Chapter 9: Lovers + Strangers

Jada had tried to fight Christopher when he hoisted her up in his arms and walked out of the house with him. No one tried to stop him, even Duke who had been protecting her, had let his brother leave with her. She settled into his sleek BMW, silent, not because she didn’t have anything to say, but because she didn’t think it would matter to Christopher anyway.

Jada lay her hand on the flat of her belly, as she slowly grasped her new reality. Until she could find a job, and a place to live, unless she could find stable ground and stand up on her own, she was at his mercy to be thrown over his shoulder and taken wherever he wanted to.

“Where are you staying?” He asked her, his eyes staring straight ahead.

“The Henry Grand,” Jada answered, her voice dropping a couple of notes in confidence. It was easy for her to stick out her stubborn chin, to glare at him challengingly, and to talk back when there were people around her to support him. But now with just the two of them in the car, she had gone back to the girl at the beach with the damsel in distress syndrome.

Jada fastened her seat belt when the car jerked forward, faster than it should, she chanced a glance at Christopher, his jaw was clenched, his eyes narrowed and his lips drawn in a fine line. The last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon his angry glowing face, and it made her breathless. He was like a Roman statue, a warrior angry about losing his spoils to the enemy. For a moment the set of his face could be described in just that fantastic way, a romantic warrior, but Christopher was the enemy. It was obvious to anyone who had eyes and ears. It was probably obvious to the deaf and dumb as well.

Jada looked away as the silence filled the car. She could feel the atmosphere thickening to the point of choking her and the only thing Jada could hear was Christopher’s ragged breathing and the sound of the pedals when he urged the car on faster or when he had to suddenly brake. 

They pulled up at the hotel and Jada half expected Christopher to speed off once she got out of the car. But he alighted before she did. Jada watched him, surprised as he circled the car and came to her door. He opened it for her and helped her out. There he as, for a second, just a moment she saw her Luke. 

It was then that Jada realized that ever since they left his brother’s home, Luke had become Christopher. She knew how she felt about the man at the beach but couldn’t grasp a single emotion for this Christopher.

Jada noticed the strange stares the staff was giving them as they walked into the lobby. And as she walked past the receptions, Jada could swear that she saw one of the girls take out her phone and take a picture of them. Jada tried to stop and point it out to Christopher, but he held her elbow firmly and urged her forward. He didn’t drop his grasp until they were in the elevator.

“What was that about?” she looked at him with a sideways not chancing him catching her staring at him.

“Rising from the dead is still considered a hot magic trick,” he said in a tone that seemed to have lightened on their drive here.

“Everyone thought you were dead. Your family included?”

Christopher didn’t answer, instead, he said, “Which floor?”

“Penthouse,” she said before a blanket of silence fell over them once more.

Once they got into the room, Jada headed straight for the kitchenette fridge and grabbed herself something to drink. When she went back to the living room, Christopher was there, standing in the middle of the room, looking at everything and nothing.

“Would you like something to drink?” She asked him.

“Where is the bar?”

“In the kitchenette, beside the fridge,” Jada responded but didn’t make to get him a drink. Christopher didn’t need her to. He stomped past her to his goal. Jada could hear the clinking sound of glass knocking against each other as Christopher searched for his drink of choice. Luke was a beer kind of guy, she wondered what Christopher liked to drink.

He walked back into the room with a glass full of gold liquid and ice, if she had to guess Jada thought it could be whiskey or brandy.

“You didn’t answer me,” Jada said.

“What?”

“Did your family also think you were dead? It’s been over a year.” Jada pointed out.

The muscles at the edge of his lips begun to stiffen and he looked down at his glass. “Yes,” he answered before he gulped his drink.

“Why would you do that?” Jada was stunned that someone would disappear without even a word to his family. Then remembered her situation. Her family didn’t know where she was. But the difference was that they had kicked her out. 

“What are you doing here?” Christopher looked at her over the brim of his glass. 

“I came to find you,” she said honestly.

“Why?”

Should I tell him? “I got kicked out, I had nowhere else to go, and the wedding left me halfway to broke,” she rumbled on excuses that were true but not her reason for coming to find him in New York. Even though they had kicked her out, Jada still had her job, and she finally had the perfect excuse for living on her own. But being pregnant changed everything, especially now she was expecting twins.

Jada lay her hand on her belly for the second time that evening but quickly pulled it away. Twins, what was she going to do with two babies? How was she going to raise two babies on her own, she couldn’t? She needed their father, whoever he was Luke or Christopher. She wanted to tell Christopher but part of her held the truth from him. She needed to know him a little better and not the fantasy of Luke.

A deliberate silence hung in the air. First, just a pause between something said and his next remark, then suddenly all without words. Christopher downed the content of his glass and stretched out on the sofa, eyes closed and his arms folded on his chest. Jada sat on the armchair across from him and watched him. She heard the time pass as a sequence of sound, starting with the sound of his breathing then her own, and the blood rushing in her ears.

It must be the pregnancy hormones. Confused by her strange combination of feelings she struggled with the dipping sensation in her stomach. Jada could stop watching him, just as she had done numerous times before after they had made love. He was so peaceful like this, and the way his face relaxed made him look even more beautiful. 

Suddenly Christopher got up, he grabbed his glass from the coffee table where he had set it down before and strutted to the kitchenette. Her heart stuttered at the sight of him strong, carrying his muscular frame with confident ease. Before she knew it Christopher had taken one step, blurred into motion, and pulled her into his arms.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Jada swallowed hard as she labored a lot in finding words. Then he paused, his face inches from his, then the pause grew more than a pause. Christopher had fuddled his mind, slowed her tongue, and gave her a hard time gathering her wits.

“Christopher,” she began but he didn’t let her finish.

“Don’t call me that.” Edge to his voice. The coldness in his tone sent a shiver down her spine. Then just like that, he grinned at her, smiling the stress lines away.

“Lu-,” Jada shook her head and chopped the fantasy off mid-word.

“Say it,” Christopher’s soft look offset by the silver lightning flashing in his eyes, brought every single nerve in her body to life. His voice was warm as it whispered against her ear. His lips alighted near the pulse point of her throat, gently brushing her exposed skin. “I know you want to.”

She did. Just for tonight, Jada wanted to forget the reality and fall back into her fantasy. It was okay to do that right. Luke stopped the torture he was doing to her senses, pulled back, and gazed deep into her eyes. His own were like dark roses, seductive, and laced with the forbidden. 

All she could see in a heartbeat of time was his face lowering closer and closer to hers. Her lips tingled with anticipation of a kiss that took too long to come. Jada’s stomach dipped at the sensual attraction echoing from him to her and back again. 

Just one night to forget, to remember, to remember to forget. Just one.

“Luke,” Jada’s voice shuddered out she had to force herself to draw it in slowly. 

Luke tilted his head as amused as he was curious, at what Jada wasn’t in the right frame of mind to discern it. With his eyes on her and a grin at the corner of his mouth, Jada waited. She didn’t care what came next, all she wanted for him to quench the burning desire that he had started.

Luke lowered his head to hers once more. The gentle brush of his lips was enthralling, lighting up nerves everywhere in her body that had no right to be connected. She felt his lips part and the trace of his tongue. Jada knew this game well because she knew Luke. He was going to toy with her, flame her passion a little more, drive her crazy, and deny her pleasure until she was writhing beneath his touch, rising and dipping against his urges. Luke was great at strumming her body like a guitar, playing his melody with her body. The frustration always brought her a powerful orgasm, but not today. She was not in the mood to be played with.

Snaking her hand behind his neck, she pulled him to her, and their mouths locked in an erotic sparring dance. There was barely room to stand, barely room to breathe as she leaned into him kissing him as if he might suddenly disappear. 

***

Her gasps of pleasure filled the night that was heavy with the weight of idle hands. But his were occupied, and no matter how much of her body her touched, caressed, and squeezed it wasn’t enough. Inhaling deeply, he caught the scent of her. She smelled like the ocean, sweet, good, and seductive.

“I missed you,” Chris whispered over the surface of her lips, never daring to open his eyes and see what feelings she held for him. He wasn’t going to think about it at that moment, everything confused him except for this. Since the first time he held her in his arms, he knew that it was right. Her tiny frame made something inside him shudder and relax at the same time. It was how overprotective he felt over her, it was the fear that clenched his heart at the overwhelming feeling he had to keep her safe. He was getting attached to her, and that was the reason why he had left a few weeks ago.

When Chris had driven her to the hotel, he had no intention of getting out of the car, and yet he did. When he saw how his presence had attracted the attention of the hotel staff, he knew it wouldn’t be long before trouble started to brew. He made himself a drink, swallowing the mouthful of the soothing gold liquid and felt it burn through his veins and into his bloodstream, trying to wash out the effect Jada had on his now panicked nerves.

It didn’t work, so he lay down waiting for a call from Duke or Smith, telling him that the news of the return of New York’s notorious playboy had hit the social pages. There was a time Dennis Kent junior occupied those pages with him. But he had found the oasis that saved him from the harshness of the desert of emotions, his hero that kept him far from the desperate arms of the unknown faces and gave him direction in his compass-less life.

The thought that Jada could be that for him, that she could have that kind of hold over him terrified him. He hadn’t intended to get close to her. But how she sighed, purred and how her body turned into paddy in his arms, told her it as the right choice. He was trying to intimidate her at first. She had acted so brazen that day, challenging him every chance she got, and so blatantly defiant. He wanted to show her that she was still his to have, but all he had managed to prove was, he was hers. The way his body burned for her touch only echoed what his heartfelt.

Chris pulled back just enough to suck in a deep breath to clear his head. He felt the tight knot in his chest loosen. When he said that he missed her, this was what he meant. Ever since he left her, he longed for this safe and content feeling she always bathed him in. Chris’s life had always been about proving how much better he was than Kit, how he could be the better twin. Each time he tried to prove himself it never worked in his favor. Everyone preferred Kit over Chris, but not Jada.

Chris couldn’t deny the fear he felt when he saw Jada and Kit connect on a deeper level, one that he would never understand. The memory of it, made him deepen his kiss and Jada held him tighter, satisfying his growing need for her.

Jada was the only person who saw him differently. She saw him as Luke, the man she gave her innocence to, the one who helped her blossom into a confident person. And with her, he was able to be the superior person that he had always thought himself to be, that he had wanted other people to recognize him as. It was his ego at play, always. It came first even before rational thought or emotion.

However, Chris never thought he was capable of romantic feelings. All he had were lust and desire, a need to scratch an itch. The women he was with, all served a purpose to help him relive that need. Except for Meredith and Danny, he went after them for ego purposes only.

But Jada…

Jada was Jada.

Jada was his Jada.

His oasis, the one person he could be himself with. Where he felt it was safe not to try so hard.

However, the whole time they were together he was lying to her.

Or was he lying to himself?

Chris felt a twist of fear wrench through him, but he refused to give in to her, refused to pull away from how sweet Jada’s kiss tasted, and how safe he felt in her embrace. Chris picked her up and laid her on the carpet. His heart fluttered at the annoyed expression in her face. Her hands went on his shoulders, and she pulled him down to lay over her body.

Chris gave in to the urge to stroke her hair and cup her face and just stared at her. Flames lit her eyes and he held her gaze, memorizing the passion, care and what he dared to call love, they held for him. Chris still remembered how disappointed and withdrawn from him, Jada was at the Kent house. He tried to feign nonchalance, act like he didn’t care. The rest of the room had bought his indifference towards Jada, maybe even Jada herself, but not him. His heart shattered against the hardness of her expression. But not she stared at him without blinking, seemingly without breathing, something inside him eased as he took a deep breath. He was going to ingrain this look in his mind, just in case, a day came when it changed.

He would think about now, about this moment. Whatever happened after their passion had driven them to the brink of death, he didn’t care. He didn’t mind dying from the passion at least it would save him from what was next.

***

Kit couldn’t sleep, there was too much going on in his mind. Chris hadn’t said much, but it still didn’t stop plaguing Kit.

They lived together.

Shared a bed.

Shared their bodies.

How much of everything that had happened was Chris’s fault, how much blame rested on Danny, and what share of the guilt should he carry? What about the boys, his sons, were they still his sons? Ever since he had come back from Germany it had been one thing after the other. For over a year, he felt like he couldn’t take a breath like he was drowning and each time he tried to grasp for something to keep him afloat, he only sank deeper. Well, that was before the girl with the magical eyes had kept him from being engulfed by the darkness, but it was Danny who had pulled him out of it.

Kit looked over at his wife, my wife. He hadn’t felt the meaning of the word until tonight. Danny was the girl he married, but all that had happened between their I Dos till that moment lying in bed with her had kept them at such a distance that the term wife was difficult to own up to. Her restful expression was suddenly marred by a frown, Kit stroked her cheek and she relaxed once more.

Kit needed to remind himself that she was his wife now more than ever. How else was he going to work through the fact that she might have shared his twin brother’s bed? Kit didn’t know if he believed Chris or not. He knew that his guilt over his brother’s disappearance had held him back from being fully present and committed to his marriage. However, once he found out that Chris had voluntarily left the family as another show of his tantrums, the guilt wasn’t as bad. And when he saw him at his front door just a few hours prior, he was angry, annoyed, and bothered. All familiar emotions when it came to dealing Chris and his childish antics.

While he was sitting in his bed, fighting the fatigue that was making his brain swim. He decided to steel himself and deal with the issues that his therapist had pointed out to him. How mot to blame himself for things out of his control. He latched to the last few tattered shreds of courage and thought about Brian and his unit. He couldn’t save them, he knew that, but it was survivor’s guilt that drove him crazy. He came back for Danny and for his boys, that had to be the answer to the why questions he asked himself every day. This time this answer held more weight than it had before when he had asked himself why he survived and not any of his other unit members.

It was all about accepting the things he couldn’t change and focusing on the things that he could. Moving forward and leaving the past behind them or was it taking the past as a lesson. He looked over at Danny once more and wished that they could talk about the toxic love triangle that had become of her, him and Chris. But it was difficult having a conversation about the past when one of you couldn’t remember it.

He had wanted a clean slate, to start over, but Chris’ appearance just showed him how difficult that could be.

The frown was back on Danny’s face, but this time a sheen of sweat covered her forehead, she mumbled and grabbed a fist full of covers.

“Danny!” He called to her as he gathered her into his arms. Her body was trembling and wet from the sweat. He shook her gently trying to wake her up.

After a while, her eyes flew open, and her hands went to her head.

“It hurts,” she choked out. “Kit, help me please.”

Danny still in his arms, Kit climbed out of bed only stopping to put on his slippers and throw a tiny blanket over Danny’s shivering body. He rushed out of the house and into his car. After he buckled Danny into the passenger seat he sped off towards the hospital. Kit focused on the road telling himself that as long as her fingers were still digging into his arm, she was conscious and that meant she was okay. But just as they got to the hospital her grip loosened, he looked over at her and saw her body slump in the seat.

Kit pulled up to the ER, he didn’t bother to turn off his car. He ran round to the passenger and got Danny out of the car. Running into emergency he called for a nurse.

“Doctor AJ Ross,” he yelled. “She was having a headache and lost consciousness a few minutes ago. Call Doctor AJ Ross.”

Kit lay Danny onto the gurney and watched as they rushed her through the emergency room doors. He stood on the outside, his hands empty and at a loss at what to do. He paced the hospital floors, every second stretching out to what seemed like an eternity. Kit didn’t know how long it had been since he had arrived at the hospital, he was now sitting on the hospital floor, his eyes still fixed on the double doors.

And just as he had lost hope at seeing anyone emerge from it, a nurse ran out. Kit shot to his feet, his gaze following her and landing on AJ’s worried frown. The nurse handed AJ the tablet which he studied, the lines that creased his forehead getting deeper then suddenly relaxing.

“AJ,” Kit pleaded in a terrified tone that he didn’t recognize as his own. He was the SEAL that was always calm and in control, and even when he wasn’t he had never shown his fear. But now he couldn’t help it. “What’s wrong with her? She was sleeping then she looked like she was having a nightmare, then she grabbed her head and-,”

AJ put a hand on his shoulder. “Breath and calm down.” AJ handed the tablet back to the nurse. “I’ll be right there. Kit, her MRI came out clear, we are just doing some more tests but right now she seems fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m so sure I could go back home, climb back into bed with my wife and fall asleep,” AJ’s grin seemed to release all the tension that had built up in Kit’s body. “You guys know that your sister and I are not the only doctors in this hospital.”

“But you’re family,” Kit pointed out.

“Yes, and as your family, all we can do is hover over the doctor who is treating you,” AJ laughed. “Relax, she’s fine and we are going to make sure she stays that way. Did you call anyone?”

“I just grabbed my car keys and Danny. I forgot my cell phone, I didn’t even tell nanny we were leaving,” He combed his fingers through his shaggy hair and exhaled once more.

“Here,” AJ handed him his phone, “I already called her brothers and yours as well. There is absolutely no reason why I should be the only one losing sleep tonight.” AJ gave him a once over and pulled his jumper over his head. “Here, put this on. Plus, I’m guessing the truck parked outside still running is yours? Move it please, take my car keys in my gym back, you should find some shoes you can wear or socks at least.”

“Thanks,” Kit mumbled his appreciation.

“It’s called the big brother syndrome. I’ll come to find you once I’ve seen her. In the meantime, just chill here,” AJ said as he waved Kit off.

Kit stepped outside and welcomed the night air that wrapped around him, chilling his body that was coming down from an adrenaline rush. He wished for a boring life, the one that people complained about.