The Secret Son. Tara Taylor Quinn

man a desk during downtimes or give training classes, do research or program management like I used to do with the agency.”

      “But you must have friends.”

      “Of course I do.” He had acquaintances all over the United States. Guys he could call if he ever needed a favor. Usually he just called them to go out for a beer if he was in town.

      Or to bum a place to crash for a few nights.

      Jack hated hotels.

      “And you must have sex.”

      It took Jack a second to recover from the jolt those words sent through his body.

      “I mean, you’re a gorgeous man, Jack. You exude virility, energy. Vitality. Sex appeal…”

      “I have sex,” Jack choked out, a bit desperate to shut her up. “Sometimes. Not often. And not with anyone exclusively.”

      “Oh. Good.”

      He finished off his whiskey, set the glass on the table, much harder than he’d intended. He winced at the sound.

      “You know the part of me that shut down after Melissa?”

      He felt foreign to himself, talking this way, but he couldn’t let tonight end without telling her.

      “Yeah.”

      “I discovered this week that it wasn’t permanent.”

      Her fingers froze on his wrist.

      “It’s okay,” he assured her quickly, wondering if perhaps the whiskey was affecting him, after all. “You aren’t supposed to do anything with that knowledge. I’m not asking for anything, I just wanted you to know. Wanted to thank you.”

      He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

      And…damn, her lips were trembling.

      “Ah, Erica,” he said, trying to cajole her into calmness. Into repose and resignation. Instead, he was afraid he’d only let her hear his own despondency.

      She smiled, but it looked like an effort.

      He felt utterly useless. His muscles tensed with the effort it was taking him just to sit there.

      Her shoulders straightened. She looked at him, her eyes glistening.

      And all his strength dissolved.

      CHAPTER THREE

      THERE WAS NOTHING sexual about the way he pulled her into his arms. Jack wasn’t sure what was right and what was wrong anymore; he knew only that he couldn’t sit there with Erica hurting so badly and do nothing.

      Which was why she ended up cradled in his arms, her face pressed against his chest as she took a couple of ragged breaths.

      “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

      “Don’t be,” he said softly, aching for both of them. “Please don’t ever be sorry we met.”

      Her eyes shone with tears that didn’t fall. “I’m not sorry we met,” she said, her voice weak. “I am sorry I’m not better equipped to handle this.”

      “How could you be?” He sat back, pulling her with him, allowing her to rest against him more than actually holding her. “I don’t think either of us was prepared for what’s happened.”

      “I never expected to fall for someone.”

      “Me, neither, which is why we couldn’t possibly have been prepared.”

      They were quiet for a while, the hum of the hotel’s air conditioner, her weight against him, lulling Jack into a tentative sense of peace. He started to follow Erica’s breathing pattern, soothed by the evenness, the steady ebb and flow. He wondered if she’d fallen asleep.

      Part of him hoped so.

      Another part, the possessive part that he’d thought gone from him forever, didn’t want to waste a single second of the time still left to them. There were so many thoughts—so many feelings—inside her and he wanted every one of them. To store them away, like tiny gifts, to pull out and savor in the years to come.

      “I’m not sorry about us.”

      She wasn’t asleep.

      “I’m not, either,” Jack said.

      As frustrated and horrible as he felt, he should wish he’d never met her. Shouldn’t he?

      “Can I ask you something?” he said a moment later.

      “Sure.” She was playing with the corner of his collar, rubbing it back and forth against the pad of her thumb.

      “Sex with Jefferson—he’s good to you, isn’t he?”

      It wasn’t any of his damn business. And yet it was. He loved her. He needed to know that she was treated right.

      He needed to know.

      “Jefferson is always good to me.”

      Jack had suspected as much. And was genuinely comforted to hear her say it.

      He was also far more jealous than he had any right to be.

      “I just wasn’t sure, with him being so much older…” Let it go, man.

      “Sex doesn’t really play a big part in our relationship.” The words were said quietly but not hesitantly. Jack sat unmoving, wanting to hear more, wanting her more. He shifted beneath her to hide—and perhaps ease—the tightness in his groin.

      “When we were first married we tried…Jefferson was a very conscientious lover, always making sure I was…satisfied before he…you know.”

      So the man wasn’t a selfish bastard, but then, after a week of hearing about him, Jack already knew that.

      “After a while, I don’t know, things just tapered off. We rarely make love anymore.”

      “Did you ever discuss it? Ask him about it?”

      “We talked.” Her knuckle grazed his throat.

      “And?”

      “One reason’s his age. The male sex drive dropping after fifty and all that. But Jefferson is very fit. He doesn’t look or act anywhere near the fifty-nine he actually is.”

      “So what was the other reason?”

      She turned her head, burying her face in his chest for a moment. Jack held his breath, willing his body not to torment him.

      Finally she said, “He knows my heart isn’t in it.”

      Jack didn’t know what to say to that. He was ashamed of his immediate reaction—the fact that he felt glad Jefferson wasn’t having sex very often with the woman he’d fallen so suddenly in love with. He was also saddened to think of Erica going through the rest of her life practically untouched.

      “I told you I was an only child,” she said, her body growing heavier against his as she relaxed. “What I didn’t say was that my parents were already in their forties when I was conceived. My dad was seventy when he died six years ago. Jefferson’s fifteen years younger than him, but somehow he’d seemed like a second father to me.”

      “What about your mother? Is she still alive?”

      Jack’s parents were both gone—killed in a car accident when he was in college.

      “She’s in Florida,” Erica said. “Living in an adult community next door to her younger sister. They golf and play bridge all day.”

      “What did she think of your marriage?”

      “She was mostly for it,” Erica said. “She wasn’t thrilled about the age difference, but she knew I’d never find a man better than Jeff….”

      Her