Page 40 of The Good Girl Effect (Salacious Legacy #1)

Camille

J ack is lying on his back with my body draped across his chest like a blanket. We never do this, cuddle in bed together after sex. But words like never and always don’t last long with us. As it turns out, we’re very bad at following rules.

I wanted to tell Jack that I love him. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I held back.

Why? I almost forget now why we can’t be together.

If we love each other like I think we do, then what could possibly stand between us?

We might be worried for Bea’s safety, but can we truly expect to keep her safe from all heartache forever? Isn’t that unreasonable?

And even if things don’t work out with Jack, it doesn’t mean I can’t be a part of her life in some way.

Jack is worried for her because she’s already lost so much. That I understand, but protection from loss is not what she needs. Knowing that the adults in her life love her and will be there for her without fail is what she truly needs.

But if that’s the only reason we can’t be together, then why is there a nagging sense of guilt gnawing at my insides? Is the letter I found from him to Emmaline really a secret so dark that it would tear us apart?

No. But the fact that I’ve kept something from him this long might be.

We’re lying in silence, both of us clearly deep in thought, when he finally speaks.

“We’re having a grand reopening in two weeks. I’d like you to come with me.”

I lift my head. “Really?”

He nods, those dark green eyes holding me and keeping me safe and warm.

“People will see us together. Elizabeth and Julian and Phoenix…”

“I don’t care,” he mumbles as he lifts a hand and brushes a curl behind my ear.

“But…” I start, but then his fingers press softly to my lips to quiet me.

“Let me worry about them.”

This idea that he wants to bring me as his date is both terrifying and exhilarating.

It’s everything I want and everything I’m scared of at the same time.

Am I ready to be Jack’s girl for real? Because if we show up together, then I will be.

No one brings their child’s nanny to a sex club professionally .

Without responding, I crawl up closer to him and press my lips to his. Somehow, we went from casual sex and kinky sessions to being a somewhat real couple. But for how long? And what about Bea? These are all questions that won’t leave me alone, but do they all need to be answered now?

Pulling my lips from his, I rest my head on his pillow and stare into his eyes.

When we’re like this, it’s as if I exist in his mind as much as I exist in my own.

But for so long, we could never truly speak to each other.

So much of our relationship until now has been in letters and in sex.

There are so many things I want to express and understand about him.

Layers of Jack St. Claire I’d like to peel back to get to the real man underneath.

I know his heart already, but I want to know his mind too.

He strokes my cheek as I work up the nerve to speak. If I ask too much, will he push me away? He’s done it before. When we first met, he was a frozen block of ice, but now that he’s thawing, will he let me truly see him?

“Can I ask you something?” I whisper.

His brow furrows. “Of course.”

“Why did you hire me?”

He turns to face me, sliding an arm under my head. We’re so close we’re breathing the same air. Our naked bodies are entangled, like there’s not an inch of me not touching him.

“It was what you said about loving her like your own,” he mumbles.

“I don’t ever want to replace Beatrice’s mother, but I wanted my daughter to be loved like she still had one.

After Em died, I couldn’t take care of Beatrice.

She stayed with Phoenix for six whole months, and it was the worst six months of my life.

I want my daughter, but I couldn’t be the parent she needed.

I was failing as a father, so it was like Bea had no parent at all.

I didn’t want her to just have a nanny paid to take care of her.

I wanted to find someone to truly love her. ”

“You’re not failing as a father,” I say, mostly because I hate to see him hurting.

“I was,” he replies without hesitation. “I still am, it seems.”

I press my hand to his cheek. It’s incredible how falling in love with someone means feeling their pain as if it’s your own heart breaking.

“You are allowed to fall apart, Jack. You lost the love of your life. It’s okay to fall down sometimes.”

He winces as he touches my hand. “I know, but I never wanted to get back up.”

“Even now?” I ask.

Staring into my eyes, he pulls me closer and grazes his lips against my forehead. “No. Not anymore.”

I squeeze my arms around his waist. In a couple of hours, I will have to leave and pick up Bea from school, but until then, I’m going to savor this moment. It’s daylight, and he’s holding me. He’s admitting things to me that make this relationship between us feel real.

And what could be better than this? Being in love. Feeling so close to someone and almost forgetting what lonely feels like.

Feeling bold and comfortable with Jack now, I whisper, “Will you tell me about her?”

He noticeably tenses. Maybe he finds it strange that I want to hear about his wife, someone he loved probably more than he’ll ever love me. But I do want to hear about her. It might seem bleak, but knowing someone he loved means knowing him a little more too.

“She was…the softest, kindest person I had ever met,” he says.

“When I moved to Paris, I wanted a life like my parents had—love, kids, my own happily ever after. And when I met Em, I fell in love with her immediately. She was my sister’s dance instructor and the most beautiful woman I had ever met. ”

Resting my cheek on his shoulder, I smile. Strangely, it warms my heart to hear him say that. To know that Jack has a warm, loving side. I’ve seen it briefly, but Em had it all the time.

“She made me learn French before we got married,” he says with a chuckle.

I sit up and gawk at him. “So you do know it.”

When he smiles, there are soft wrinkles around his mouth, and it’s so stunning my heart practically stops in my chest. “Yes, I do know it, but I’m very bad at it.”

“So why did you never let me speak?” I ask. “Even when I spoke English, you silenced me.”

His smile fades and is replaced with an expression of shame. Stroking my jaw, he says, “Because that accent of yours reminded me of her. Hearing your voice in my house brought back too many painful memories. It was like she was still here…but she wasn’t.”

My brows pinch inward. “Do you still feel like that?”

“No,” he replies, shaking his head softly. “You do not remind me of her, Camille. If that’s what you’re afraid of.”

Is it? I don’t want to be a replacement, but was I truly afraid that’s what I am to Jack?

“Well,” I say, resting my chin on his chest. “If you say she was soft and sweet, then I’m quite sure I don’t remind you of her. It sounds like we are very different.”

He smirks down at me, running his fingers through my hair. “You are soft and sweet too, but yes, you are very different as well.”

For what feels like forever, we stare at each other.

My heart is so incredibly full and so terrified at the same time.

Am I jumping into this too soon? Giving my entire heart to someone is terrifying.

What if he breaks it or I’m reading the situation wrong?

Or we get into a fight so big we can’t recover from it?

Life felt so much safer before I knew what it was like to love Jack St. Claire.

Out of nowhere, he softly murmurs, “You are perfect.”

It’s a compliment meant to make me feel better, but it only makes me feel worse. I can’t be perfect, and I certainly can’t be held to that standard. Soon, he’ll learn all the things I do and say are not perfect, and he’ll fall out of love with me.

“I’m not, though,” I argue. “I’m not perfect at all. When my father died, my whole world fell apart too. I had plans to leave the town I grew up in. I was supposed to see the world and live a full life, but I shut down the same exact way you did.

“Growing up, most people would say I was too loud or I asked too many questions or I was just…too much. And I am too loud. I do ask too many questions. Sometimes, I just don’t know when to stop, and every person who came into my life left because they couldn’t handle me.

Even my own mother.” My voice quivers with emotion.

“My father was the only person who stuck around. The only one who loved me for me. And then he died, and I had no one. So I’m not perfect. I don’t want you to think I’m someone I’m not, Jack. I have so many flaws.”

Tilting his head, his features grow serious.

“My God, Camille, is that what you think? You are not too much, not at all. Not for me. I know you have flaws, but you misunderstand me. I adore your imperfections. I love that you are impulsive and headstrong and you speak without thinking first. And I love that you are so curious that sometimes it gets you into trouble. I knew it the minute I walked into the kitchen and found you burning the rice to dance with my daughter. Those flaws are what I adore. When I say you’re perfect, I don’t mean that perfection defines you. I mean you define perfection.”

I can’t speak. I can hardly move. In one moment, he silenced all my fears. There’s not a coherent thought in my head as I capture his mouth in a kiss and feel his arms wrap around me tightly, like a bird that might fly away if he doesn’t hold me down.

“Fuck me again, Jack,” I whisper needily against his lips. Pulling back, I stare into his eyes, mine brimming with tears. “Let’s pretend that we never lost them and there is no pain or grief. For just a few minutes, let’s pretend we can be together.”

Without a response, he simply moans against my lips and rolls on top of me, kissing me passionately. His weight settles me and makes me feel grounded to the earth. I wrap my legs around him, eager to feel his hard length inside me.

He sits back on his knees and stares down at my naked body on the bed. Holding his cock in his hand, he strokes it while biting his bottom lip, his eyes feasting on the sight of me.

“Look at you,” he says with a low growl. “How can you say you’re not perfect?”

“Jack,” I whisper, reaching for him.

Leaning over me, he guides his cock between my legs and slowly eases himself inside. Our eyes bore into each other as he enters me. Being filled by him consumes me. Knowing how much he treasures me while using my body at the same time is like nothing else I’ve felt before.

He turns his gaze down to the spot where we are joined. I watch as his brow furrows with arousal.

“Look at how well you take me, little bird.”

I let out a loud moan, pinching my own nipples as he moves in languid strokes, in and out. Something about the way he speaks to me during sex sends me over the edge.

“Turn over,” he murmurs in a command.

Pulling out long enough to turn me onto my knees, he thrusts himself back in, this time with enough force to make me cry out.

He moves with purpose now, pounding in so hard I have to grip the sheets. I’m a whimpering, moaning mess with my cheek pressed against the mattress.

The cum from the sex we just had provides lubricant, making me so wet for him, and it all feels so filthy and so beautiful at the same time. Everything Jack and I share is made of pleasure. The way he talks to me, touches me, looks at me. It’s nothing like the cruel man I once knew.

“I want to fill you up, little bird,” he proclaims through grunts. “I want you full of my seed. Can I do that?”

I’m so close to the edge, and to my surprise, his words have me screaming with arousal so intense, I nearly come already. I know it’s just dirty talk. It must be.

But the idea of being bred by him is suddenly so sexy I don’t want it to stop.

“Yes,” I scream into the mattress as he fucks me harder. “Keep going. More.”

“You like that, don’t you?” he asks with a punishing grip on my hips. “You like the idea of me fucking a baby into you.”

“Yes!” I shout.

“The thought of your swollen belly makes me so fucking feral for you.” Then he slams in again, hitting a spot inside me that has my toes curling and my body spasming. “You feel that, little bird? You feel how hard that makes me?”

“I’m coming,” I cry out, shoving my hips back toward him as I reach down between my legs and pinch my clit to ride out the pleasure.

“I feel it,” he groans. “Your pussy is so tight when you come.”

My legs are trembling, and I can hardly breathe.

“I’m right behind you, baby.” The next thing I know, he’s shuddering and groaning so we’re both filling the room with the sounds of our pleasure.

And then it’s quiet. The only sound is our panting breaths.

All too soon, the fantasy is over, and I know he wants to return to reality—where Jack can’t talk about us and our future and the possibility of a child.

As he eventually pulls out, the excess cum drips warmly down my thighs. I don’t wipe it away or move to clean it up. I just collapse onto the mattress, and he moves to land beside me.

When he drags me onto his chest again, I listen to the cadence of his heartbeat and try to savor the perfection of this moment. And then my eyes open, and I stare at his left hand as it grips mine.

My heart soars as I realize he’s no longer wearing his ring.