Out of Hours...Office Affairs: Can't Get Enough / Wild Nights with her Wicked Boss / Bound to the Greek

Girding her loins, she made her way up the path to the front door and leaned on the doorbell. Nothing. She waited, then tried again. Still nothing. She tried knocking next, and when this was still ineffective, she stepped back and surveyed the house. It was possible he wasn’t here at all, of course. Lord, he could be anywhere. But his car gleamed redly at the end of the drive, and she had a gut instinct about this—Jack was very private, and she doubted he’d take his grief to a public place.

She tried the front door, but it was solidly locked, so she headed boldly up the drive, emerging into a beautifully landscaped backyard. Fruit trees and roses, climbing jasmine on the fence and a rustic outdoor setting created a little oasis of calm and tranquility. She smiled at the laughing Buddha statue half-hidden in amongst some irises, then frowned as she saw the back door open and swinging in the breeze.

Well, at least she wasn’t breaking and entering….

Feeling a little more tentative now, she stuck her head in the darkened doorway and glanced up and down the hallway. In front of her, old floorboards gleamed all the way down the central hallway to the front door.

“Jack? Jack, are you here?” she called out.

Nothing. Sighing, she stepped properly into the house. The kitchen was on her right. It was old but serviceable, and Jack was obviously in the process of renovating it, with half the tiles removed and the wallpaper stripped down to bare plaster.

Two empty tequila bottles lay on their sides on the kitchen table. Oh, goody. Nothing like a tequila hangover.

She found him in the living room, slumped on the couch, his posture defeated and closed. At first she thought he was asleep, but he lifted his head when she put her hand on his shoulder, giving her a minor heart attack.

“Jack!” she said, startled, and he blinked up at her owlishly.

“What are you doing here?” he slurred, and she pulled back from the truly impressive haze of alcohol he was exuding.

Amazingly, he still managed to look dangerously attractive, despite his bleary-eyed, bestubbled, incoherent state.

“I was worried about you,” she said, not bothering to edit herself. She’d be stunned if he remembered any of this.

“Were you? That’s nice.”

His head sank back down, and she allowed herself a small moment to simply rest her hand on his head, feeling for him. He held too much to himself, blocked himself off too much….

“Jack, I think we should make you some coffee. And some food. You feel like some food?” she suggested, forcing herself to take her hand off his silky, springy hair.

“Don’t want anything,” he said, childishly.

“I’m sure you don’t. But I promise you’ll feel better if you eat some food.”

“Don’t want to feel better.”

I bet you don’t. She stared down at his still-bowed head, then made a decision. “Why don’t we get you in the shower?”

He didn’t respond to this, and she crouched down to peer up into his face. “Jack? Jack?”

Slowly he opened his eyes again.

“Don’t want shower.”

She nodded as though she was agreeing with him. “Sure. But you trust me, don’t you? And I think you should have a shower,” she said.

He just stared at her, and she leaned forward and slid her arm around his shoulders, bracing herself and ensuring a strong grip on his well-muscled side.

“Come on, now. Let’s stand.”

It took a few more minutes of coaxing and some serious counterweight balancing to get him to his feet. She cursed herself immediately for not having done a bit of recon and worked out where the shower was before she got him standing, but he was swaying on his feet so much that there was no way she could trust him to stay upright if she went for a quick scout.

So they staggered up the hallway, and she found the bathroom behind the second door she tried. She tried to make him understand she wanted him to sit on the edge of the tub while she took off his boots, but he just stared at her blankly.

“Jack, how much have you had to drink?” she asked suddenly, beginning to wonder if he’d had the whole two bottles of tequila. How much did it take before a person got alcohol poisoning? She didn’t have a head for drink herself, and the thought of so much strong spirit made her wince.

He shrugged, clearly disinterested, and she was forced to get down on her knees and lift his feet up one at a time to drag off his expensive-looking boots. The rest of him could go in the shower as is, but the boots just looked too good to ruin, and she knew he wouldn’t thank her if she destroyed them. Hell, he was unlikely to thank her anyway, but she was here now….

She’d just tugged his last boot off when Jack swayed alarmingly and staggered backward. There wasn’t far for him to go in the small space; his legs kicked forward, catching the heel of the boot she held and flicking it toward her face, and he slammed against the tiled wall and slid down until his butt was in the tub and his legs were dangling over the edge.

White light exploded behind her eyes as the boot connected with her right cheekbone, and she reeled backward from her crouching position, connecting with the wall behind her.

Claire just breathed through the pain for a moment, then pressed a hand to her face, probing her cheekbone tentatively. Nothing felt broken or wrong, and she guessed she’d be looking at a bruise and nothing more. Still, it hurt like hell, and she took a couple more deep breaths.

“Claire? You okay?”

She looked up quickly to find Jack staring at her, his eyes more lucid now; perhaps the impact had knocked a bit of sense into him, sent some adrenaline into his system to counteract all that alcohol.

“I’m fine.”

She pushed off the wall behind her and stood up.

“Come on, let’s get you into the shower,” she said.

She had to brace herself to help drag him up out of the tub, but he seemed much more aware of things as he sank down onto the edge of the bath and cradled his head in his hands.

“Did you knock your head?” she asked him, worried about concussion now. She leaned over him, reaching behind his head to probe the back of his skull for any bumps or blood.

Suddenly Jack’s hand shot out and grabbed hers, and she found herself being pulled down so that she was kneeling in front of him.

“Let me see,” he was murmuring. “I hurt you.”

He was determined and way too heavy for her to move around without his cooperation, so she let him have his way when he tilted her face up to examine the throbbing mark left by his boot. She tried not to look into his intent but bleary eyes, focusing instead on the tiled wall behind him.

“I hurt you,” he repeated, one large hand cradling her chin as the other brushed delicately at her cheek.

She had to swallow against the rush of feeling and memory his tender touch evoked, and she took herself to task firmly—the man was five parts drunk, incoherent and morose, and she was more hard up than she’d ever imagined if this was all it took to move her these days.

“It’s okay, Jack. It’s just a bruise. You didn’t mean it. It was an accident,” she reassured him, trying to turn her face away from his probing scrutiny.

“I still hurt you. I’m sorry, Claire, I’m so sorry,” Jack said, his voice very low and gruff now.

She froze as both Jack’s hands cupped her face and held it steady as he stared intently into her eyes, his own face just a foot away.

“I’m really, really sorry,” he said, and she watched as tears welled up in his amazing eyes and spilled over his stubbly cheeks.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he repeated, the tears still falling.

“Jack, it’s okay,” she said, tears welling in her own eyes at his misery.

His hands slipped from her face and dropped lifelessly into his lap. His shoulders shuddered, and then he seemed to crumple in on himself and she caught him in her arms as he leaned forward. A cry of anguish that seemed to seep out of his very bones echoed through him, and then he was gripping her back with a terrifying strength as he cried and cried and cried.

His weight pulled him forward off the edge of the tub and onto his knees on the floor, and she knelt with him, her heart aching for him as he wept in her arms.

She soothed a hand down his back and up again, making encouraging noises and wincing a little because he was holding her so tightly.

They stayed like that a while, until well past what her knees were happy with, but she waited until his sobbing had tapered off before soothing a hand down his back one last time and pushing him back from her.

“How about that shower now, Jack?” she suggested.

His eyes were swollen, and he needed to blow his nose, and she had to look away from the raw vulnerability in his face. This is why men don’t let women see them cry, she realized. Suddenly Jack seemed infinitely fragile.

She got him to his feet and into the shower, and was about to turn on the taps when he caught her hand again.

“Hang on.”

With one shoulder wedged against the wall, Jack reached for the waistband on his jeans and she found herself following the movements of his hands with an unnatural fascination as he slipped the stud from its buttonhole and unzipped his fly. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans next, and with a smooth motion he shucked them down. She gulped as she realized he’d taken his underwear with the jeans, hastily averting her eyes.

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