Chapter Eight

Jenna felt powerful, feminine, and seductive as she strolled naked into the bathroom, letting her hips sway with a little extra pop. Joseph Morgan was one sexy man. And he’d let her do exactly as she wished, let her call the shots, and control the action. Her damp body buzzed with excitement, ready for round two.

It’d take a while for that thick organ of his grow back to adequate size, but that would give her plenty of time to stretch him out on her bed and explore every bulging muscle on the massive deputy.

She grinned and met her own gaze in the mirror as she turned on the faucet and filled her cup with water. She flicked out her tongue, delighting in the leftover taste of Joseph on her. Her mouth was rosy red from its workout, her lips slightly swollen—

Just like Savannah’s lips had looked after she’d gone down on the Snatcher.

Jenna dropped her cup into the sink and stared at her gaping maw, suddenly seeing another pair. Savannah Waltrip, naked and leashed, kneeling on the floor and looking up at…at a big black nothing.

Fingers suddenly quivering, Jenna searched her brain, trying to capture the full picture. But her mind kept blocking out the features of the Snatcher. It refused to acknowledge him. Savannah, however, she saw clearly. Wearing nothing but a collar and leash, she looked like the perfect human version of a lap dog as she panted happily, staring adoringly up at the black blank.

Then she’d given the bastard head, and he’d snapped her neck afterward, killed her because Jenna had refused to give him head next.

She gagged as the rest of the memory abruptly cut off, refusing to show her more, which worked for her. She didn’t want to see any more. She felt dirty and shitty enough without it. Covering her mouth, she fell to her knees, ripped open the toilet lid and emptied her stomach.

A second later, the bathroom door flew open. Joseph crouched behind her, gathering back her hair and rubbing her back until she could heave no more. When he handed her the cup he had to refill, she gulped greedily.

“I’ll go get your mom,” he murmured, pushing to his feet. “She’s just down the hall, right?”

She latched her hand around his leg. “No. Please. Don’t scare her. I’m okay now.”

With a nod, he slumped onto the edge of the bathtub and sat heavily, resting his elbows on his thighs as he silently stared down at the floor between his sock-covered feet.

Jenna slowly pushed to her feet, feeling ages older than she was, and filled another cup of water to rinse her mouth. Then she brushed her teeth.

When she finished, Joseph finally lifted his face, his eyes bright with shame and guilt. “Why didn’t you stop?”

With a shrug, Jenna flashed him a smile. “I didn’t want to stop.”

Besides, as soon as she’d put her hands on him, the fear constantly nipping at her had subsided. Stopping was the last thing on her mind. In fact, the foul memory hadn’t sprouted to the surface until she had stopped, and left Joseph’s presence.

“God damn it,” he uttered but threw no condemnation or blame at her. He merely sat there, staring at the floor a moment before he lifted his head. His pale eyes were intent as he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing was your fault. I’m the one who insisted on trying this.” She’d had no idea the aftermath would unearth such a brutal, vivid memory.

Regret showed in deep remorseful grooves bracketing his mouth. “I shouldn’t have let you.”

He was such a handsome man. She couldn’t help but reach out and cup his strong jaw. He closed his eyes against her touch. A thrill shot through her, sparking out her pussy. No man had ever left her feeling so safe yet aroused at the same time.

Mmm. Maybe the memories hadn’t totally scared her after all. Leaning forward, she gently touched her mouth to his. He didn’t move, letting her call the shots. She kissed him deeper, and he allowed it, opening his mouth and slanting his head to take her tongue fully.

She moaned and cupped his face a little harder. God, he was a talented kisser. Why hadn’t she started with a simple kiss instead of going down on him? Baby steps.

Except kissing Joseph Morgan was like no baby step she’d taken before. It was more like jumping off a cliff and free-falling into delightful oblivion.

She moved closer, taking more of his mouth, his flavor, his smell. He smelled so damn good; she could come just opening her nostrils and inhaling that impossibly, rich earthy fragrance. Ugh, why had she given him a blowjob? Now his cock was out of commission for a while.

She climbed into his lap and sat facing him. The feel of his uniform pants between her thighs reminded her she was still stark ass naked. For some reason that didn’t bother her. She must’ve gone naked so long in her captivity, she didn’t even realize when she did and didn’t have clothes on anymore.

Or maybe she just liked being naked with Joseph Morgan.

He tensed under her and grasped her shoulders to stop her, but she clamped her thighs around his waist and ground her swollen folds against the fly of his pants. She had a feeling if she merely explained her vomit-induced moment had come from the Snatcher-memory and not from swallowing his juices, he wouldn’t be so resistant right now. But she didn’t want to think about the memory, much less speak of it. Besides, it’d probably yank him into cop-mode and he’d ask all sorts of questions she still couldn’t answer, ruining this delicious buzz she had going.

Arching her back to push her breasts up toward his face, she undulated her hips, getting herself off by humping him. Jenna wound her arms around his neck and urged his face to her throbbing nipples. This time, he barely resisted, letting her draw his face down until he could open his mouth and she pressed a puckered, tight peak between his teeth. The sucking he did all on his own without any urging from her.

It felt divine. Jenna groaned and ran her fingers through his hair, cupping his head as he swirled his tongue around her aureole and then hollowed his cheeks as he sucked her deeper into his mouth.

“Oh my God,” she groaned, digging her grip rougher against his scalp. “Don’t stop. Please. Don’t stop.”

“Wrap your legs around my waist,” he instructed as he moved from one nipple to the other.

She complied and he grasped her ass in his hands as he stood. Joseph carried her that way from the bathroom to her bed, where he tumbled her onto her back.

The hungry look in his gaze made her cream the side of her bare thigh as he set one knee on the bed, then the other. He crawled over her, making her bow her body up, seeking any brush of her skin against his with an urgency that shocked her.

“Taste me, Joseph.”

His smile was slow and oh-so-sexy. “It’s like you can read my mind,” he murmured before setting his hand on her knee and nudging her legs as far apart as they would go, letting her know he needed plenty of room to work.

She relaxed back onto her pillow and closed her eyes until his breath fell between her thighs. Then her body pulled as taut as a bowstring. A long tongue followed the warm, moist whisper of air, sweeping up from her cunt and over her clit, lapping up her honey.

“Joseph!”

He tunneled into her, making her choke on a surprised breath. When he pulled out, she sobbed, missing the filling wet-warmth. But then his mouth latched around her lower lips, his tongue working between the swollen folds while two fingers prodded her empty opening, and all was good again. Great, in fact. So freaking awesome that his thick digits barely extracted and plunged before her body exploded, and she came on a flood of pleasure, gasping his name and thrashing her head on her pillow.

He didn’t stop when she settled but slipped his soaking wet fingers from her and slid them down further until he found her anus, where he pressed and swirled on the rosebud with his thumb. His tongue continued its pleasure assault, dipping into her abandoned pussy before flicking back out to bat against her clit.

As soon as she could brace herself, she came again, this orgasm low and intense, seeming to rattle her very uterus as she peaked.

He kissed the inside of her thigh gently before lifting away from her. Jenna watched him through half-closed lids as he hopped off the bed and shucked his pants. She grinned when he scowled at his socks and peeled them off next. In nothing but a pair of tighty-whiteys that looked spectacular on him, he came back to her, tugging the sheets out from under her. Then he draped her with the blankets before sliding under the covers too and curling his big, warm body around hers.

“There,” he murmured on a contented sigh. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

They were spooning.

She couldn’t remember ever spooning with a man before. But he did it particularly well, pressing every inch of his chest flush against every inch of her back, their legs intertwining, cheeks nuzzling side by side, almost as if he did it all the time. It warmed her from the inside out. With a dreamy smile, she closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of sex and Joseph.

“Did you lay this way with your wife?” she blurted out as soon as the thought entered her head, making her want to gnaw off her tongue for asking such a jealousy-induced question.

“Yes,” he answered without a flicker of pain in his voice. “Almost every night.” His fingers slowly eased up her arm, sliding over scrapes and bruises with such a gentle caress she was surprised his talented fingers didn’t brush every tainted mark off her skin.

She closed her eyes. “I can see why you’d miss it. It feels so…comfortable.” And safe.

Hand skimming her raw wrists, he weaved his fingers through hers, constantly moving, tangling, and untangling in a sweet dance of the digits. It put a lethargic trance on her, muting all her aches and pains until she only felt Joseph Morgan’s heat soak into her bones and relax her.

“Not every couple can cuddle like this,” His warm breath stirred her hair. “But sometimes, yeah, you can fit against another person like two pieces of a puzzle. Like your bodies were meant to go together.”

“Could you and your wife?”

Gah, what was her problem, asking such envy-filled questions? But the idea of Joseph linking with any other woman so perfectly fucking hurt.

He was a quiet a moment before admitting, “No.”

She frowned for good measure, though inside, she felt a selfish sort of glee. “Why not?”

With a sigh, he explained, “She was so much shorter than me; when I tucked my hips up around her ass,” he demonstrated by nudging her rump with his lap, “her face landed somewhere around my chest, and I always wanted it closer, snuggled next to mine.”

He moved his face now and kissed the side of her neck to show her just how close he liked pressing to her.

“I bet you had a lot in common with her, though.” Jenna winced. What the fuck? She definitely didn’t want to sound as jealous as she felt, especially of some dead woman she’d never met because some man she’d known less than twenty-four hours sparked strange, new, and unusual feelings inside her.

He shrugged, not really answering. Then his voice rumbled through his chest, vibrating against her back. “Who’s to say you and I won’t have more in common?” He sounded amused as he added, “What’s your favorite hobby?”

She thought a moment, then answered, “Swimming.”

“So the pool outside isn’t just for looks, huh?”

“Of course not. I love the feel of the water rushing past my body as I skim through the deepest part of my pool. It relaxes me.” She paused, biting her lip. If he really wanted them to get to know each other, she was game. “What relaxes you?”

“Fishing.”

She made a face. “Ugh. You like fishing? I hate fishing.”

He let out a mock gasp of horror. “How could you hate fishing?”

Where should she start? “The smell, the slimy fish, the slimier worm, all the mosquitoes and bugs that attack when you’re just sitting there under a hot, sweaty sun, bored out of your gourd. I don’t understand how anyone could actually like fishing.”

“Hey,” he muttered, insulted. “It’s a good way to clear your brain and not think or even talk to anyone.”

Jenna shrugged. “I get that kind of daze watching sit-coms on television.”

“What about the rush of the catch then?”

“Not even as good as the rush of an orgasm.”

He chuckled and nuzzled her ear before nipping at it. “Okay, you win.” With a sigh, he rested his chin on her shoulder. “So we have nothing in common. Where does that leave us?”

She rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t say nothing in common. We do spoon well together, after all.”

Joseph fell quiet, so Jenna merely lounged under his broad, sweeping hands as he continued to stroke her.

When her eyes closed and she suspected sleep would soon follow, he finally spoke. “Want to hear a confession?”

“Hmm?” She managed to open one eye.

He paused his massage. “I wanted you from the first moment I saw a picture of you. After your brother reported you missing, I was the first to respond to the call. I remember stepping into your living room as he let me inside and spotting a picture of you on the wall with who I later found out was your father. I didn’t even know the photo was of the missing woman. But I stopped in my tracks, awed. I couldn’t stop staring.”

Jenna grinned. “So you’ve had a crush on me for a couple weeks because, what, I photograph well?”

“No,” he insisted. “I don’t know what it was. But I’ve never been so aware of a woman just from looking at her picture before. It was like you looked directly at me. No, not at me. Inside me. Like you could see everything inside me.”

Touched by his awkward explanation, Jenna rolled around so she could lay on her other side and face him.

When she met his gaze, he grinned. “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

Cupping his face, she murmured, “Maybe I can see everything inside you.”

Longing filled his gaze as he rasped out the word, “And?”

Filling her features with orneriness, she grinned. “Let’s see.” She tilted his chin one way, then the other, examining him from every angle before grinning. “I see a lost little boy, looking for a home and someone to love.”

Instead of rolling his eyes and suggesting she try guessing again, Joseph merely stared at her. Just when her stomach pitched, he burrowed closer, resting his head on her shoulder and hugging her gently.

How in the hell she’d guessed his deepest desires, she had no idea. But it made her feel close to him as she’d never felt close to anyone, not even her parents, brother, or two best friends. It was a different kind of connection, but still suitably binding.

Thinking she needed to add her own confession to the pile and complete the connection they had forming, she admitted, “I dreamed of you before we officially met.”

She felt his mouth curve into a smile against her shoulder. “Ditto.”

“Was it a sex dream?” she hedged.

“Oh yeah.”

“See?” She felt compelled to smirk. “We have something else in common.”

“I guess. Do you drink coffee?”

The word almost made her gag. “No. Do you?”

“By the gallon. What about chocolate?”

“God, yes. Who doesn’t like chocolate?”

“Guilty. I’m not much into sweets.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jenna pulled back to see his face. “This might be a deal breaker, here. You seriously don’t like chocolate?”

He shrugged. “Honestly, I could take or leave it.”

“Holy shit. How can you be human and not like chocolate?” She sat up and stared down at the man in bed with her, wondering if some alien being was going to spring from his belly. “So, wait. If I wanted to pour a bottle full of chocolate syrup all over you and then lick it off, you’d protest?”

His eyes instantly heated. “Hell, no. You can lick whatever you like off me. Trust me, I would not protest.”

Grinning, Jenna twirled her fingers over his hard chest. “Now you’re giving me ideas. Hmm.” When she spotted the bulge growing in his pants, her curious hand wandered that way. But he caught her bruised wrist in a light grip as soon as she dipped south of his belly button.

Her surprised gaze lifted. He was aroused, she saw the signs through his underwear. Hell, a drop of pre-cum had already stained a wet spot where the tip of his swelling cock pushed against the cloth. Plus his eyes were heavy-lidded and glassy with lust.

But the confusing man shook his head. “Some other night,” he suggested. “After watching you bow to the porcelain god, I don’t want to push you into anything you may not be ready for.”

She disagreed. Pushing seemed like the only answer to her. “I’m ready,” she insisted, reaching for him again.

But he tightened his grip on her hand. “Jenna.” His voice was utterly somber. “You don’t know what it was like for me to watch you vomit right after going down on me. I refuse to repeat that twice in one night, or better yet, in one lifetime. Let’s just be patient and take this one step at a time.”

She knew she could change his mind. His body was ready for round two. His eyes were all on board. Only one little stubborn part of his conscience resisted, and it’d take the slightest nudge to tip his scales. But for some reason, she respected his wishes.

She kind of liked Joseph Morgan being so dry and cautious. Instead of irritating her, the quality only made her admire him more.

“Okay, officer. You win…for now.”

Lying back down, she curled until they were once more spooned together. For nearly an hour, they talked, laughed, and listed off likes and dislikes, discovering they had less in common than they didn’t. But strangely enough, that wasn’t a big deal to Jenna. Even realizing they were total opposites, she liked being with him. He was comfortable, safe, incredibly sexy, and someone she wanted to get to know a whole lot better. Especially in the carnal sense.

Tomorrow, she promised herself, when he was no longer so gun shy, she’d find out just how snug he could fit into her cunt.

She fell asleep against him some time later, and it wasn’t until the next day when she woke alone in bed that she realized she hadn’t once thought of the Snatcher since the moment they’d shared their first kiss in her bathroom.