that her back was flush against his chest, he used soap, water, and nimble fingers to stroke her breasts until she was wild for him, so close to orgasming without him even touching between her legs she’d been aware that her desperate cries were getting increasingly louder and that if anyone could hear her, although powerless to stop it, she would have been humiliated.
He’d rubbed himself intimately against her ass the entire time he’d been marauding her nipples, and his lips had been all over her neck and shoulders, his teeth gently grazing the sensitive tendons, which had only added to her arousal. When he’d sat down behind her, she’d expected him to turn her to face him again, but he hadn’t; pulling her backwards, he positioned them both so that she was able to sink down on him and then place her hands on his knees to give herself leverage. With his hands on her hips and them both already nearly mindless, the actual time to achieving climax had been relatively short-lived, but Jane cuddled on his lap in the warm mist still flowing over them afterwards and they joked about small showers being their favorite place on earth.
It was late in the night, with Lincoln sleeping soundly next to her, that she realized it wasn’t the vacation aspect of the day that made it so pleasurable, it was the feeling of contentedness that rested over her. She was perfectly secure, in a completely insecure world, and that had never happened to her before. In the darkness, her hand found his belly, and she turned, pressing her face into his back, hugging him tightly. Before Lincoln, she’d never even known she could feel this way, and now, understanding that he felt the same seemed to be all she needed to embrace it fully and let it sweep her away.
After their arrival in Mexico the next morning, she stood on the dock, being hugged enthusiastically by LJ while Michael embraced Sara. She felt a little sorry for them, that they didn’t have more privacy as they hugged, and cried, and hugged some more. Then of course, they kissed, and, Jane was sure, they were simply incapable of the restraint that might be expected on a normal occasion. She felt tempted to shout out to the gawkers who were also meeting loved ones coming off the boat that Sara had been through hell, and Michael had thought she was dead, but in the end, she’d had to restrain Lincoln from beating up a pair of young men who wolf-whistled and called out some very inappropriate catch phrases.
Michael lifted his head, as if emerging from a deep dark slumber, and his flushed face didn’t seem to carry any annoyance or regret. Jane remembered what he had looked like before, and there was a startling difference between the sad man at the hospital the first time she’d seen him, and this one who held Sara so tightly. He finally let her go to move forward and briefly, but fiercely, hug his brother. Then he turned to her, and Jane’s surprise at the depth of gratitude so plainly visible on his face made her heart ache all over again.
She wondered, as she hugged him in return, now that she knew what love was, if she would be able to see it plainly everywhere she went.
*
Lincoln had planned a big speech, something that would bring comfort to Sofia in the wake of Whistler’s death, but he found, that Michael had already handled it. His brother never said anything, but Lincoln got the distinct impression that it was somehow his way of trying to take away the sting from when Lincoln had had to tell Michael Sara was dead.
Sofia was still sad, of course, but she seemed to have accepted it. She was proud that James had died to save Sara, and they had a quiet conversation soon after they returned to the safe house that helped Lincoln know that some family was born to you and others you picked up along the way. He asked her to stay with them, and she agreed. Shyly she asked about Jane, and Lincoln, uncharacteristically shy himself, just told her he couldn’t explain it.
And that was the truth. He couldn’t explain it, and he didn’t want to. He just wanted it to go on, and get better, and always be the thing he never saw coming. With Jane, he expected it would always be a surprise, and he was cool with that.
They soon settled into a routine that worked for all six of them. With Aldo’s endless money, they didn’t have to work, but of course idleness wasn’t really in any of their natures. Lincoln hired someone to home school LJ, because he still had the equivalent of two years of high school left to complete, but Sofia found a teaching job at a local school, Sara started picking up shifts at a clinic about five miles from their house, and Michael drew up plans for a dive shop.
Jane still prowled around like she was on duty, waiting for someone to come out of the shadows. She installed an alarm system on their house, and the gated fence surrounding it. There were video cameras in numerous locations on the property and part of the den was devoted to surveillance. He kind of liked it, though, watching her do what she did. She was beautiful and wonderful, and he knew she did it because it was what she’d been trained for, but also because she loved all of them, and she felt it was her prerogative to watch out for them.
Lincoln was probably the biggest bum of them all, finding his relief in yard work and with Jane’s help, he planted a garden, something he hadn’t done since he was a kid and he and Michael and his mother had had little planter boxes in the window of their Chicago apartment. He spent a lot of time with LJ too, which wasn’t wasted, but once when he brought up how he wasn’t exactly contributing to their family life to his brother, Michael only said, “When I get the go ahead on the building plans for the shop, you’ll be put to good use, so live it up while you can.”
Michael’s smile had been so carefree and childlike, it had sent Lincoln back, to a different time, a time before Fox River and Sona, and he actually bounced the rest of the day. He was rarely in a bad mood these days, but this was more than his normal cheerfulness and Jane noticed. That evening as they climbed into bed, she grinned at him. “You are like a gleeful little boy, today. What is up with that?”
Lincoln reached out, snagging her waist with his palm to pull her closer to him under the blankets. “Nothing is up with that,” he retorted, nuzzling her earlobe. “I’m just a happy guy.”
Jane pulled away from him to peer into his face. “You know, it’s remarkable how pretty a smile makes you.” Lifting a hand, her fingers slid over his chin and jaw, the rasp of his beard loud against her skin as quiet settled over their home.
“Should I go shave?” he asked, ignoring the fact that she’d called him pretty.
“No,” she responded. “No sex tonight anyway, my period came today.”
Lincoln’s mood dampened a bit at that news, but strangely it wasn’t just the disappointment of not sinking himself inside Jane’s body. Aloud he said, “We could still make out,” but he wondered for a moment at what caused the other disappointment. Jane had already been on birth control when they met, but she had continued to take care of the responsibility in the months that had passed since. He’d never said anything to her about it, but the idea that he’d like to have a baby with her solidified the thoughts that had been lingering in his head for a few weeks.
Her impish smile indicated making out would be acceptable, but he changed the subject as he slid his hand under the camisole she wore and moved his fingers softly over the skin of her belly. “Are you happy here?” he asked.
Jane’s gaze had been lingering on his lips, but she looked into his eyes and hesitated before asking her own question. “Am I happy here, with you, or happy here, in Mexico?”
Suddenly unsure, Lincoln shrugged. “Either. Both.” He looked away from her face glancing up at the ceiling fan over their bed. “Either.”
A good-natured chuckle tickled his chin as she leaned into him and pressed her lips to his roughened jaw line. “I’m happy with you. I don’t care about Mexico. I’ve never really lived anywhere, not since I was 18 and joined the army. I’ve been a nomad for the last 15 years.” Kissing his mouth gently, she pulled her face back just slightly, just enough that her next words could hit his face with each breath she took. “I love being anywhere with you. Wherever you are, that’s my home now.”
Lincoln swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and threw caution to the wind. “You feel like driving to Vegas?” he asked.
Jane blinked, her face dropping further away from his, and he saw the confusion the question caused. Replaying the conversation quickly in his own head, he realized it was hardly the right response to her declaration.
Except that it was. He knew it was.
“Vegas?” she repeated, truly perplexed.
The hand on her waist moved to the small of her back, pulling her into him more intimately. “Yeah, we just get in the car and drive up there. First thing tomorrow.”
“What’s in Vegas?” she asked suspiciously. “You want to play Blackjack with your father’s money or something?”
Lincoln shook his head, laughing softly. “No. No!” he repeated when she arched an eyebrow at him. “There’s other reasons people go to Vegas.”
Jane’s eyes wandered over the plains of his face, and then she propped her head up on her hand, staring hard at him. “You want to catch a Celine Dion show?” She almost got it all the way out before she started laughing, but then the image of Lincoln at a Celine Dion show must have tickled her funny bone just right because she ended up leaning into him, resting her head against his chin as she tried to gain control. “I’m sorry,” she gasped a minute later, tears of mirth leaking from her eyes. Her giggles were infectious, however, and they helped to ease Lincoln’s bewildering nervousness.
He grabbed her chin, tipped her head back and kissed her. He started out soft and gentle, but when she opened her lips to his tongue, he kissed her deeply, his tongue leaving no part of her mouth unexplored. After several long, breathless moments, he finally broke away to whisper, “Can you think of any other reasons people go to Vegas?” while his palm cupped her breast warmly. His thumb rubbed over the hardened tip and Jane’s cheeks began to flush with color, her eyes turning smoky as she opened them in an attempt to answer his question.
He could tell his kisses and caresses had muddled her brain though, because she obviously had no idea what he was asking her. Finally, he pushed her on to her back and with his body half on top of hers, he announced, “This is my retarded way of asking you to marry me, Jane. Will you go to Vegas with me?”
Her beautiful face transformed again, the silliness and arousal were replaced by deep emotion, the same that had decorated her countenance when she’d declared he was her home now. Her hand slid into the hair at the back of neck, the hair he’d grown out for her because he’d had no pictures to show her of how he’d looked when he was younger and his hair had been longer. Pulling him closer, she whispered against his mouth, “Yes, please.”
Chapter Nine
Author: domfangirl
Starring: Lincoln and Jane with guest spots by Sara, Michael, LJ and Sofia.
Category: Multi-chapter (part of The Effects Series)
Rating: NC-17 to be safe
Summary: It was S3 with Jane added to the mix. Now it’s still set in S3, but it takes into account S4 in various ways.
Author’s Notes: This chapter, and the next (final) chapter, of this story are especially for happywriter06. Did someone order a Vegas wedding? *g*
With his hands tangled in her hair, holding her face directly over his, he made the declaration for two reasons: one, because it was true, and two, because he knew she loved him too. He wanted her to know they were on the same page.
He could tell he’d surprised her, but her lack of response immediately started to make him feel uncomfortable. He was soft now, but still snugly inside her body, and she was draped all over him in the way that only a completely satisfied woman could be. But with his announcement, which seemed suddenly louder as well as echoing off the walls of the air-conditioned room, he felt her tense up, and then she said nothing.
Either she had been struck dumb, or she didn’t return his sentiments and at that moment, Lincoln knew which he preferred. He couldn’t have read her wrong; every day for the last six days, no matter what she was doing, he had been able to feel it from her. Several times, he’d been sure she was about to say it, and that had terrified him. But in this moment, it had unexpectedly been the right thing for him to say, or so he thought.
Her eyes never wavered from his, but she still made no response. Maybe it was only five seconds, but it felt like a lifetime to Lincoln, and just as he was thinking of retracting his statement altogether, her cell phone rang, disrupting the moment even more efficiently.
Jane’s gaze jumped to the bedside table, and then she looked back at him, perhaps a little regretfully. He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t tell, and it drove fear into his heart. Easing herself off of him, she settled onto her knees beside him before she grabbed the phone. As he listened to her side of the conversation, he realized it was nothing more than a check-in from one of the team who had promised to survey the hotel, looking for anyone suspicious or Company-like lurking nearby. Jane said, “That works for me. You’re free to go. Wilcox will meet you back in Colorado in a few days,” and after another short pause, she added, “I hope so, too. Thanks, Gates.”
She closed the phone, but held on to it, the device folded in her hand protectively. Lincoln still lay flat on his back, in just the position she’d left him, and the vulnerability was killing him. He wanted to cover himself, he wanted to sit up and turn away from her, he wanted to do something, but he felt almost paralyzed with some emotion that was so new as to be unnamable.
Watching the graceful, naked lines of her back, he also longed to bury his face at the base of her spine and his kiss his way up to her neck, but that was hardly what a guy should do when he’d been rejected. And that’s what had just happened, right? She hadn’t said she loved him too, so it was rejection. That was his problem, really. He’d never done this with anyone except Veronica. You know, loved someone, and he wasn’t real clear on the protocol when someone didn’t love you back. She clearly liked having sex with him, so maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. He could have the sex, at least for a while.
The only problem was, he didn’t just want the sex. He didn’t just want anything. He wanted everything-everything that Jane was and would be, and he wanted it with an intensity that took his breath. And he wanted her to want him. To love him. To never leave.
She exhaled loudly, her whole body moving with the sound, and then she looked over her shoulder at him. “Doesn’t this scare you?” she asked.
Lincoln blinked, and then scrambled into an upright position because he didn’t know what was coming, but he felt certain he needed to face it-literally-head on. “What?” he asked softly.
Setting the phone carefully on the table, she pointed at him and then at herself. “This. Us. Whatever this is. I mean, a week ago we were in a different hotel and you wouldn’t have sex with me because I could die. Today, you’re saying you love me. That’s quite a journey in seven days’ time, don’t you think?”
“A lot’s changed in the last week,” he said. He could sense the defensiveness rising within him and he felt helpless to stop it.
“Not really, Lincoln.”
“You’re not dead,” he pointed out.
Jane turned her body toward him, but reached for one of the pillows and held it against her chest, blocking her nudity from his gaze. “No,” she agreed softly. “I’m not dead, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get hit by a bus tomorrow.” She looked up from the pillow in her arms, snagging his gaze firmly with her own. “Is this suddenly okay because Sara’s alive?”
Something that had grown tight in Lincoln’s chest the moment after he’d said he loved her loosened as she asked that question. He felt his shoulders relax, like something had unraveled inside him, something that had been so tightly balled together that its release was more powerful, even than the moment when he’d known he loved her. “No,” he answered. “Well, yes. But no.”
A small smile touched her mouth, her beautiful mouth, and Lincoln wanted nothing more than to lean forward and grab that smile with his own lips. The pity there was misguided, and he had to find a way to explain it to her, even though he’d never been good with shit like this. “Listen to me, Jane,” he said, reaching a hand out to touch the arm that clutched the pillow to her chest as if it were armor, as if something like that could keep him from her now. “It’s hard to understand-for me too. But, it’s like…it’s like…” and then, with an eloquence he never knew he could possess, he was able to give her what was in his heart. “It’s like my world was burning down. Flames everywhere, you know? And suddenly out of the fire, there you were. You came out of nothing, Jane. You took me by surprise, and I know I did and said things, from the very beginning, all wrong.
“But then Sara was alive, and the difference that made…” he stopped for a moment, just trying to rein in his emotions in the same instance he was trying to make them vividly clear for her. “You’ve lost people, too, important people. You know how it is, but losing Veronica, for me, the way it happened-it just,” and here he gave up trying to say it right, because he knew he’d never be able to express what that had done to him. “It just destroyed my faith in anything like this. It’s not that I couldn’t love you, but that my loving you would be bad, for all of us, but especially you.” He stopped again, and he knew he wasn’t finished, but he didn’t know how to wrap it up, how to bring it all back together. So instead he went back to why he’d told her how he felt in the first place. “But I couldn’t let another minute go by without saying it. Without you knowing it. Because maybe it’s not good, but it’s still how I feel. You did save me, just like you said, but it was more than dragging my ass outta the fire.”
Jane’s eyes shimmered with tears by the time he finished, by the time he didn’t think there were any more words he could string together coherently anyway. So he just tightened his hand around her wrist, and pulled her towards him. She flung the pillow away and threw herself against him, her arms wrapping around his neck speedily. “I love you, too, Lincoln. I love you, too.” She sank her face into the place where his shoulder and neck met and she whispered, “I know it’s good. I know it’s good because it scares me so much, and only the things most worth doing have ever scared me.”
He tried not to get sidetracked by her naked body sliding against his, but the truth was, unleashing his thoughts the way that he had seemed to make his need for her all the greater. Her response-finally!-being what he had thought, what he’d hoped, what he needed, made desperation claw at him uncontrollably. His lips found the skin of her throat and their continual declarations of love filled the air around them. Before he knew entirely what was happening, they were rolling across the bed and Jane was gasping his name and opening her legs and in the moment of penetration, Lincoln knew she was right. There was nothing but goodness between them, and he wanted it to last forever.
*
Jane, for all the places she’d been around the world, had somehow managed to never travel by ferry or boat. She found that it was relaxing, but that idea was quickly followed by the knowledge that in all her travels, she’d never gone many places for pleasure. She’d needed to get in, get the job done, and get out, and things like that didn’t include traveling at a leisurely pace through any body of water.
Sara was still recovering, so she was happy to stay in her cabin and rest. Wilcox, for whom Jane hadn’t intended to play nursemaid, had been happy to come with them, but also liked staying below deck.
So with Lincoln at her side, with the breeze caressing her face, Jane experienced a little bit of a holiday. They held hands, they walked around, they sat and watched the passing scenery-expanses of water she’d never marveled at in all her life, but suddenly found more beautiful and breathtaking than she could explain.
In the small shower of their cabin, they made love; both remembering the first time they’d been naked together so vividly that the whispered words of how each of them had wanted to do this, or do that had had them so combustible that by the time Lincoln braced himself against the convenience ledge and pulled her down on top of him, they’d already been in the throes.
She’d teased his cock with her mouth, expressing how much she’d wanted to give him a blowjob that first time and how hard it had been to resist. He had gently removed her from her kneeling position to explain that he could not be expected to stay on his feet during an act like that, either then or now. Turning her around so that her back was flush against his chest, he used soap, water, and nimble fingers to stroke her breasts until she was wild for him, so close to orgasming without him even touching between her legs she’d been aware that her desperate cries were getting increasingly louder and that if anyone could hear her, although powerless to stop it, she would have been humiliated.
He’d rubbed himself intimately against her ass the entire time he’d been marauding her nipples, and his lips had been all over her neck and shoulders, his teeth gently grazing the sensitive tendons, which had only added to her arousal. When he’d sat down behind her, she’d expected him to turn her to face him again, but he hadn’t; pulling her backwards, he positioned them both so that she was able to sink down on him and then place her hands on his knees to give herself leverage. With his hands on her hips and them both already nearly mindless, the actual time to achieving climax had been relatively short-lived, but Jane cuddled on his lap in the warm mist still flowing over them afterwards and they joked about small showers being their favorite place on earth.
It was late in the night, with Lincoln sleeping soundly next to her, that she realized it wasn’t the vacation aspect of the day that made it so pleasurable, it was the feeling of contentedness that rested over her. She was perfectly secure, in a completely insecure world, and that had never happened to her before. In the darkness, her hand found his belly, and she turned, pressing her face into his back, hugging him tightly. Before Lincoln, she’d never even known she could feel this way, and now, understanding that he felt the same seemed to be all she needed to embrace it fully and let it sweep her away.
After their arrival in Mexico the next morning, she stood on the dock, being hugged enthusiastically by LJ while Michael embraced Sara. She felt a little sorry for them, that they didn’t have more privacy as they hugged, and cried, and hugged some more. Then of course, they kissed, and, Jane was sure, they were simply incapable of the restraint that might be expected on a normal occasion. She felt tempted to shout out to the gawkers who were also meeting loved ones coming off the boat that Sara had been through hell, and Michael had thought she was dead, but in the end, she’d had to restrain Lincoln from beating up a pair of young men who wolf-whistled and called out some very inappropriate catch phrases.
Michael lifted his head, as if emerging from a deep dark slumber, and his flushed face didn’t seem to carry any annoyance or regret. Jane remembered what he had looked like before, and there was a startling difference between the sad man at the hospital the first time she’d seen him, and this one who held Sara so tightly. He finally let her go to move forward and briefly, but fiercely, hug his brother. Then he turned to her, and Jane’s surprise at the depth of gratitude so plainly visible on his face made her heart ache all over again.
She wondered, as she hugged him in return, now that she knew what love was, if she would be able to see it plainly everywhere she went.
*
Lincoln had planned a big speech, something that would bring comfort to Sofia in the wake of Whistler’s death, but he found, that Michael had already handled it. His brother never said anything, but Lincoln got the distinct impression that it was somehow his way of trying to take away the sting from when Lincoln had had to tell Michael Sara was dead.
Sofia was still sad, of course, but she seemed to have accepted it. She was proud that James had died to save Sara, and they had a quiet conversation soon after they returned to the safe house that helped Lincoln know that some family was born to you and others you picked up along the way. He asked her to stay with them, and she agreed. Shyly she asked about Jane, and Lincoln, uncharacteristically shy himself, just told her he couldn’t explain it.
And that was the truth. He couldn’t explain it, and he didn’t want to. He just wanted it to go on, and get better, and always be the thing he never saw coming. With Jane, he expected it would always be a surprise, and he was cool with that.
They soon settled into a routine that worked for all six of them. With Aldo’s endless money, they didn’t have to work, but of course idleness wasn’t really in any of their natures. Lincoln hired someone to home school LJ, because he still had the equivalent of two years of high school left to complete, but Sofia found a teaching job at a local school, Sara started picking up shifts at a clinic about five miles from their house, and Michael drew up plans for a dive shop.
Jane still prowled around like she was on duty, waiting for someone to come out of the shadows. She installed an alarm system on their house, and the gated fence surrounding it. There were video cameras in numerous locations on the property and part of the den was devoted to surveillance. He kind of liked it, though, watching her do what she did. She was beautiful and wonderful, and he knew she did it because it was what she’d been trained for, but also because she loved all of them, and she felt it was her prerogative to watch out for them.
Lincoln was probably the biggest bum of them all, finding his relief in yard work and with Jane’s help, he planted a garden, something he hadn’t done since he was a kid and he and Michael and his mother had had little planter boxes in the window of their Chicago apartment. He spent a lot of time with LJ too, which wasn’t wasted, but once when he brought up how he wasn’t exactly contributing to their family life to his brother, Michael only said, “When I get the go ahead on the building plans for the shop, you’ll be put to good use, so live it up while you can.”
Michael’s smile had been so carefree and childlike, it had sent Lincoln back, to a different time, a time before Fox River and Sona, and he actually bounced the rest of the day. He was rarely in a bad mood these days, but this was more than his normal cheerfulness and Jane noticed. That evening as they climbed into bed, she grinned at him. “You are like a gleeful little boy, today. What is up with that?”
Lincoln reached out, snagging her waist with his palm to pull her closer to him under the blankets. “Nothing is up with that,” he retorted, nuzzling her earlobe. “I’m just a happy guy.”
Jane pulled away from him to peer into his face. “You know, it’s remarkable how pretty a smile makes you.” Lifting a hand, her fingers slid over his chin and jaw, the rasp of his beard loud against her skin as quiet settled over their home.
“Should I go shave?” he asked, ignoring the fact that she’d called him pretty.
“No,” she responded. “No sex tonight anyway, my period came today.”
Lincoln’s mood dampened a bit at that news, but strangely it wasn’t just the disappointment of not sinking himself inside Jane’s body. Aloud he said, “We could still make out,” but he wondered for a moment at what caused the other disappointment. Jane had already been on birth control when they met, but she had continued to take care of the responsibility in the months that had passed since. He’d never said anything to her about it, but the idea that he’d like to have a baby with her solidified the thoughts that had been lingering in his head for a few weeks.
Her impish smile indicated making out would be acceptable, but he changed the subject as he slid his hand under the camisole she wore and moved his fingers softly over the skin of her belly. “Are you happy here?” he asked.
Jane’s gaze had been lingering on his lips, but she looked into his eyes and hesitated before asking her own question. “Am I happy here, with you, or happy here, in Mexico?”
Suddenly unsure, Lincoln shrugged. “Either. Both.” He looked away from her face glancing up at the ceiling fan over their bed. “Either.”
A good-natured chuckle tickled his chin as she leaned into him and pressed her lips to his roughened jaw line. “I’m happy with you. I don’t care about Mexico. I’ve never really lived anywhere, not since I was 18 and joined the army. I’ve been a nomad for the last 15 years.” Kissing his mouth gently, she pulled her face back just slightly, just enough that her next words could hit his face with each breath she took. “I love being anywhere with you. Wherever you are, that’s my home now.”
Lincoln swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and threw caution to the wind. “You feel like driving to Vegas?” he asked.
Jane blinked, her face dropping further away from his, and he saw the confusion the question caused. Replaying the conversation quickly in his own head, he realized it was hardly the right response to her declaration.
Except that it was. He knew it was.
“Vegas?” she repeated, truly perplexed.
The hand on her waist moved to the small of her back, pulling her into him more intimately. “Yeah, we just get in the car and drive up there. First thing tomorrow.”
“What’s in Vegas?” she asked suspiciously. “You want to play Blackjack with your father’s money or something?”
Lincoln shook his head, laughing softly. “No. No!” he repeated when she arched an eyebrow at him. “There’s other reasons people go to Vegas.”
Jane’s eyes wandered over the plains of his face, and then she propped her head up on her hand, staring hard at him. “You want to catch a Celine Dion show?” She almost got it all the way out before she started laughing, but then the image of Lincoln at a Celine Dion show must have tickled her funny bone just right because she ended up leaning into him, resting her head against his chin as she tried to gain control. “I’m sorry,” she gasped a minute later, tears of mirth leaking from her eyes. Her giggles were infectious, however, and they helped to ease Lincoln’s bewildering nervousness.
He grabbed her chin, tipped her head back and kissed her. He started out soft and gentle, but when she opened her lips to his tongue, he kissed her deeply, his tongue leaving no part of her mouth unexplored. After several long, breathless moments, he finally broke away to whisper, “Can you think of any other reasons people go to Vegas?” while his palm cupped her breast warmly. His thumb rubbed over the hardened tip and Jane’s cheeks began to flush with color, her eyes turning smoky as she opened them in an attempt to answer his question.
He could tell his kisses and caresses had muddled her brain though, because she obviously had no idea what he was asking her. Finally, he pushed her on to her back and with his body half on top of hers, he announced, “This is my retarded way of asking you to marry me, Jane. Will you go to Vegas with me?”
Her beautiful face transformed again, the silliness and arousal were replaced by deep emotion, the same that had decorated her countenance when she’d declared he was her home now. Her hand slid into the hair at the back of neck, the hair he’d grown out for her because he’d had no pictures to show her of how he’d looked when he was younger and his hair had been longer. Pulling him closer, she whispered against his mouth, “Yes, please.”
Chapter Nine