I’d been drifting somewhere between completely blissed-out and trying to replay the best orgasm of my life when Jackson’s voice pulled me from the haze. I moved my heavy arm off my face and blinked my eyes open. He leaned over the side of the bed, holding out a bottle of water.
Propping myself on my elbow, I accepted it from him. I took a swig and then handed it back. He chugged down the rest of it.
He’d shucked off his pants, and he was naked for the first time. Rather, the first time I’d seen him naked. He’d been wearing those gray sweatpants to tease me, surely. They were positively indecent, hiding nothing while he’d sat beside me on the couch. And his obvious arousal had given me the courage to forget what Rick had said about me, to have confidence that with Jackson, sex might be something special.
Wow, had it ever.
Sex with Rick was like the ancient Buick Melissa had passed down to me when she went off to college. It started out okay, but eventually, I was stranded by the side of the road, having to make it to my destination under my own power. Jackson had convinced me he’d be more like my Honda, a dependable ride that went the distance. But, oh my God, he was the Corvette one of Melissa’s boyfriends had driven us to school in that one time. All power, leashed on the curves and ready to roar at the next straightaway.
And I hadn’t even had his dick yet. I stared at it as he capped the empty bottle and set it on the nightstand. It looked a little softer than it had been. Had I turned him off?
Chills broke out over my skin. I’d let myself be so vulnerable, showing him my body, even my secret places, as I rode his face. I covered my breasts with one arm and crossed my legs. Why didn’t he have a top sheet so I could cover myself?
“Cold?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm.”
He turned away, giving me a flash of the sexy dimples at the top of his ass. Then his full ass—oh, my God, it definitely rivaled Rick’s—as he bent to pick up the white duvet from the floor. He held it out toward me, and I snatched it and burrowed inside.
The mattress dipped next to me. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” I poked my head out of the comforter. “Was it okay for you? Want me to…” I let my gaze fall to where his cock lay on his thigh.
“Fuck, no. I mean, I’d love it if you wanted to. But this isn’t a transaction. We’re making—we’re enjoying each other. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to touch you like that. To taste you. To hear the sounds you make when you come. I came without either one of us touching me. You were amazing.”
“Yeah?” I didn’t know guys could do that.
“You had a great time, too, right?”
I’d seen stars. “Of course. I haven’t come like that in…ever.”
He rolled closer and laid a hand on top of the comforter that covered me. “I love”—he swallowed—“how honest you are.”
My heart raced. Was he about to tell me he loved me? That wasn’t what this was about. Was it? Like he’d said, we were two consenting adults, enjoying each other’s bodies.
“You think there’s room in there for me?” He nodded at the duvet. “It’s a little chilly out here, and I’m a cuddler.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.” Still, the hopeful expression on his face melted me. I opened one side of the comforter, covering my torso with the rest. “Come on, then.”
He nudged inside and then spooned around me. One arm tucked under my head and the other draped around my waist. The comforter twined around us, making an uncomfortable lump under my hip. I wiggled and tugged to straighten it out, and by the time my hip was flat against the mattress, my butt was snugged up against Jackson’s stiffening erection, and his breath was hot in my ear.
His hand crept up to cradle my breast. “Could I interest you in a second round?” He flicked my nipple.
That flick sent a shock straight to my center. I gasped at the intensity. Every part of me was on board with his proposal. “You said you wanted to cuddle,” I teased, squirming against him again.
“That was before you ground your beautiful soft bits against my not-so-soft ones.” Proving his point, the head of his cock slid between my legs.
I held back a moan. “I was just trying to get comfortable.”
“This is pretty comfortable, don’t you think?” He drew his hips back and then pushed them forward, sliding his cock over my pussy.
My sex clenched, hungry for him. Teasing time was over. “Feels good.”
He trailed his fingers down my stomach and cupped between my legs. “How does this feel?” He thrummed his fingers across my clit.
I flung my top leg over his and let out a groan.
“Okay,” he whispered against my neck. “I’m going to interpret that as ‘fucking fantastic.’”
He strummed me higher and higher until I held my breath, waiting for the orgasm that dangled tantalizingly out of reach. “Jackson,” I murmured, “make me come.”
“What do you need, sweetheart?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“What about—” He kissed me, right at the juncture between my shoulder and my neck, and then I felt the bite of his teeth on my skin. The small pain, paired with a pinch to my clit, rocketed through me and sent me over the edge with a shriek.
When I came back from my star-spangled orgasm, he was kissing the spot he’d bitten and gently pressing on my clit.
I tried to say his name, but it came out as an unintelligible mumble. My mouth wasn’t working. None of my muscles were.
“You good, baby?”
My skin fizzed at the endearment. He could call me that all he wanted now that we weren’t working together. No more chances for him to slip up in front of the team. I nodded.
He rolled away for a second, and I heard paper rip. He shifted back under the comforter and knelt between my knees. But instead of plunging right in, he scooted down toward the foot of the bed and bent so his chin hovered between my legs.
“Can I taste you again? I’ll be gentle if you’re sensitive.”
Still in the trough of post-orgasmic bliss, I nodded.
Before he touched me, he felt under the comforter until he found my ankles. I was still wearing one shoe. The other had fallen off somewhere between orgasms. He snugged them around his torso and ensured the point of my red heel rested in the crease of his hip. “Go ahead and spur me,” he said with a grin. “But watch out for the dangly bits, or you might miss out on another orgasm.”
He bent and scraped his bristly jaw along my inner thigh until he reached my center. Spreading me with his thumbs, he lapped my pussy inside and out. My legs started to tremble, and I dug my heels into his hips.
“That’s it, baby,” he said against my sex. “Give it to me again.”
My hips rose, and I ground myself against his face. What was it about this man that dissolved my resistance, that arrowed through the chinks in my armor? I focused solely on my pleasure and how he heightened it.
He slid a finger or two inside me, pulsing, and moved his lips to my clit. He started slow, with kisses and gentle licks. My legs shook harder.
“Hold on to me, sweetheart,” he said. “Can you take more?”
“Yes, yes.” The words burst out of me.
He flicked his tongue over my clit, revving it back up, before he closed his mouth over it and gave a long, hard suck that bowed me off the mattress.
Then his fingers were gone, replaced by a blunt pressure at my entrance. Cradling my hips with his hands, he slid inside me on one long, slow thrust. My aftershocks squeezed around him.
“Oh, God, baby, yes. Feels so good.” He remained motionless, gripping my hips.
At last, I opened my eyes. I wished I hadn’t because everything showed in his eyes, soft with longing. His expression mirrored the ache in my chest, the one that’d only get worse when he finally went back to California.
We stared at each other in silence for a long moment. He broke away first, looking down to where my legs splayed across the bed. One of us had flung off the comforter. He lifted my foot and worked off my shoe. Then he set my ankle against his shoulder. He lifted my other leg and placed it on his other shoulder. Then he pulled his hips back and thrust inside me again, lighting me up deep inside. A sharp squeak escaped me.
“Okay, let’s go with that,” he said with a smirk.
He set a moderate rhythm that allowed us to savor the friction as he slid in and out. My legs shook against his shoulders until he gently laid his hands across my ankles. He turned his face to kiss one, and then the other, so tenderly that tears prickled the backs of my eyes.
“What was that for?” I lifted my palms to blot away the moisture at the corners of my eyes.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all afternoon. I’ve got more spots I want to kiss.” He thrust twice more without speaking.
“You going to tell me?”
“I’ll show you,” he said. “Later.”
His mouth tightened, and he sped up his rhythm. One hand drifted down between us, and he thumbed my clit. Paired with the deepening pressure inside me, his touch made me clench around him. He sucked his thumb and pressed it back on my clit, circling. My legs slipped off his shoulders, and I counterthrust against him, once, twice, before I shouted out my climax.
He stilled, and I couldn’t tell if the pulses inside me were his or mine. Then, gripping my knees around his waist, he rolled so my body draped over his. My hair had come out of its bun and stuck to his skin. I stuck to his skin, and I wanted to stay there, adhered to him, forever. I stroked the side of his chest and then let my arm flop to the mattress. He whispered my name into the top of my hair.
I may have dozed because I was only dimly aware of his shifting out from under me, going to the bathroom, and returning.
When I blinked my eyes open sometime later, the golden afternoon light was gone, and the room was dark. “What time is it?” I mumbled.
“Not too late. Seven thirty. Are you hungry?”
Only for more of him. More of his warmth wrapped around me. More of his soothing words about how amazing I was. More of the softness in his eyes that reflected what I felt.
Love.
A tiny scream started in my brain. I’d fallen in love with Jackson Jones. With a man who’d said he’d stay although his job, his company, was almost two thousand miles away. Maybe we could play at being together for a little while, but he’d need to return eventually. He belonged there as a leader.
The curse of the Weber women had caught up with me.
Stay cool, I told that screaming voice. I’d put that pesky emotion away in a box. Sure, it’d rattle when Jackson left. But then I’d leave it alone, let it get dusty. Maybe the moths would get to it, like they’d done with Mom’s wedding gown in the attic, leaving it ridden with holes like Swiss cheese so we didn’t feel bad about tossing it in the trash.
The scream got louder. Who was I kidding? What I felt for Jackson was new, but it was too big to keep in a box. It was like the giant baby monster the superhero had fought in one of Noah’s favorite movies. Too innocent, too oblivious, to understand the destruction it was causing. It’d smash everything in its path, leaving me a ruin.
If I stayed, I was sure to confess it. Jackson may have made me lose control of my body, but I wasn’t prepared to let loose my emotions like that.
“I need to go.” I glanced at the floor. Where had I tossed my underwear, the giant, unsexy white briefs with “Big Girl Panties” printed across the butt, the ones Tiannah had gotten me as a joke my last birthday, the ones I’d forgotten I was wearing until I’d attempted that striptease for him?
“You can’t stay? Not even for dinner? There’s a great Thai takeout place near here. They’re really fast.”
I scooted away and sat up. “I can’t. It’s a school night, and I’d like to see Noah before he goes to bed.”
He caught my hand. “Want to take a shower?”
I envisioned his face between my legs as I pressed my cheek to smooth tile. “Tempting, but I really do need to get home.”
“No funny business. I promise. Just getting clean. You can even shower alone if you want.”
My lips tugged up into a smile. Who’d have thought Jackson Jones, rockstar programmer and international playboy, would be begging me to take a shower with him after giving me who-knew-how-many orgasms? Me, the sex goddess formerly known as the Ice Queen? “All right,” I said. “Come on.”
His shower was plenty big enough for two, and it would’ve been easy to go another round. But the only touching we did was soaping each other’s backs. When Jackson asked if he could shampoo my hair, I let him. The warm water pelted my chest and my belly, and I closed my eyes while his big fingers massaged all the tension out of my scalp. I’d let him in, both emotionally and physically, and he hadn’t turned it against me. Instead, he made me feel safe, cared-for. Cherished. After so many years of caring for myself—and Noah—I wanted it to go on forever.
How long could we do this? A couple weeks until Thanksgiving separated us? Or longer? Would we go out on Saturday nights, strolling along Sixth Street, holding hands and sampling the music outside each bar? Could I spend lazy Sundays at his place, wearing his T-shirts and lingering over coffee in his kitchen?
The water beat at the crown of my head and my lower back, Jackson’s big body warming my front. Too soon, he’d rinsed the suds from my hair and reached around me to turn off the water.
After we dried off, I slicked my hair back into a bun. Jackson insisted on doing up the buttons of my blouse—which was totally unnecessary—but also helpfully did the back zipper and button on my skirt. He found a fresh shirt and shorts somewhere in his bedroom and then made me sit on the edge of the bed while he slid on my red slingbacks like I was Cinderella.
He tugged me to my feet. “When can I see you again?”
The best thing was that I didn’t have to make up a fake reason to end things with Jackson. We had one already built-in. “You’re leaving.”
His eyes sharpened like a scalpel, cutting away my defenses. Damn. He knew about the excuses and why I made them. “I told you I’m staying.”
“For how long?”
His mouth tightened for a second. “Long-term was never my thing. I’m more of a one-night guy. I’ve never been with anyone—never let myself be with someone—who’s challenged me the way you do, who’s beautiful and smart, too. Someone I respect.”
“You don’t mean I’m not like other girls, do you?” I crossed my arms.
“No.” A blush spread over his forehead. “I mean, of course you’re exceptional. But I—I didn’t think I could be with anyone who’d—”
“Call you on your bullshit?”
He snorted. “Exactly. What I’m trying to say is that this is a first for me. I’m probably going to fuck it up. But I—I want to try. I was already planning to talk with Cooper tomorrow about continuing to work from Austin. I want to give this a chance. Give us a chance.”
“You’re not going to say anything to Cooper, are you? About…us?” Was there really an us?
He shuddered. “Not yet. We’ll get him to write that testimonial for you first.”
I uncrossed my arms and joined my hands with his. “Thanks.” It wouldn’t hurt to see him a few more times before he left. Either way, I’d be ruined. And I liked the way with orgasms better than the one without.
“My next gig doesn’t start until next week, so I’m free the rest of this week.”
“Cooper’s staying through tomorrow. But I could play hooky the day after that.”
“I’m off the project for one day and you’re already playing hooky?”
“I’m a fuckup.” He shrugged. “Everyone expects it.”
My stomach clenched. I wanted to shake him. “Listen to me, Jackson Jones. You are not a fuckup. You are a star. Cooper praised you, and I get the feeling he doesn’t do that a lot. You built that software and made it sing.”
His face softened. “I know. But it sounds better when you say it.”
I kissed him hard on the lips. “And you deserve a day off once in a while.”
His arms wrapped around me. “So do you. You need to spend time with your boyfriend, who also happens to be the best lover you’ve ever had.”
A thrill shivered through me. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. You haven’t even taken me out on a date.”
“Day after tomorrow. I’ll take you out Wednesday.”
“Okay. Text me.” I leaned in to give him a peck on the lips, but he captured my mouth in a devouring kiss that made my knees weak and stole my breath. It made me forget why we’d waited so long to sleep together.
Cooper. Thinking about his judgmental face made ice flow through my veins.
“What? Why’d you say ‘Cooper’?” Jackson murmured into my neck.
“Oops.” I stepped around him, out of the bedroom. He followed, his bare feet silenced by the carpet.
“Hey,” he said when we reached the living room. “Maybe you, me, and Noah could do something together. We could go to a basketball game. Or hiking. Even one of those obnoxious places with animatronics and cardboard pizza.”
It’d be bad enough for me when Jackson left. I couldn’t face another one of Noah’s yearning expressions like the one he had whenever we saw Rick. “I—I don’t want to confuse Noah. So I’d rather not involve him.”
Jackson’s face fell. Then he gave me a half-smile that didn’t brighten his eyes. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
I wanted to take it back and see him smile again. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him hurt Noah. I took his hand and squeezed it. At last, the other corner of his mouth kicked up.
“Text me tomorrow?” I said.
“I’ll text you tonight.”
Tipping up on my toes, I kissed him, a long, languorous, we-have-all-the-time-in-the-world kiss. For now, we’d both pretend he’d stay long enough to give us a chance. Maybe if we pretended hard enough, it’d come true.
“I’ll text you back. Night, Jackson.”
I stepped out into the cool November night, my cheeks glowing with the thought of playing hooky with Jackson the day after tomorrow. It wouldn’t last forever, but he’d called himself my boyfriend, and the thought of kissing him again made my knees weak.
How long could he stay here in Austin? I didn’t know, and I didn’t think he knew, either. But for once in my life, I wasn’t going to worry about a year or even a month from now. I’d enjoy this new thing with Jackson Jones as long as I could.
Then I’d break.