Inked on Paper

by Nicole Edwards

  “I hear you, Liz. And I’m doing what you told me to do.” There was a lengthy pause. “Yes. I’ll have more for you by Monday.” Another pause. “I can’t promise it’ll be finished, but I’ll have more, yes.” Another pause, and I smiled. “Okay. Talk to you later.”

  “Are you done yet?” I asked, laughing when he finally hung up the phone.

  “I can be,” he said, sliding his cell phone onto the coffee table before he came to stand near my feet, his sexy blue-green eyes fixed on me.

  “Did you get it all worked out?” I asked him.

  I could feel his eyes as they raked over me. “Yeah,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “I did.”

  “Just to be nosey, what is it that she told you to do?”

  Jake cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “You told Liz that you were doing what she told you to do. And that was…?”

  He smiled. “To find the girl who inspired me to write and do whatever it took to have her.”

  That hadn’t been what I was expecting and the sinking feeling in my gut returned. So, I really was his inspiration for writing and now he was what? Using me to progress the book?

  I shook it off and forced a smile, staring up at him.

  Knowing this was about to go in a direction that we wouldn’t be able to come back from—a place that quite frankly scared me because I could feel my heart getting too invested when it seemed this was possibly one-sided—I held up my hand. “I need my journal.”

  Jake’s forehead creased momentarily as his gaze slid up to meet mine.

  “The pink book I sometimes draw in,” I told him, chuckling at the lost look on his face.

  “Right.”

  I watched as he disappeared from the room, returning a minute later with my sketchbook and a pencil.

  “Thank you.” I took both from him, then rolled over onto my stomach and started to draw.

  Sometime later, Jake startled me by clearing his throat. I honestly couldn’t say whether he’d been in there with me the whole time or not, but I looked up to see his wide grin.

  “Your cell phone rang,” he told me, his eyes raking up and down my body as he held out my phone.

  I took it from his hand, noticing the time. I’d been right there on the floor for two hours and hadn’t even realized so much time had passed. It was strange how comfortable I was, being there with him. Like two friends who’d been together for a while. Easy, comfortable.

  On top of that, he had inspired me to draw for the first time in months. Nothing major, but it was progress and I was happy with the result.

  Sitting up, I pulled up my call log to see that I had missed a call from Gil.

  My roommate was probably making an attempt to ensure me that they weren’t having an orgy, though in reality, they probably were. Rather than call him back and listen to him give me a hard time, I shot him another text, letting him know everything was good and that I’d be home tomorrow night.

  “You hungry? Thirsty?” Jake asked, holding out his hand and helping me to my feet.

  Once I was vertical, I looked around, noticing for the first time that Jake had started a fire in the fireplace.

  “Wow. When did you do that?”

  “About an hour ago,” he said with a smile. “You were a little busy, so I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “No apologies,” Jake said, erasing the distance between us, his hands sliding up to my hips, beneath the shirt. A tremor danced down my spine as his warm hands brushed my skin. “I understand all too well what it’s like to be in the zone.”

  I forced my eyes up to meet his, noticing the heat blazing in the blue-green depths. “Am I distracting you?”

  Jake grinned. “Definitely.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Because I could always lock myself in a room and—”

  “As long as you know I’ll be in there with you,” he said with a sexy smirk.

  I didn’t know what to say to that, but I knew I had to say something. “Sixteen days,” I blurted.

  Jake frowned.

  “Until your deadline,” I reminded him. “The last thing we need to do is get something started that might interfere with that.”

  There, I’d said it. Not the easiest thing to do, but I’d given him a valid reason as to why we shouldn’t pursue this just yet. Did I want to? Fuck, yes. But I knew what happened in a new relationship. Everything else fell to the wayside, and Jake had a book to write, and I had a contest to enter—maybe.

  “You’ve been thinking about this,” Jake muttered, leaning down closer.

  I nodded.

  “That’s a very interesting reason,” he said.

  “Valid reason,” I added.

  Jake leaned in again, his breath fanning my face. “Stupid reason.”

  Well, there was that.

  Before I could come up with an excuse, his lips brushed mine and I sighed, giving in because it was futile to resist. This man did something to me, something I wasn’t sure I’d ever experienced before.

  And I wanted more.

  A lot more.

  “I hope you know I’m not waiting sixteen days,” he whispered against my mouth. “You’ll be lucky if I can wait sixteen more minutes.”

  When his hand slid down to my bare thigh, I stopped him. “I need a shower.”

  “Me, too,” he said, his lips brushing mine. “What do you say we conserve water?”

  I didn’t get a chance to answer because he kissed me. His mouth moved slowly over mine, making my head spin. His tongue slid along the seam of my lips, and I opened for him, kissing him back.

  When his hands slid down my back, over my ass, I moaned. And when he lifted me up off the ground, I shrieked, quickly throwing my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Carrying you upstairs.”

  Yeah, well, I had nothing to say to that, so instead, I kissed him while he carried me through the house, up the stairs, through my bedroom, and into the bathroom, before depositing me on the bathroom counter.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered, pulling back and going over to the shower, turning on the water.

  I had a full two seconds to make up my mind on whether or not I wanted to do this. It wasn’t that I had any doubts; I was honestly worried that if we did, it might screw up Jake’s deadline, and the last thing I wanted to do was give him a reason to want to stay away from me.

  When he turned back around to face me, the heat in his eyes made my decision for me. I couldn’t resist this man any longer, no matter how many excuses I tried to make.

  I pulled his T-shirt up and over my head, tossing it to the floor. Yep, decision definitely made. His eyes widened, and that look… It made my pussy clench with the need to feel him inside me.

  As he moved closer, I fought the urge to cover myself as his eyes left a heated caress over my skin.

  “You are a very bad girl, you know that?”

  “You make me want to be a bad girl,” I told him.

  The rumble that vibrated in his chest made me laugh. I reached for him, helping him out of his shirt, then reaching for the button on his jeans. I managed to work it free, lowered the zipper before Jake wrapped his hand around my wrist, stilling me.

  “If you touch me, I’m gonna go off like a rocket.”

  I smiled. “Then we should prepare for lift-off.”

  Jake laughed, his eyes dancing.

  “Too corny?” I teased.

  His eyes glittered with heat. “Honey, I’m not sure what to do with you.”

  “I can think of a few things. And they require you to be naked.” Hopping down from the counter, I removed my panties, fighting off the modesty I felt as he watched. As the last of my clothes dropped to the floor, his quickly followed.

  Then there we were, facing one another, both of us completely naked in the middle of the bathroom, which, thanks
to the shower, was quickly steaming up.

  Jake held out his hand, and I placed mine in his palm, watching as it disappeared completely within his. When he tugged my arm, I followed him into the shower, shamelessly looking him over, admiring every inch of him.

  The first thing I noticed was the tattoo that spanned his entire back. My eyes fixed on the details, noting the lines, the shading, the depth to the two-headed dragon that looked incredibly real, the thick body and the narrow neck running up his spine, the heads covering his shoulder blades. At one point, I would’ve been able to draw that, even inked it on him. A strange part of me—an oddly possessive side—wished that I had.

  He was eye candy. A visual feast for the senses. From his broad shoulders to his well-defined chest, narrow waist, rippling abs, powerful thighs, and mmm, that incredible ass … I couldn’t get enough, content to simply stand there and ogle him. And his cock. It was beautiful. Long and impossibly thick, heavily veined and standing proudly out from his body, practically begging for my touch.

  That was when I remembered what it’d felt like when he’d been inside me. A tremor of need shot through me.

  I allowed him to pull me under the rain shower spray, leaning my head back as the water drenched my hair. He came to stand behind me, his erection pressing against my lower back, his hands sliding around to my stomach. For a minute, we remained like that, the warm water cascading over us, doing nothing to stifle the desire I felt for him.

  For the first time in my life, I wasn’t scared of what we were doing, wasn’t worried that we didn’t know each other well enough, that we hadn’t had the required number of dates that made sex—not a one-night stand—socially acceptable. This thing between us … it was irrational in its intensity, something that I’d never even imagined in my wildest dreams.

  And when I turned to face him, looking up into those beautiful green-blue eyes, I knew that what happened from here wasn’t something we could control or monitor. We couldn’t keep it from occurring even if we wanted to.

  No, what was happening between us … what had been happening between us since the first day we’d met in that coffee shop three weeks ago…

  It was inevitable.

  Chapter Fifty

  Jake

  I could see it in Presley’s eyes… She’d resigned herself to this the same as I had. Not that it was a hardship, by any means. Sure, I knew together we could come up with a million and one reasons why we shouldn’t do it.

  It was too soon.

  We’d only known each other for a few weeks.

  We had only been on one date.

  We’d promised we would start over, take things slow.

  We had deadlines to consider. This was the worst excuse in the history of excuses, in my opinion, but I liked that she’d worked to come up with it.

  Blah, blah, blah.

  Not one of the many excuses could convince me that we’d be walking into disaster if we did, so spending time debating it was pointless and unnecessary.

  First, I knew already that sex with Presley wasn’t simple. Not for me. I got the distinct feeling that whenever our bodies joined again—this time both of us in the moment—it was going to be cataclysmic. Life altering. And I wasn’t merely waxing poetic because I was an author and that was how I would set up a scene like this.

  No. With Presley, it was more than the joining of my body and hers. At least on my side.

  Based on that look in her eyes, she was feeling it, too.

  Sure, the physical attraction was there. But the physical part was the easy part. Pheromones were working, hormones moving us forward, bringing us together. Only there was something else at play here, something more than the natural desire to mate. There was intimacy, a familiarity that didn’t make a lot of sense but couldn’t be denied, regardless.

  When Presley’s arms wrapped around me, I placed my hands on the top of her head, slowly sliding them down her wet hair, my fingers slipping into the damp strands as I tilted her head back, forcing her to look up at me, wanting to maintain that eye contact. I ran my thumbs over her cheeks.

  “You’re smiling,” she said. “What’re you thinking about?”

  “All the things I want to do to you. All the ways I want to make you come. How I want to hear my name on your lips when you do.”

  Her eyes flared, her mouth opening.

  “I want to touch you,” she said, surprising me.

  I shook my head. “I’m serious, honey. You touch me and I’m gonna come. That’s all there is to it.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” she asked, her hands gliding down to my ass.

  “Not a bad thing … if I’m inside you when I do,” I told her. For some reason, I wanted to be inside her, not in her hand, not in her mouth. Not this time. And I knew for a fact that had never been something I’d thought before.

  Ever.

  Oh, sure, I wanted to know what those sweet lips felt like on my dick. And I wanted to feel her smooth hands stroking me. But more than anything, I wanted to feel her pussy gripping me while she came apart at the seams, her eyes locked with mine, my name on her lips.

  However, as hot as shower sex could be, the difference in our heights was going to make that immensely difficult. More so because I wanted to look into her eyes when I was fucking her. Had she been anyone else, bending her over and slamming home would’ve been an easy decision. Not to mention, I was sure that would take place at least once before we left here. Just not right now.

  With Presley, I was quickly learning that everything I’d thought I’d wanted before no longer existed. It was an entirely different playing field now. One where the rules were unknown, made up as I went along.

  Reaching for the shampoo, I poured a generous amount in my hands, then slid it into her hair, working up a lather while I watched the expressions flitter over her face. I paid attention to her scalp, massaging until she was moaning. My dick was like a steel beam between us, but I ignored it as best I could.

  Once I’d washed her hair, I handed her the body wash, then took my turn beneath the shower spray, washing my hair and rinsing quickly. I knew I had to hurry because…

  I hissed in a breath when soft, soapy hands gripped my dick.

  “Presley… Fuck.” I hadn’t been kidding. I was on the verge of detonation and this wasn’t helping. I bit my lip hard enough so that the pain distracted me. “Please,” I ground out, making the mistake of looking down, watching as she worked my cock. “Aw, fuck, baby… Presley…”

  She looked up at me. “I want to make you come.”

  I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. “Want to be inside you… Fuck, Presley.”

  She released me and my eyes popped open.

  “You better hurry up and rinse off,” she said, grinning from ear to ear though her tone was serious.

  The only thing I could do was stare after her, admiring her heart-shaped ass and the tattoos that covered most of her back as she retreated. I was just getting my bearings when she stuck her head back in the shower.

  “Please tell me you have condoms.”

  My dick jumped. “In my suitcase.”

  With another flirty grin, she spun around and left me standing there with my dick now in my hand, gripping it tightly so I didn’t come.

  I was rinsed, dried, and in the bedroom in under a minute—not hard to do when the hottest fucking woman in the world was waiting for you in her bed. Naked.

  “Goddamn,” I mumbled on a strangled breath, staring at her when I stepped into the bedroom.

  She was lying across the bed, on her side, head propped up on one hand, the comforter covering her intimate parts but revealing her leg and her arm, the tattoos that adorned her skin. Her hair was wet, slicked back from her face, and the look in her eyes was enough to set the room on fire.

  I flipped off the light, turned on the lamp on the dresser, and crawled over her. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she thought I was going to get right down to business.

  She was rig
ht.

  Only her definition and mine were likely vastly different.

  Though my dick was so hard it hurt, I wasn’t ready yet. She wasn’t ready yet. I needed to taste her, to explore her before I took her. Like I’d told her this morning, I wanted to do all the things I hadn’t done the first time.

  Grabbing the comforter, I pulled it back, revealing the tempting treat beneath. Presley’s eyes widened as I covered her body with mine, forcing her onto her back. I sought her lips, kissing her slowly, allowing our body heat to mingle as I did. Her soft hands slid up my arms, over my back, while I lost myself in her kiss.

  When I pulled my mouth from hers and began kissing down her neck, she tried to pull me back. “Not yet,” I told her.

  “Jake, please.”

  “Oh, I plan to please,” I said, smirking.

  “I want to feel you.”

  “You will,” I assured her. “And when I make you come … with my mouth … only then will I give in.”

  And not a minute sooner.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Presley

  If I survived this experience, I would be surprised.

  Already, Jake had taken my breath away, and that was from the few minutes we’d spent together in the shower.

  And now…

  Having him focus all of his attention on me wasn’t going to be easy. Based on that gleam in his eyes, I knew I was in for it.

  Not that I was complaining. Definitely not.

  Only I wasn’t sure I’d ever had a man who turned the heat up like this. Sure, I’d had sex plenty of times, though my partners had been limited. But the truth was it had never gotten this … intimate. The men in my past would’ve simply bent me over in the shower and had their way with me. Without complaint, mind you. From me or them.

  Not Jake.

  He seemed hell-bent on making me lose my ever-loving mind.

  I briefly wondered if he would be the man to ruin me for other men. The one who would show me what it was supposed to be like, how good it could be.

  “Jake,” I whispered as his mouth left a blazing trail of heat along my chest.

  His lips sought my nipple, and I gasped, shocked by the blast of heat that enveloped me. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, transfixed by the confident way he played my body, his tongue trailing over the ink on my skin, his eyes reverently stroking as assuredly as his hands.