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

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.