He gripped my jaw and pulled my face up to his. “You’re irresistible.”
I would have taken it as a compliment if he didn’t seem so pissed about it.
Okay, maybe I took it as a compliment either way.
“That’s funny,” I said. “Then what the hell took you so long?”
I curled my fingers over his shoulders, and his hands slid down my body. His thumbs pressed into my hipbones hard, his fingers splaying over the curve of my ass. And the only answer I got to my question was him tugging my h*ps forward to meet his. His strength undid me, sending every nerve ending up in flames.
His arousal pressed against my stomach through his jeans, and I sucked in a breath. He took advantage of my open mouth, his tongue winding and flicking against mine.
His hands explored my body, bold and strong like his kiss. My heart felt like a bird loosed from a cage, like it couldn’t stay perched in one spot in my chest.
He slid a hand up my back, unsnapping the clasp of my bra with ease. He broke our kiss just long enough to pull the fabric from between us, before crushing me against him again. I heard the wet slap of my bra hit the tile floor.
When my bare chest met his, a growl sounded low in his throat. His mouth pressed and pulled and coaxed mine into movement, and time seemed both too fast and too slow at once.
When my lungs burned for air, I pulled back, panting.
I said, “You’re the most confusing person I’ve ever met, and sometimes I hate you.”
Not the most romantic thing to say, but it was honest.
He pinned me back against the wall again, and this time gripped my wrists, locking them in place above me, too.
He growled, “This counts,” before nipping my bottom lip.
I didn’t know what he was saying, but I nodded because his leg pushed between mine, anchored at the juncture between my thighs, and every shift or movement caused something to rend and then mend inside me.
“Say it.”
I arched my body into his, pulling at his shoulders.
“Say what?”
“Say that this is real. Tell me it counts.”
He pressed his forehead against mine, and that thing that tore inside of me was so loud that it had to be real. Something hung in the space between my heart and lungs, detached from where it had been.
“This is real.” I shivered, suddenly cold under the spray of water.
He released my wrists and turned off the shower, pulling me out into the bedroom. Water streamed down our bodies, forming a puddle on the floor, but he didn’t even give it a second glance. He wrapped an arm around my waist and the other around my thighs, lifting me up above him. His head was in line with my stomach. He paused to taste the wet skin just below my br**sts, and I closed my eyes. I clenched his shoulders, every muscle in my body pulling tight as his tongue darted out to flick over the sensitive skin of my ribs.
I said, “Jackson.”
I didn’t know what I was going to say next. It could have been more angry words or confusion or a romantic declaration. But I forgot it completely when he lifted his head higher, and took the pebbled tip of my breast into his mouth. I cried out.
Slowly, he loosened his grip, letting me slide down his body the way I had out on the path. But now, our wet skin melded together. My softness pressed against his hard muscle, and all I could think of were four-letter words.
When our faces aligned, he said, “This is what I should have done out there. This is what I’ve wanted to do a thousand times over.”
He claimed my mouth in another kiss.
I opened to him immediately, his tongue tangling with mine. He tasted like warm summer days and hurricanes, like everything I wanted and everything I didn’t know I needed. He caught my bottom lip between his, sucking and nibbling, and I was reminded of the first time I saw him. That terrible kiss in the ruin bar brought Hunt into my life. I never thought I would be grateful for the worst kiss of my life, especially not while enjoying the best.
He kept one arm banded around my ribs to hold me up, and the other dragged down my back to my ass. He cupped me, grinding me against his hips, and I wrapped my legs around his waist for better friction. But then I wished I hadn’t because my legs met his wet jeans, which I wanted off. Like ten minutes ago.
My fingers found the waistband of his jeans. I was pressed too tightly against him to manage the buttons, and I whined into his kiss.
I tugged on his jeans, and felt him begin moving toward the bed.
He dropped me on my back without warning, and I bounced against the mattress.
Shocked, I yelled, “You—”
I swallowed whatever insult had been coming when he flicked open the button of his jeans and slid them down over his nak*d hips.
When I managed to pick up my jaw, I followed his lead, slipping my underwear over my hips. I kicked them off, leaving us both bare before the other’s gaze. We were getting the sheets wet, but who the hell cared? For several long seconds, we both just stared at each other, drinking in the sight that for so long we’d denied ourselves.
Hunt smiled darkly and said, “My imagination didn’t do you justice.”
“Imagine me nak*d a lot, did you?”
“Only every other second.”
I smiled and the last of my frustration fled to be replaced by anticipation.
I sat up so that my face was level with his abdomen.
He ran a gentle hand through my hair. I turned into his touch and kissed his wrist. Then I leaned forward and licked a stray water droplet from his bare hip.
His hand tightened in my hair, and he exhaled sharply.
I circled my hand around him, and he choked out a groan. He stayed still for a few seconds, his eyes directed toward the ceiling.
“Why didn’t you?” I asked. “If you thought about me so much, if you wanted me . . . why push me away?”
He pulled my hand away from his body, kissing the back of my knuckles instead.
“I couldn’t do this lightly. Not with you. I needed it to mean as much to you as it meant to me.”
He leaned down and kissed me sweetly on the lips. So sweet it burned, like sugar around the rim of a Molotov cocktail.
Gripping my hips, he slid me back farther on the bed, until just my feet were dangling off the edge. I sat up on my elbows and watched him as his eyes surveyed me from head to toe.
He picked up my right foot, and placed a tender kiss on the inside of my ankle. That kiss started a fire deep in my bones that ran through the rest of me like a lit fuse. As he kissed my calf and the inside of my knee, my bones melted down to liquid. His hands started at my heels and ran up the backs of my legs, tickling the sensitive skin. I squirmed, pulling my knees together, and he placed a hand low on my abdomen stilling me.
“Patience, princess.”
I had no patience left. Especially not if he was going to do the same thing he did every other time and pull back when he came to his senses.
I said, “You’re not going to change your mind, are you, Jackson? Because I can’t keep doing this.”
He said, “I hope you can keep doing this. Because I don’t plan on letting you out of this room until my seven days are up.”
22
His mouth trailed up the inside of my thigh, and I was breathing so heavy that I was on the verge of hyperventilating. One of his hands still pressed into my stomach, and the other pushed my knees apart. His teeth grazed my skin, and my h*ps bowed up.
He was going to kill me.
I could actually die like this.
“Please,” I said.
“Please what, princess?”
His breath fanned across my inner thigh, and just that was enough to send shockwaves of pleasure through me. The hand on my stomach slid down to the juncture between my thighs, and I completely lost it.
I turned my head to the side, and swallowed a moan.
His fingers drew me to the edge, working me until all I could do was whimper and breathe, whimper and breathe.
“Tell me what you want,” he said.
My body clenched around his fingers, and all I could say was “You.” His thumb pressed hard against my most sensitive spot just like it had the night before, and I said, again, “Oh God, you.”
All I knew was that he was too far away, and I didn’t need any more foreplay. Our whole damn relationship had been foreplay. I wanted him now.
I reached a hand down toward him, and he laced his fingers with mine. I tugged, and he stood from where he’d been kneeling. I pulled again, and he put his knee on the bed between my thighs.
He hovered above me, his body lean and muscled, and his eyes predatory. He looked like he wanted to devour me, and I was all too willing to be his victim.
I released his hand to touch his waist, and then I pulled his body down on top of mine. I threw my head back and moaned at the contact.
His mouth went to my shoulder, tracing along the line of my muscle to my collarbone. His thigh pressed up and against my center, and I held my breath. He lifted his head to look at me. When our eyes met, he pressed against me again, and the breath I’d been holding tore from my lungs.
He bent to taste my lips, gentle and focused. I clutched at his back, marveling at the way his muscles flexed and moved as kissed me.
“Please,” I said again. “Please Jackson.”
His eyes softened, and he pressed his forehead against mine. His eyes closed, and he took a slow, deep breath. Then he leaned down and placed a kiss on my sternum, between the swell of my br**sts.
“Give me a second.”
He slid off of me, and I felt like I was drowning every second that it took for him to grab a condom and come back to me.
I rose up on my elbows, and he crawled above me. He kissed me sweetly, slowly, and the frenzy of our previous moments disappeared. There was a level of intimacy in just kissing him that I’d never experienced, and it left me excited and terrified of what came next.
Sex had never been a big deal to me. But everything about Jackson was a big deal. I was afraid I wouldn’t be good enough, afraid that I wouldn’t know how to have the kind of sex that meant something. What if when it was over, he regretted crossing that line?
His hand smoothed over my cheek and he said, “Don’t. Don’t do that.”
I didn’t know if he knew the exact line of my thoughts or just that I was worried, but it soothed me all the same.
He kissed me, and then slowly eased me back on the bed. He lay beside me, and I turned on my side to face him. I laid my head on his arm, and he pulled me into his chest, just holding me for a moment. We’d held each other like this before, but this time was different. My heart was thundering, and my skin sang. His hand traced down the line of my spine, and I arched into him. He continued over my hip and down my leg, his fingers curling behind my knee. A zing of electricity shot from my knee up to my core as he pulled my leg over his hip.
Our mouths met and he said, “God, I love the way you taste.”
He leaned into me, situating his leg between mine, and aligning our hips. He pushed inside me, and for a moment my whole body seemed to forget how to work. My blood forgot to pump, my lungs forgot to breathe, and my h*ps forgot to move.
His hands tightened on me, and he released a low groan into my neck.
He growled, “I love the way you feel.”
Laying on my side like this with our legs twined together, he reached deep inside me. I’d never had sex like this, wrapped up in another person until it was impossible to find the divide between us. His h*ps withdrew and then pushed again, and the friction had me arching my back.