by Serena Bell
“What you said, about the world falling away—that’s how working with you on the shop has been. Just like it used to be. The canvas is different. But it’s the same feeling. Like this magic place that’s just you and me, and the rest of the world can go fuck itself.”
He took both her hands again, even though the two of them were standing perfectly still at the side of the rink. “I don’t deserve a second chance, and I know it’s hard for there to be unanswered questions, and I know I don’t have all the answers about what any of this means, but please, can we—”
He didn’t even finish the sentence before she was in his arms, kissing him, and murmuring against his lips, “Yes. Yes, please.”
33
The drive back to Tierney Bay was the longest hour and a half of Jax’s life.
“Did you really picture licking me all over last night?” Chiara asked in a tone that was so deceptively casual it took him a second to catch up.
They were only ten minutes outside of Portland, driving straight into the goddamned sunset, because the Sunset Highway was aptly named. Between the sun in his eyes and the heat in his body, he was really hoping he was equipped to get them back to town safely.
“Yes,” he said. “When we were in high school, I thought about using my mouth on you all the time but there were so few times we were alone and there was never enough time. That was one thing I was going to do on prom night. I was going to make you come with my tongue. There were some days I couldn’t think about anything else.”
Her head fell back against the headrest. “Oh,” she said. “Well. It’s never too late.”
“Do you think we would get arrested if I pulled over and went down on you right now on the side of the road?” he asked, trying to match his tone to the one she’d used a few minutes ago.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think we probably would, because I would yell that loudly, and also slap my hand on the steamed-up windows just like in that scene in Titanic.”
“Did you just squirm in your seat?” he asked. “Pretty sure I didn’t imagine that. Are you feeling a little—impatient?”
He was. For sure. His cock, which had swelled when she asked him about picturing himself licking her, was now well on its way to hard and tangled uncomfortably in his boxer-briefs.
“More than a little impatient.”
“You could get the party started.”
“Meaning…?”
“Put your hand between your legs.”
She gave him an open-mouthed, outraged look. “Anyone could see.”
“They’d have to be up pretty high to see in. So I’ll watch, and if I think we’re in a position to get passed close by someone in a taller vehicle, I’ll warn you.”
“You weren’t this dirty in high school,” she said, but she really didn’t sound upset about it.
“I was,” he said. “I just didn’t always tell you about it.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want to freak you out.”
“You won’t freak me out.”
“Noted.” He paused. “You know you can say no to anything you don’t like, right? You know you never have to do anything you don’t want to with me? You know I will never coerce you? Ever?”
She nodded.
“Good. Now. Put your hand between your legs.”
She squeaked and did it. He desperately wanted to cup the bulge in his jeans, but that wasn’t going to happen. He had to keep them safe. This was all about her. “How does it feel?” he asked instead.
“Hot. Damp. Really, really good.” Her voice was low. A murmur.
He groaned. “Can I feel?”
She guided his palm to her. She hadn’t exaggerated. He could feel her wet heat straight through the thickness of her jeans and her panties. Assuming she was wearing panties.
It wasn’t possible for him to get much harder.
She slid lower in the seat to get more contact with his palm, and he pressed upward to give it to her.
“One rule,” he said.
She wriggled against his palm. “Uh-huh.”
“You can’t actually come. You have to wait for me. I want you to come while I’m buried inside you.”
She whimpered.
He took his hand away. “If you rub a finger—just one finger—up and down the seam of your jeans—how does that feel?”
He was ninety percent sure he couldn’t come just from talking dirty and watching her stroke herself, but he was shocked at how possible it felt. He could feel the sharp promise of losing control at the outside edge of his senses. He took a deep breath and made himself think about the sad, sad state of his business’s books. If Chiara saw them, she’d lose all respect for him. Maybe he should ask her to take a look at them. Other people’s math homework was, after all, her specialty.
Okay, that had bought him some time. He looked over to find her with her head tilted back against the headrest, mouth slack with pleasure, eyes closed, obediently stroking that single finger up and down—
And he was rock hard again.
They still had probably an hour to go before Tierney Bay.
He reached over and caught her nipple, which was a tight bud under her tank top.
“If you keep doing that I’m going to break the only rule,” she whispered, arching her back like she was trying to get more—more of his fingers on her nipple, more of her own finger at her pussy.
“Chiara,” he said roughly.
“Uh-huh?”
She was far away, listening to the sensations in her body. His cock was so hard it hurt.
“If I keep doing this I’m going to break the only rule.”
In the end, neither of them broke the rule. He kept teasing her. He told her what to do and when to stop. He brought her right up to the edge and then he made her pull back. He knew exactly when she was about to lose control, and he dug deep and found the self-control to make her walk that tightrope. Partly because he wanted to make her feel good. And partly because it was the highest high he could imagine.
It was the hottest hour he’d ever spent in a vehicle. He didn’t—couldn’t—count the night he’d made love to her. That had been hot and also something else. Something sacred and complicated that he wouldn’t let himself think about right now.
He pulled the truck up in front of her house. He was burning up with urgency, his blood too hot, his pulse too fast, his cock aching. He jumped down from the driver’s side, rushed to the passenger side, opened her door, and scooped her into his arms. He kicked the door shut and carried her to her front door.
“Key,” he said, breathless.
She extracted a ring of keys from her purse, which she was clutching, and unlocked the door. He kicked that shut behind him, too.
“Which way?”
Now she was laughing. “There’s nowhere to go. See that stubby little hall straight ahead? Bedroom’s on the right.”
He carried her down the hall, pushed her bedroom door open, and deposited her on her unmade bed. He took stock of the situation, which really just meant her. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes were bright, and when he put out a hand to assess, her jeans were wet at the seam she’d teased.
He unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans and yanked them down, taking her panties with them. He knelt between her legs, pulled her towards him, and lowered his face into her damp curls.
Then he paused.
“Are you going to break the rule if I do this?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I can’t come from oral.”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Swear to God,” she said, raising a hand.
He bent, parted her lips, and licked her greedily.
“Ohh,” she moaned.
Somewhere in the general vicinity of Hillsboro, he’d realized that he could smell her, salty as the ocean but with a sweet tinge that made him desperate for a taste. He’d been dying for her ever since. And she was just as good as he’d fantasized. He alternated between giving her what she nee
ded—first his tongue tight on her clit, then circling the swollen bud, and then flat for more pressure—and giving in to his own impulse to lick straight into the honey-heart of her. And she liked that, too; she fucked against him to get more of his tongue inside her. He gave her a finger, instead, and she cried out when he crooked it up, a tease against her g-spot.
He couldn’t take it anymore; he reached down and unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, freed himself so he was fully upright, though still locked against his own belly by the waistband of his boxer briefs. She saw or sensed it and tried to sit up. “Let me touch,” she cried, but he said, “Shh,” and pushed her back down again, his mouth and his finger working her together.
He could feel her muscles starting to gather around his finger, and he pulled back. Rocked back on his knees. “You lied to me,” he said conversationally. “You can come from oral. If I keep going, you are going to come all over my face.”
“Jax,” she begged. “Jax, please, please.”
“What?” he asked. “What?”
“I need you inside me.”
“My tongue? My finger?”
“Your cock.”
Afterwards he had literally no memory of doing it, but he somehow got his clothes off, and then hers.
“There are condoms in the nightstand,” she said.
He had a hell of a time getting the drawer open and she had the nerve to laugh at him. “My hands are shaking,” he admitted.
“Let me put it on.”
She did, a long, slow unroll that almost made his knees buckle. Then she lay back and spread her legs for him, a gesture that made his chest hurt. There was just something so trusting about it. He’d left her and ghosted her and here she was, still welcoming him. So it took him a moment to recover enough to let himself be welcomed.
She saw the hesitation. “Jax?”
“I just—I didn’t think I’d ever be here again. And I’m—I’m so grateful.”
Her eyes shone. “Show me how grateful,” she said.
A minute ago he’d been in a rush, but now he wanted it to be slow and perfect. He climbed over her and braced himself on his arms, looking down at her. She was so beautiful, with her pale skin and splash of freckles and those mad-blue eyes. He bent his head and kissed her, her mouth soft and yielding. Her arms came up around his neck; her hands plunged into his hair. She kissed him like kisses were another form of begging, wide open and pleading, her tongue showing him what she wanted. He couldn’t stop kissing her, not when it was like this, so hot, so honest, so good. He managed to hold himself up on his knees and one arm, found her pussy with his other hand, parted her, so slick, so needy, and lined himself up. Just the tip in her wet heat. Holy shit.
“Kee,” he groaned. “Oh my God, Kee.”
She was saying his name, too. Her muscles tightened around the head of his cock as he eased it in. This was what he’d been missing. This was what it felt like to be whole. He took another inch, and she thrust up at him, lifting her hips with a desperate, broken sound. There was a very real chance he wasn’t going to make it all the way inside her before one of them started coming. But he wasn’t going to rush it, even though the pressure in his balls, the pressure at the root of his cock, at the base of his spine, was killing him. Even though she was starting to contract involuntarily around him. He took another inch, feeling her part to let him in, her hands on his ass now, trying to get him to move faster, trying to get him in deeper.
“More,” she gasped, and he obliged, but just a little bit, and a little bit more, until he couldn’t get any deeper; he was buried all the way to his base, his balls tight, his cock on the upper side wedged against her sex so that every time he shifted she groaned and hitched her hips. One more and—
He felt her go over; felt the cascade of flutters and tightenings, heard the groan wrenched loose, saw the flush rise up her chest and throat into her face, and there was no way he wasn’t going with her, right then and there. It surged up from wherever orgasms came from—the bottom of his spine, the bottom of the fucking world, and he thrust into her, cupping her head, pulling her against him, trying to get as deep as possible as he emptied himself into her.
34
Okay, then.
She’d had sex with several boyfriends over the last decade, including the ones Auburn had singled out for disapproval. She’d thought that the sex with those guys was pretty good. Maybe even very good. But she had still compared it to that night in the pickup truck with Jax and found it wanting. She had never, since her first time, felt so connected, so close, to anyone, so transported out of herself. She had wondered if, because that was her first time, she had exaggerated it in her mind. If she’d done it again with Jax, would it have lived up?
Now she had her answer.
“Wow,” she said. Because there wasn’t any point in lying about it. Her response had made it abundantly clear how much she’d enjoyed herself. Her throat was hoarse from groaning and—more than once—shouting his name.
He’d definitely shouted hers. So if the neighbors were still awake, they knew who’d done the deed.
She didn’t actually give a shit.
“Wow indeed,” he said. Very slowly, as if it pained him to have to do it, he extricated himself and the condom from her and rolled onto his back. He lay there a minute like he wasn’t ever going to move again, then dragged himself upright. “Bathroom—across the hall?”
“Yup.”
He disappeared and came back with a warm, wet washcloth. And then proceeded to clean her up.
He didn’t do it like it was a chore. He did it like it was foreplay. He was incredibly gentle and incredibly thorough, and by the time he was done, she found herself involuntarily tilting her hips toward him, begging for more warm, wet pressure.
“You like that?” he teased.
“Mmm-hmm.”
He replaced the washcloth with his palm and—smirk fading, eyes darkening—brought her to a second—and even more intense—orgasm.
When she regained her head, she found him watching her, intently, his hand on his hard-again cock, a slow, rocking stroke that redoubled her aftershocks.
“Round two?” he asked.
She nodded. She couldn’t actually speak.
He sheathed himself in a second condom. This time around, he felt even bigger inside her. And better. She was ultra-sensitive, but the urgency had also gone out of it, so she just luxuriated in each long, thick stroke, not needing anything from it, just loving the feel of him. She could watch him, too, the muscles straining in his arms, the swell of his pecs from bracing himself, the quiver of abs. The expression on his face, so intent on something she couldn’t see, but also the moments when he came back to her and looked right into her eyes, making sure she was with him.
She was. At some point, their eyes locked, and she couldn’t look away. And then it was like she was following him up, the steady increase in pace, the tension winding tight in his body and face. She felt like he was guiding them both home; all she had to do was open herself to him, which she did willingly, and he would make sure she got there.
“Shit,” he said suddenly, his face contorting. And then he yelled, “God! Kee!” his whole body rigid. And her emotions felt wound so tight, her feelings for him, that even though she didn’t come again, something unfurled itself like release in her chest, unlocked by the abandon on his face.
He was very quiet for a long time. Then he said, “I have literally never done that. Had sex again after, what, like, five minutes?”
“Maybe it was ten?” she hazarded.
“Well. It’s a first for me.”
“Me too. But I guess I’m wired for multiple rounds so maybe it’s not so surprising. You aren’t.”
“I thought I wasn’t. You may have rewired me.”
She smiled, pleased with herself.
He got up and disposed of the condom, came back again with a washcloth.
“Now we can do it again,” she teased.
“No.” H
e sounded so alarmed that she laughed.
He returned the washcloth to the bathroom and returned to her bedroom. In the meantime, she’d found some pajamas—Math Inspires Me, with a pi sign instead of the “p” and “i”—and climbed under the covers. He looked down at her, and for the first time, doubt crept over his features.
She saw it, and it made her stomach clench. Her first instinct was to push him away, any way she could. Make some glib comment about letting himself out. Or—she didn’t know what, but something. Anything, so she didn’t have to find out what the doubt on his face meant.
But then she made herself put on her big girl pants. He’d been more than clear about his feelings earlier. “You look a little freaked out,” she said, sounding steadier than she felt.
“I don’t want to assume,” he said. “That you, um, want me to—stay.”
He sounded so uncertain. Nothing like the man who for weeks had always seemed to know exactly what came next.
And just like that, the vise around her lungs loosened and her stomach unclenched, and everything was okay.
“I want you to stay,” she said. “Climb in.”
He still looked unsure. “I don’t have pajamas.”
She grinned. “Pajamas are optional. Would you feel better if I took mine off?”
He shook his head and reached for his boxer briefs, stepping into them. They were a good look on him, snug around his thick thighs and perfect ass. She wanted to reach out and cup the bulge—but she figured he could use a break. He climbed under the covers and wrapped an arm over her, big spoon to her little. She could feel his breath in her hair. The heat of his body warmed and comforted and soothed her, and even though she was very tired, she made herself stay awake a while, just to feel him next to her. He was there, and hers, for now at least.
35
He climbed out of a deep sleep to an urgent case of morning wood. And it wasn’t helping anything that his erection was sandwiched firmly between his own body and the curvy one next to his. Chiara’s amazing ass was wedged very thoroughly against him, and somehow his hand—his arm was looped over her—had wrapped itself around her breast, and he could feel her nipple hard against his palm.