His To Save

27) An evil Jack

         ****ANNIE'S POV****

He was gone by the time I woke up.
  The lights were off, but a warm glow was being emitted by the lava lamp now standing on my night table. He must have asked someone to bring it in while I had been sleeping.

I smiled and pulled the pillow he had used closer to my chest. It still smelled like him, a soothing yet masculine scent.
   All the beautiful memories of us together since we met again flooded my mind. They were...perfect.

I was more than glad to have decided to chase after him. I was a few steps closer to having him. If anything, the last encounter had proved he still valued me. If I meant nothing to him, he'd have stayed with Pattie and let her take care of him.

  Pattie...
I had almost forgotten about that snake.

   My chest tightened and my heart twisted.
Only a single thought and I felt like I could kick her out of the city, let alone the mansion.

Jack must have had his reasons for allowing her to stay. Whether she was pregnant or not, she would only be used by Jack for the future of the organizations.
He was not one to do things thoughtlessly unless it was about me.

    Knock-knock!

Someone was outside?
I pulled the covers right to my face and feigned sleep just to deceive whoever it was. I wasn't in the mood for any chatting or otherwise.

  They opened the door and walked in.
Their light footsteps made it impossible to guess who they were. It could have been anyone, from the servants to... Pattie.
   My heart did a double beat to that thought. But I slowly organized my breathing and quietly slid a hand under the pillows to grab my pen knife, all while making as little movements as I could to avoid any detection.

      A soft thud rose from the night table like a tray.

  The tension bombarding my insides reduced to just a little, leaving one defense wall still up.
And when a manly chuckle lifted from them, the hand clutching the pen knife loosened. It was Jack.

   "I must say, you're good at pretending."

Silence.

The area near the night table sunk, indicating he had sat on the bed.
For about a minute, I waited. Waited for him to make his move so I could pretend even more. But nothing.
   The silence.
The heartbeats.
The curiosity.
They were all starting to kill me.

Why wasn't he moving? Why wasn't he exposing my pretense if he had seen through it?

  My left eye split open just enough to peep at the outside world. And there he was, leaning towards me, his blue eyes fixed on me lightly with a wicked smirk on his lips, giving him an evil yet damn sexy appearance.
He was wearing his specs, adding charm to his natural looks.

   Goddammit!
How could there be such a hot forty-year-old man? He looked nothing like forty, outsiders could easily mistake him for a mid-thirty male.

    "Gotcha," Jack breathed a chuckle.

"You cheated," I accused childishly.

"Come on, time to eat."
Jack only laughed moving away to give me space. He then slid his hands into my underarms and pulled me up to a sitting position like I was a baby.
   The feeling of his hands on the sensitive skin of the underarms made me giggle. A weakness I should not have exposed to him.

  "Still ticklish eh?"
He wasn't asking, he was confirming.
Like a statement made to let other people know you know of their dirty secret.
 
   "No I'm not," I denied, pushing his hands off of me lest I fall into a pit I had dug on my own.