Leaning back against the door, Jennings pulls me in between his legs for a kiss. His mouth descends over mine, his tongue licking at the seam of my lips until I groan, giving him the access he needs. Need, want, and that something else I can’t quite name rise and fall like the plane did this morning. Only this time, I’m flying in Jennings’s arms.
It’s always been this way with him, even when we were so young, I think dazedly. There was so much I just liked about Jennings, and then there was this intense, white-hot chemistry between us. It brought us to a different plane where we both lived for those glorious summer months, where the air and land could touch without catastrophic consequence.
Soon, kissing isn’t enough for either of us. My hands are frantically shoving under Jennings’s shirt. His fingers are playing with the skin of my stomach where he’s pulled my sweater away from my jeans. Tearing my mouth from his, I beg him, “Touch me.”
His eyes promise me everything I want, but his mouth smiles even as he denies me. “I plan on savoring every inch of you.”
I groan as I’m backed toward the bed. Well, Jennings may not be ready to touch me, but I’m more than ready to have my hands on him. Impatiently, I slide his shirt up until it’s bunched beneath his arms. With a smile that’s always hit me low in the gut, he lets me go with one hand to pull it off over the back of his head before tossing it aside. “Better?” he asks.
“Much,” I reply tartly right before I slide my fingers through the hair sprinkling across his firm pecs. Honing in on his nipples, I tweak them between my finger and thumb, hearing him groan aloud. Leaning forward, I place my mouth on the center of his chest and brush kisses over him until I reach my target. I hear his ragged sigh as I twirl my tongue over his nipples before I latch on fully.
“Fuck, Kara. God, yes.” Jennings’s voice is broken as he grips the back of my head against his chest.
I’m scoring my nails up and down his back, fully intent on driving him insane, when he pulls me back to mutter, “My turn.”
I’m about to protest, but I can’t because Jennings is whipping my own shirt up and over my head. Then after my head clears, I don’t have the desire to. He’s letting out a long sigh as he traces his fingers over the delicate lace edging the cup of my bra. With each pass, his fingers dip lower and lower until finally they brush against my straining nipple.
I whimper when they finally make contact. Jennings’s only response is to pull his hands away before reaching down and flicking open the clasp between my breasts. I shrug off the offending garment just in time for him to crush our naked torsos against one another.
“So much better,” I manage to get out before he drugs my senses with another one of his kisses. Long moments later, I realize Jennings is bearing us down onto the bed. “Finally,” I mutter.
I feel his smile against my neck. “Impatient little owl. Always so hungry for knowledge.”
Sliding my fingers into his hair, I urge his face back. “You forget I’ve taken this course. I’m looking for a better grade.”
His mumbled “Not sure if that’s possible” sears through my soul in ways I can’t explore right now. Instead I press a kiss to the side of his neck and then draw his head down.
Jennings doesn’t miss the invitation.
Waves of pleasure course through me as Jennings’s beard scrapes against my skin. God, this is new, I think to myself as I arch into his mouth every time his jaw caresses me. “Maybe I’m not the only one looking to improve his score in class,” I say breathlessly as Jennings draws his chin over the side of my breast.
He just laughs darkly right before he takes my aching nipple in his mouth and sucks. Hard.
“Jennings,” I moan. His eyes snap to mine as his tongue flicks over the tip. “Don’t stop. Feels so good.”
“Other side,” he mutters, shifting to do just that. But his fingers play with the wet nipple he left open to the air. And the sensations have me practically levitating off the bed.
I’m writhing in his arms. My nails drag up his muscular arms, his shoulders, anything I can grab. “Let me touch you,” I plead.
“Let me enjoy you this time,” he counters. My heart trips when I realize he means for this to be more than once. “Let me taste you, Kara. God, I want to wake up with the scent of you on me.”
In this moment, I know Maris was right. I never got over my feelings for John Jennings. Even if it’s for one night, I want this—no, need this. “Then show me,” I dare him.
His eyes glow before he slowly rakes his teeth down my neck, nipping along the way. Bypassing my aching breasts, his lips cruise through the valley between them. His beard is like an extra set of hands leaving fire in its wake as my body arches against him. “Touch me,” I beg.
“Aren’t I?” he taunts. His fingers make quick work of the button of my jeans, and he tugs them down. Slowly, oh so slowly over my belly until he also catches my panties along with them. I lift my hips to assist him.
I nearly come as the kiss of air touches the smooth skin of my pussy. “Please, Jennings,” I moan.
“Damn boots,” he mutters, twisting away to yank off one of the things impeding him from getting me completely naked. Glaring at the offending objects, he hurls them across the room. I hear a crash and giggle softly. Jennings pauses in the process of reaching for his own laces. “I love the sound of that,” he whispers.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“Your laugh.”
I contemplate him sitting at the edge of the bed. My pants are halfway down my thighs. His boots are about to meet the same fate as mine. “Is now when you want to talk about it?” I demand.
He shakes his head. Toeing off his own boots and socks, he stands and reaches for his wallet. Tossing it onto the nightstand, he mutters, “But we will,” before he shucks his own jeans and boxers to the floor.
Thick and iron hard, his cock springs out at me, begging for my touch. Immediately I reach for it only to be denied when Jennings starts shaking me out of my jeans. “Damn you,” I growl. As soon as I’m freed from the offending garments, I try to scramble to my knees.
He pushes me to my back. “I swear to God, if I don’t taste you in the next minute…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. Instead he presses my legs out and rubs his fingers in circles against my clit. He lets them dance for a few seconds before sliding them lower—and before his lips replace his fingers on the tight bud.
My fingers find his hair. “Oh, God.” My head falls back. My hips arch against his mouth as his fingers slide into me simultaneously. “Jennings.” I don’t know if his name is a cry for mercy, for relief, or for more. It might be all three. My hips rock against his mouth over and over, juices dripping.
I’m on the verge of begging. His fingers plunge inside of me as his beard abrades me, leaving delicate scratches that only enhance my arousal.
I lift my head to find him watching me, and just then he curls his fingers, reaching for a spot that makes my neck snap back in rapture. “Jennings,” I moan just as the walls of my vagina clamp down over and over.
He surges up until he’s lying on top of me. His lips meet mine, and I taste myself on him. I smell the essence of what he did, and my heart trembles. Jennings isn’t done as he lets me ride out the aftershocks with his long fingers still pulsating inside of me to drag out my orgasm.
Then he snarls a word that makes my body tremble from head to toe. “Mine.”
Rolling off me for a moment, he fumbles for his wallet. Fishing out a condom, he makes quick work of rolling it on. In the meanwhile, I recover some of my wits about me to scramble to my knees, and just as he’s done, I shove him to his back.
I straddle him, moving until he’s pressed his cock against my opening. His hands are gripping my hips tightly, rubbing my hips back and forth over his cock, preparing us both for him to slide inside. After a few moments, I demand, “Now.”
Jennings loosens his grip, and I slide down to take him. The feeling of being stretched by him in this posit
ion almost makes me come immediately. Only the knowledge I want to drag him over the edge with me keeps me from flying again on my own. Sliding my fingers up his stomach, I reach down and pinch his nipples, which makes him throw back his head against the pillows. His hands slide from my hips to cup my breasts, and I let out a long moan.
We’re both panting when I start to rock my hips back and forth, each and every movement brushing my clit against his pelvic bone. His grunts and the tightness of his thighs beneath my ass telling me he’s as affected by what we’re doing as I am. I slowly pick up the pace. “Jennings.” I can barely get his name out.
Our hips rock together frantically. He rears up to clasp my head as he captures my lips, still thrusting up into me hard even as his tongue licks and strokes inside my mouth. Tearing his mouth away, he snarls, “Kara, get there.”
Bracing my hands on his shoulders, I churn my hips faster. Every movement causes my clit to rub against the hair springing out from around his cock. He grinds his heels into the bed and digs upward. My head falls forward onto his shoulder as I hear him grunt out his release as his hips pump in quick succession. Despite the condom between us, I can feel his heat as he spurts into me, which triggers my own shuddering pleasure.
I sag against him, unable to hold myself upright any longer. I barely notice when Jennings’s arms tighten and he pulls us backward, spreading the misshapen covers over us both. I can’t process anything through my brain. I don’t want to think or analyze anything right now.
I just want to forget about everything except the feel of Jennings’s arms around me.
Until I’m forced to leave this cocoon and remember everything that brought us here.
Jennings
The next morning, I wake up to Kara dressing. “Where are you going?” I murmur. Patting the bed next to me, I reach out a hand. “Come here.”
She stops what she’s doing and pads over on bare feet. I trace the seam of her jeans up the inside of her legs. “There’s nowhere to be. I doubt Kevin will be back for hours,” I remind her.
“I was going to call an Uber,” she admits. “I need to think, Jennings.”
Those words after the way her body entwined with mine throughout the night causes my heart to sink. Instead of reacting first and regretting later, I continue with my ministrations. “What about?”
“This, us. How it affects everything.”
“Then let me give you something else to think about,” I offer, not entirely unselfishly.
Her soft moan reaches my ears right about the same time her hand lands on top of mine to push it away. “Jennings, I have so much jumbling up my head,” she groans. “Stop distracting me. I have to go.”
“Like hell you do,” I growl. Hauling her over my body, I ignore her screech. “Haven’t we wasted too much time apart?”
“And I’ve had to learn to handle my issues on my own,” she retorts. But even as her words push me away, the look on her face pulls me in.
“Ouch,” I tell her softly.
She flinches in response. “God, you don’t deserve that. This is why I need to—”
“Talk to me, Owl,” I urge her.
Capitulating, she nods.
I feel like last night solidified things between us, but in the light of day, was yesterday enough to make her understand I want more than just a moment out of time? Once I’ve urged her beneath the covers, the feeling of her jean-clad legs against my bare ones distracts me in a way that terrifies me because she almost left without a word.
Pushing a strand of hair back from her face, I open my mouth, but she beats me to it. “Maris called me stubborn; maybe she’s right.”
I’m stunned. This isn’t where I expected our conversation to go at all. The leash I had over my emotions loosen as I tug her body so close, her face is pressed against my bare chest. “Why did she say that?”
“Because it took Jed to bring us here,” she whispers, the touch of her lips reminding me not only of last night but of those long lazy days of our youth. But instead of bringing pain, after last night the memory is sweet.
Kara continues. “She said if it weren’t for me, maybe my brother would still be alive.” Wet hits my chest as Kara’s voice breaks. “Maybe she’s right. How can you not resent me for so much, Jennings?”
“Kara,” I try to interrupt, but she keeps going, giving me a bird’s-eye view into the way her mind works through a problem. I can only pray she reaches the right solution when she’s done.
“It felt like a betrayal the first time I accepted a date after I had Kevin.” My muscles tighten. I want to hear about other men about as much as I want to see her walk out of my life. God knows, I wasn’t a damn monk, far from it, but I’m not the same man I was. And Kara? My feelings for her are already so much more intense than they were the first time around. My arms tighten as she continues. “Isn’t that stupid? By then I’m sure you’d forgotten about me.” Of course, now’s the moment she lifts red-rimmed eyes to seek out the truth.
I don’t lie, but I do break the truth gently. “I didn’t have a living day-to-day reminder of us the way you did, baby. And I swear, I’m not saying that to hurt you, us. To be honest with you—” I settle onto my back and pull her up to rest her head against my shoulder. “—I came across an old picture of you, Jed, and Maris before the funeral. Amid all the grief I was feeling about Jed, I still wondered about your life,” I muse.
“Whatever,” she scoffs in disbelief.
“Not kidding. He had you both wrapped around your necks. Your hair was so long then. Both you and Maris were trying to punch him in the stomach to let him go. And he was wearing these obnoxious board shorts that—”
“Had pelicans all over them?”
My head dips down to find her hand over her mouth. “How did you know?”
“Because that picture is on a table in my family room, Jennings. It was one of my brother’s favorites.” Her lips press together as a lone tear falls down her cheek.
I run my hand over her shortened hair. “When did you cut your hair, Owl?”
The tears come faster. “Kevin was ten. Dean convinced me to go out with one of his friends. Why does this matter?”
“What made you do it?” I force myself to ask, though something inside me already knows the answer.
“I couldn’t be the woman who looked the same in my memories if I was going to try to move past them,” she whispers.
“Smart.” I press a kiss on her lips. “Brave.” Another one, this one lingering more. “And courageous. You built a life for our son he obviously cherishes. How many people have been in your same situation who have given up?”
“Plenty I’m sure, but I had help,” she argues.
“Your heart is reflected in your eyes, Kara. Pure gold. You had options, and you chose the one that would always make you remember.”
She traces my chest over my heart before confessing, “He was a part of both of us. To me, there was no other choice, and I’ve never regretted it once.”
“And you say you’re not courageous?” Rolling her over to her back, I frame her face in my hands. “When I saw you at the funeral home, my first thought was if I was going to look at anyone’s picture and bring them back to life, it should be Jed, not an ex-girlfriend,” I confess. “I missed him too much.”
Kara doesn’t take offense. Smoothing her hands over my shoulder, she nods. “I understand. I made a lot of similar declarations when I heard about their deaths.”
“I was wrong.”
Her wide eyes blink up at me. “Excuse me?”
“I loved him like a brother, I will always be grateful to him, but I was wrong. There’s nothing I would trade that makes up for the time I’ve had with you and Kevin.”
“I just wish they didn’t have to die to bring us here.” Her voice is tragic.
“Why has no one ever mentioned how they died,” I wonder aloud.
Kara shifts in my arms. “It’s not a secret, Jennings. It’s just—difficult—to talk about.�
��
“Will you tell me?” I ask quietly.
She shakes her head. “I don’t want it in your head.”
“But it should be in yours alone? Isn’t pain shared pain halved?”
Shoving herself away from me, she yells, “What the hell are you now, a shrink on top of being a hotshot pilot, Ace?”
“No, but I—”
“Dated one? I’m sure of it,” she lashes out.
I clench my jaw but don’t say anything.
“None of you, not a single one of you, understand what it was like to get the knock on the door. The sheriff’s office. At first, I thought it was Kevin.” I suck in a harsh breath. “Yeah, that’s what it means to be a parent, constant worry that someone is going to harm your child,” she says desperately.
“Our child,” I correct her.
“Whatever.” She flicks her hand at me. My eyes narrow, but Kara doesn’t retract her statement. She goes on. “They asked me if I was Kara Malone. When I confirmed I was, they flashed their badges. There were three of them.”
“What did they say, Kara?”
“I don’t think they knew what to say. I kept begging them to tell me it wasn’t Kevin. ‘Please tell me it’s not my son,’ but I never called him by name, so they didn’t confirm it. Finally, I grabbed my cell. One of them reached out and grabbed my wrist. ‘No, Ms. Malone. It’s better you hear it from us.’”
I stiffen. “They touched you?”
“That’s the last thing to worry about, Jennings. They were trying to prevent me from seeing the million and one texts. They had no idea all I wanted to do was hear Kevin’s voice. But then he ran through the door.” If I feel a pervasive relief wash over me at her words months later, what must she have felt? “It wasn’t him, that’s all I could think. It wasn’t my baby.” I swallow hard as she rasps, “How could I have been so selfish?”
“Once I calmed down, they asked if I was the sister of Dean Malone. I tried to get Kevin to go to his room—he refused. Then they asked if I was also the emergency point of contact for Jed Malone. When I said yes, they told me we needed to hurry. I thought they were both alive. An accident. It wasn’t until I was in the back of the officer’s vehicle being taken to the hospital with Kevin that I heard the words ‘mass pileup.’” Her eyes flicker up to meet my horrified ones. “And that’s when Kevin completely lost his mind.”
Return by Air (Glacier Adventure Series Book 1) Page 20