And so, I kiss him with all I am. I kiss him, and I tear at his clothes. He responds, catching my hair in his hand and dragging my gaze to his, searching my face, looking for something, I don’t know what. I don’t know if he finds it, but he’s kissing me again, and God, how the man can kiss. I shove my hands under his jacket, and he releases me just long enough to shrug out of it. From there is a blur of want and lust. My shirt comes off. His shirt comes off. We’re naked, and his hand is on my breast, fingers teasing my nipple until I moan.
Somehow. we’re in front of the couch, when I’m pretty sure we were just by the door, and his cock is thick and hard at my hip. I reach for it, closing my hand around it, and he squeezes my backside and then smacks it. I yelp with the impact, surprised, aroused, so damn aroused when I didn’t believe a hand on my ass could ever do that again, and yet, it has, it did. I am. But Jax doesn’t repeat that hand on my ass. He drags his mouth from mine, his breath heavy and fast as he curses, “Fuck. Emma—”
Anger and embarrassment come over me hard and fast. “Don’t say what you’re about to say. Don’t do what you’re doing right now. I’m not a delicate flower.” I shove at his chest and look up at him. “Jax, damn it, I said—”
He cups my head and drags my mouth to his. “You’re not a delicate flower.” He sits down with me and pulls me into his lap, the feel of him thick and hard against my backside. “I know,” he promises.
“You want to spank me, do it,” I say, pressing on his chest to look at him. “I’m not—”
“A delicate flower,” he says. “I know,” he repeats. “But baby, until you tell me what happened to you—”
“That has nothing to do with us, Jax.” The words hiss from my throat, no, from my gut, from my soul. “The past doesn’t get to be in this room with you and me.”
“Everything that happened to you is about us. We’re not about a moment. We’re bigger than this moment.”
My fingers dig into his shoulders. “And I’m telling you that we’re more than my past. I’m naked and telling you to just be you, and do you with me,” I say. “If you hold back—just don’t hold back. I liked how you were when you weren’t holding back. I loved how you were when you spanked me.”
“Emma—”
I catch his hair in my fingers and lean in, my lips at his lips. “I’m giving you my trust. Be here in the moment with me, Jax. If you want to spank me, spank me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jax…
What the hell was I thinking? I know Emma has a damaged past, and I pushed her because I wanted her to just say yes to moving in with me. I flip her to her back, with that pretty little ass of hers pressed to the soft cloth covering the leather couch, my body settling over hers.
“Damn it, Jax. What are you doing?”
“I want to do all kinds of things with and to you, Emma. Dirty, dirty fucking amazing things, including spanking your perfect ass. When the time is right.”
“The timing was right now. You got spooked, not me.”
“I pushed you because you didn’t just say yes to moving in with me and that’s not the way for us to do those dirty fucking amazing things. That’s the way to make sure they aren’t amazing. I don’t want anyone or anything the way I want you, Emma. I’m not wasting one minute on anything with you that’s not amazing.”
She softens beneath me, and I roll us to our sides, her back against the couch. “Only amazing,” I repeat, stroking hair from her face. “Like you said. You and me, baby. We’re keeping it all good.”
“Jax—”
“When the time is right—”
“I’m telling you, that’s now. I’m telling you, you’re different. I’m different with you. The bondage thing—that’s the only thing I have issues with, and I won’t later. I just—please don’t hold back.”
I want her to tell me York is her horror story. I want her to tell me so I can get to work on making him pay. “Not with you,” I promise, cupping her backside and molding her close. “Not with you.” I kiss her then, licking into her mouth, drinking her in, all of her, because hell, that’s what I need. All of her. I don’t know how it happened, but Emma woke up a part of me I didn’t even know existed. I don’t intend to lose her either. I don’t intend to let anyone take her from me.
I lean into her and mold her close, my cheek finding her cheek, my lips at her ear. “I want you, Emma Knight, and I don’t want you to remember anyone else’s hands or mouth on your body. I don’t want you to remember anyone else inside you. And no one ties you up but me.” I pull back and look at her. “And if I do, when I do, you will not feel fear. You’ll only feel pleasure.”
“I know that,” she whispers. “Last night was—”
“Not the right time, baby.” I press my fingers between her legs, stroking the wet heat there. “But that time will come.” She moans, and I press a finger inside her, followed by another, when it’s me I want inside her. I’m hot and hard, and she’s so damn perfect, but I tried to take too much, too fast. Now I need to show her this isn’t about me. It’s about her and us.
“Jax,” she gasps with the pump of my fingers. I can feel her letting go, giving herself to me and the moment, which is what I want. It’s what we both need, but what she doesn’t need is to feel like I’m coddling her. And I’m not. I don’t want a broken version of Emma. I want to be the man who heals her, who makes her free and whole again. So, I don’t coddle her. I don’t hold back, not wholly. I catch her hair in my hands and drag her mouth to mine, my lips a breath from her lips.
“Whoever did what they did to you, Emma, and I think we both know who that was, he doesn’t own you. You do. And I do, when you let me.” I slide my fingers out of her and cup her backside, pressing my cock inside her, driving deep and angling her into my thrust. She’s so damn hot and tight that I groan with the effort it takes to slow down, before I drive into her again and forget why slow is good, why it’s necessary and right. But I do it. I roll back the need to push into her again, nestling deep inside her.
She pants and arches against me, wanting what I want now, but I decide to give her what we both wanted early. I squeeze her backside and press my forehead to hers. “You know what I’m going to do right now, don’t you?”
“Do it,” she orders, grabbing my hair again and tugging. “Do it, Jax.”
I nip her bottom lip and then lick into her mouth, and when she’s all in, when she’s kissing the hell out of me, I thrust into her at the same time I lift my hand and smack her backside. Not hard. Just enough for her to feel it. She gasps and gives my hair another rough tug, pressing into me.
“Again,” she demands, urgency radiating off of her, her sex clenching my cock.
I don’t deny her. I lift my hand and smack her backside again, this time, a little harder. On impact, she gasps again and lifts her hips into my hard thrust. She laughs and smiles. “I—I—” She presses her lips to mine, and I don’t know what she was thinking or feeling, but holy hell, she feels so damn good.
Too good to hold back another minute.
I claim her mouth, I claim her, and kiss the hell out of her, giving her one last smack and thrust before I roll her to her back and cover her body with mine. “Holy hell, woman,” I murmur, brushing my lips over hers. “What are you doing to me?”
“What are you doing to me?”
Keeping her. Making her mine. I’m going to make this woman mine, but I don’t make that declaration out loud. Not now. Not when I haven’t even gotten her to agree to move in with me. Instead, I kiss her and touch her. I move inside her, and she moves with me. I lose everything around me. I lose everything in the world but this woman. There is no beginning or end without Emma. I don’t know how that happened, but I don’t care. I don’t want there to be an end. No one is going to force us into an end, and with that, a bit of the world tries to return. I remember her on that landing last night. I remember my brother’s funeral. I remember all the forces that want
to divide us and destroy us.
I force them away before she feels them, too. I bring us back to just us. I kiss her and fuck her, ravenous for her, and she’s right there with me. Just as hungry. Just as desperate. The world fades again, and I’m lost in her moans, in her touch, in the way she smells and tastes. Flowers and sugar. She smells like flowers in a storm and tastes like sugar, sweet, where there has been nothing but bitterness. So damn much bitterness.
“Jax North,” she whispers, and my name on her lips, it matters. It matters so fucking much, but I know what she’s telling me. She’s giving me what I wanted last night. She’s present. She doesn’t give a damn about names or families. This is me and her, and her and me.
“Emma Knight,” I whisper, letting her know I understand. Letting her know I’m right here with her.
She catches my legs with hers, holding onto me, telling me that she’s not letting go. I cup her backside, the same cheek I laid my palm on, not once, but three times, and squeeze, lifting her, pumping into her. I’m different with Emma, I’m kissing her, emotions pumping through me right along with the lust and adrenaline, and I do nothing to hide from the intimacy. Emma is that sweetness. She’s my passion, my escape, and yet, she’s also my way home. And when she gasps, her sex tightening around me, I’m right there with her. I’m out of control, and it’s as damn perfect as anything I’ve ever known.
I pump into her, push harder, deeper, tensing with the intensity of my release, shuddering. I fade in and out of the room, my head tilting back, my release ripped from my body in the most brutally perfect way possible. I collapse on top of Emma, holding my weight on my arms and rolling her to her side.
“Holy hell, woman,” I murmur again, tilting her head back and staring down at her. “You—Fuck—That’s all I can say, you.”
She presses her hand to my face. “You, Jax North.”
I rest my forehead against hers and mold her close. “Emma Knight. I’ll get you tissues.”
“Don’t go,” she says. “Not yet. I just—I’m not ready for the rest of the world yet.”
I reach above me and grab her some tissues, pressing them between us and reluctantly pulling out. “How about that?”
She catches my leg and snuggles closer. “You’re still here. So that works.” Her head settles on my shoulder, and I stroke her hair. And just like that, she’s asleep. Just like that, I realize that I was wrong when I thought she didn’t trust me. Emma does, in fact, trust me. I need to earn that trust. Confession time is coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Emma…
Jax’s heartbeat thrums next to my ear while his phone rings, a hum that seems to expand and grow, forcing me out of the sweet haze of this man and my slumber. “Someone found us,” I murmur. “And I hate that someone.”
Jax laughs, a deep rumble of sexy male laughter, before he rolls us enough to kiss me. “I’d rather just stay here and be naked with you.”
His phone stops ringing and mine starts. “It’s like a conspiracy to get our clothes on.”
He smiles. “Yes. It is. And it’s downright criminal.” My stomach growls, and he laughs again. “Hungry?”
“What gives you that idea?” I ask, feigning innocence.
“The monster in your belly told me. I think I better feed you. We never made it to the restaurant and they close early.” He kisses me and rolls off the couch to grab his pants, offering me a perfect view of his nice, tight backside. Which reminds me of his hand on my backside, and my cheeks, the other cheeks, heat. I liked it. I liked it a lot when my past defies that response, but then this is Jax, and I have an instinct to trust him. I want to be with this man. I want to live with him. I want to just say yes. I think I’m going to do it. By the time I’ve come to this conclusion, Jax is dressed in his pants, minus his jacket, his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, and he’s scooping up my clothes. “You, woman,” he says, kneeling in front of me and setting them in my lap, “need to get dressed.” His gaze, hot and heavy, rakes over my naked breasts, my nipples puckering under his inspection before his eyes find mine. “Before I get undressed again.”
“Is that supposed to motivate me to get dressed or stay as I am?”
His lips curve, placing a smile on his beautiful mouth that radiates through his eyes. He has beautiful eyes, so blue, a sea of blue, instead of the ice of that man he calls Echo. I could drift away in this man’s stare and never want to be found. “How about I motivate you with a chef’s creation?” he suggests. “Eggs. I make good eggs. Great eggs even.”
My smile is instant. “Eggs?”
“It’s about all I make well, but the good news is that I have eggs and that means we can hide out here without starving. Even better, I have all of the good stuff that makes eggs better, like cheese.”
“Eggs and cheese,” I say. “Sounds pretty good to my stomach right now. Do you also have coffee?”
“I’ll cook if you brew,” he negotiates, just as his phone starts ringing again, drawing a groan from him and me that has us both laughing again. Laughter that fades into a charge in the air. We like that we laugh together. We like each other, which isn’t necessarily a prerequisite to wanting to have sex together. I learned that from York. I just kept having sex with him because I thought maybe it would make me like him again. But power and money had gone to his head, and sex didn’t save him, or me, from him.
Jax catches my face. “What just happened?”
I blanch. “What?”
“You went from laughter to just fading away.” I open my mouth to brush off the observation, to say “nothing’s wrong,” but that’s not what I want for us. I want honesty. I want truth. I want trust. And so I speak the truth, the real truth and nothing but the truth. “Nothing that you don’t make better.” I catch his hand. “You are—”
My phone rings, and we both groan again, more laughter following. “You too, baby,” he says. “You are, too.” He leans in and kisses me. “See you in the kitchen.” But he doesn’t move. He stays right where he is, his voice softens, roughens. “Our kitchen if you want, Emma.”
My cheeks flush with those words, and when he brushes his knuckles over my cheek, I’m melting right here on this couch. I’m always melting for this man. There’s just something bold and undeniable happening between us, something that can’t be ignored, that I don’t even want to try to ignore. I want to inhale it, live it, love it and him. “Get dressed before I don’t let you,” he says and then he pushes to his feet and leaves. I want to pull him back, to hold onto this moment, but it’s too late. He’s gone, leaving me far hungrier for him than I am food. So much so that I twist around to watch him walk under an archway I’ve not even noticed until now, disappearing into the presumed kitchen.
I grab my clothes and start dressing. It’s not until they’re back in place that my phone rings again, and I remember that I missed a call. I squat down to pick it up from the floor where it’s somehow landed, and it stops ringing. There are ten missed calls on my call log, but one stands out, a number I know. It’s one of the backlines at Waters’ Yacht and Boat. York is calling me again, and obviously, while I can block the main office, there are dozens of backlines he can use through his switchboard. He’s not going to stop coming at me, and I get it. He doesn’t want me to tell his Aunt Marion’s husband about Marion and my father, because Marion’s husband is his investor, but this just feels off. It feels like there’s something more going on here that I don’t understand. The unpredictable nature of his stalkerish behavior has me feeling the pressure to tell Jax my history, or York’s made-up version of my history. I’m just not ready. It’s too soon.
Too soon?
Who am I kidding? We just met, and we’re talking about moving in together. I can’t move in with him and call it too soon to tell him my secrets, but unbidden, I flashback to the yacht, the water, the darkness: that night and I swallow hard. It is too soon. I’m not ready. I’m not sure he’s ready either, and fast isn’t so fas
t anyway. I’m leaving for Germany for a month, and we can’t plan a move until I return. Maybe that will be enough time to get York to back off. Still, I need to talk to Jax about York’s persistence, so I hurry toward the archway where Jax disappeared.
I enter the sparkling white kitchen with stone and wood accents and a giant island as the centerpiece. Jax is at the opposite end, talking on the phone, a dozen eggs and a bowl in front of him, his hair a rumpled, sexy mess while the shadow on his jaw is somehow daring and rather naughty. Or maybe that’s just me thinking about it scraping my belly sometime soon.
He glances up at my entry, his eyes warming as I step opposite him, leaving the island between us. “I’ll call you back,” he says, disconnecting the line and setting his phone aside; his hands come down on the island, his attention all mine. “How long is your trip to Germany?”
I blanch with the incredible way his mind has gone where mine has gone. I set my phone on the island and York aside with it, for now, mimicking Jax’s position, hands on the stone, my attention all his. “You read my mind. I was thinking of the trip, too.”
“Great minds think alike,” he says giving me a wink.
“I guess they do,” I say. “And the answer is a month. I can’t miss this trip. This new property is a big investment, and I’m the one who makes sure we turn that money.”
“Then why don’t I go with you?”
I don’t even hesitate. “Yes. I’d like that, but what about your own work?”
“Can you put the trip off a week and let me make arrangements to work remotely?”
“You don’t have to do this, Jax.”
“I want to do this. And when we get back, I’m hoping you’re ready to say yes to coming here, to living here with me.”
“You know my hesitation isn’t about you, don’t you?”
“I know it’s about a lot of things we’ll work through while we’re in Germany.”
He rounds the island, and I turn to meet him, his hands settling on my hips. “I know I moved fast. Now, I’m slowing it down.”
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