by Jaycee Clark
She shrugged. “T.J. wanted tonight to be special. You think I own lots of garters? I needed some damn help here.”
He laughed.
Her brows rose. “Arrogance is not a virtue.”
“So I’ve been told. What would you have done with all these if I hadn’t let you have your way with me?” he asked.
“Let them gut out and try again tomorrow,” she told him on a smile and throaty chuckle.
“Contrary and persistent. You’re starting to sound like a CEO.”
Another throaty chuckle answered him. “Persistence. You have that too? My, what qualities.”
“You haven’t seen my best yet.” He sat her on the bed. “Now it’s my way.” Aiden bent down, teased her with his mouth, kissed her until they were both gasping for breath. Her hands were as busy on him as his were on her.
They both laughed and tangled again. Jessie might be small, might appear composed, but she was consuming him. Her skin, smooth and soft, so pale he could see the blue of her veins, glowed in the candlelight. This time he would go slowly, notice those small details. Her tongue darted across his, promising, teasing, then demanding.
Two could play this game. He grabbed her to him and rolled across the bed, pinning her beneath his weight. His hands skimmed up and along her ribs, ran the undersides of her breasts, trailed along the sides. She was as soft as silk beneath his fingers. Her nipples were puckered, a soft pink against the paleness of her breasts. He ran his fingers around them, circling, circling . . .
She arched against him.
Jesslyn was lost in the feelings flooding her. Aiden’s chest was wide, sculpted, and tan. The dark hair spread, tapering down to a trail. She wanted to feel all of him against all of her. Touch to touch, body to body. His lips and tongue were robbing her of any thought. Those long fingers of his, strong and deft, played along the top curve of her breasts. Teasing, taunting.
She watched him as he watched her. He traced one finger, dark against her breast, around and around. Then lowered his head, the candlelight glinting off his black locks like sun on a raven’s wing. His lips covered hers and Jesslyn gasped as his chest met hers. Aiden was hardened planes and angles.
As flesh met flesh, Jesslyn’s hunger grew. She could feel him hard and ready against her leg. His hands were magical. Aiden kissed her throat, her neck, suckled at the hollow of her collarbone. Her fingers speared through his hair. Soft was all she could think. Then, he lowered his head to her breasts and she couldn’t think at all. A moan strangled from her throat. His mouth, warm and wet, made her forget her own name, and sparked a pull deep within her. His teeth grazed the tender skin of her breast, scraping against her nipple before he suckled her hard. She gasped and arched again. He kept up the torture, then turned his attention to the other breast.
Again his tongue and teeth had her moaning.
He continued his journey. Kissing every inch of her. His mouth blazed a trail down to the very center of her. His hands spread down each thigh, squeezing, kneading. He ran his thumbs back up the soft insides of her legs. Jesslyn trembled. His thumbs grazed over her, probed. Grinning wickedly, he leaned down and whispered against her.
“Over.” He spread her lips with his thumbs, and mumbled again, “And over . . .” He licked her.
She shivered. “Aiden.”
“And over.” His cool thumb ran the length of her womanhood just before he laved her with his warm tongue.
The contrast arced through her. When his tongue darted out and flicked against her tiny bundle of nerves, she would have leapt off the bed, but he anchored her with his hands at her hips. She tossed her head from side to side. Wanting more, wanting him to stop, dying if he did. He pulled her clitoris between his teeth just as his finger entered her.
Jesslyn screamed.
His hands and mouth sharpened every nerve ending in her body. Jesslyn couldn’t think, could only feel, only accept. His fingers trailed a path of fire along their course.
“Aiden.”
The way she gasped his name almost made him forget he wanted to go slowly, to savor, to cherish. He wanted to love her, watch her, taste her. Taste more of her. Salt and honey. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and she was his. He worried he might have hurt her earlier downstairs, not taking time to ease her, but she clasped his head, surging up to kiss him.
Now was all that mattered. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Now. Here. Them. Those tiny sounds in the back of her throat fed the fire blazing through his system. His fingers still moved in her, hot and slick. She shuddered beneath him. He had never felt like this. A flame licked through his veins. A need roared through him, clawing to be appeased. Her small hand reached down and clasped him, her fingers cool around his erection.
Aiden groaned.
“Jessie, girl.” He broke their kiss and she fell back against the bed. “I can’t wait,” he hoarsely whispered, his forehead against hers.
“God, I hope not.” Her eyes were dark, clouded with passion.
He reared over her, never took his eyes off hers. “Look at me. Only me.”
“Only you.” Her hands cupped his face.
His hands skimmed up her rib cage, over the undersides of her arms, stretching them above her head. Their fingers linked. One thrust and he was gloved in heat. Perfection.
“Only you,” she repeated as he began to move.
And he was lost. When he saw her eyes darken, felt her tighten around him, he let go and tumbled with her over the peak.
They both lay breathless. Jessie’s heart pounded against his, the only sign they still lived. He must be crushing her into the mattress.
“When I know I’m alive, I’ll move,” he mumbled into her hair. The fruity smell assailed his senses.
She wrapped her arms around him and rubbed the back of his calves with her feet. He was surprised at his reaction to that.
“No, stay still just for a minute.” Her warm soft words teased his ear.
Aiden balanced up on his elbows and looked down at her. God she was beautiful. “I’ll crush you,” he said, made to move.
“You weren’t worried about that earlier.” Her grip on him tightened
He narrowed his gaze at her. Her cheeks were no longer pale, but blushed. Those warm lips of hers were rosy and slightly swollen from his kisses. And all that glorious hair spread about around her. Aiden smiled. “No, I had other things on my mind.”
“Is that what I was on?” she sassed with a cocky grin.
Aiden rolled, pulling her with him so they were still joined with her astride him. “You are now.”
A slow catlike smile spread as she leaned forward. Her hair tickled across his chest, curtained around them as she leaned down and whispered against his lips, “So I am.”
• • •
Jesslyn lathered her hair, singing one of the songs from earlier in the evening. It was well after midnight, and Aiden had taken off downstairs to get them food. She was starving. She was exhausted. She was exhilarated. The hot water from the shower steamed up around her. For the first time in a long, long time, she was happy. Content. Humming, she sluiced the water and shampoo away.
She hummed a song, forgetting the words.
“What are you singing?” asked a deep voice. Jesslyn started, opened her eyes to see Aiden step in with her. Then her eyes started stinging.
“Ow. Dammit! I know we’ve had this discussion before.” She turned around to let the water hit in her face, rubbing at her eyes.
Aiden’s arms wrapped around her, his hands moving up to cradle her breasts. His teeth skimmed her ear, the side of her neck, sent shivers down her, a contrast to the heated water hitting her.
“What’s that?” he murmured
“Huh?” God, she couldn’t think when he was nibbling on her ear. Hell, when she was anywhere near him, let alone when he was with her, naked, heated and wet.
“What have we talked about?” he whispered. His tongue trailed the edge of her ear.
Jesslyn si
ghed, shuddered. Oh, yes. “You—You sneaking up on me.”
“Hmm.” He nuzzled her neck, his hands lathered in the bar of soap.
Jesslyn turned around to face him. Had God created a more gorgeous man? A perfectly muscled torso, washboard abs. She liked those abs. Wanted to do all sorts of things to them. Like maybe lick every perfectly outlined muscle . . .
“I was about to get out,” she told him on a sigh.
“Not yet.” His hair was wet, and the water ran over his perfectly sculpted body. The promise in his eyes turned her insides to liquid.
Tiles cooled her back. Water sprayed on them. Steam rose, wrapped them together. Jesslyn pulled on her bottom lip, slowly let her gaze travel from his eyes, to his toes and back up.
“No, maybe not yet,” she whispered.
Aiden’s eyes watched her as he set the soap aside.
Jesslyn took her eyes off his mouth and looked at his sud-lathered hands.
“What’s this?” he asked, tracing a line on her lower abdomen.
She didn’t need to look to see what he was pointing to. Her scar. The cesarean scar from when they’d taken Holden from her after the accident.
Taking a deep breath, she only said, “A scar.”
Then she reached for his hands and took some of the suds from his onto hers.
His gaze narrowed as he studied her face, but then he shrugged and said, “I thought I’d wash your back.” His slick hands moved over her, down her. “Then you could wash mine.”
She never took her eyes off of his, even when his hands began their onslaught on her body. Water ran down his taut muscles in wavering rivulets. Suds lathered on her breasts, dripped off her nipples as he brought them to peaks, caressing, sliding his fingers on her.
Stretching, she found the soap, slathered her own hands, even as her breath hitched.
His eyes never left her as his hands moved downward, further, further.
Those long fingers found her, parted her, pierced her. On a sigh, she leaned back, the soap slipped from her fingers, clattered with a dull thud against the floor. She put her hands on his chest, swirled the pattern of soap into his dark hair. A low moan bounced in the echoing confines of the shower. Was it hers? His? Did it matter?
“That’s not my back,” she said. There was his heart-stopping smile. Her hands raced down his body, wrapped around him. She cradled him in her hands, moved her slick, lathered hands over him. Then she dropped to her knees in front of him. The water sluiced over her. She looked up at him through her lashes and leaned in, taking him in her mouth.
Aiden’s breath caught, held. His cobalt eyes darkened, bore into hers.
His deep husky voice answered, “And that’s not mine.”
• • •
Jesslyn stood by a fog-shrouded lake. The water lapped in the cold wind, churning and boiling. Mists rolled around her feet, tangling the ground beneath her.
“Mommy, be careful.” Hannah’s voice, whispered around her.
Where was her daughter? Lightning flashed a jagged streak across the blackened sky. “Hannah?”
“Mommy, be careful.”
Thunder rumbled through the mountains, ricocheting and vibrating around her.
Something charged the air, tension so thick it was palpable. On the hill sat a car. Was someone in the white vehicle? Rain began to fall, blurring Jesslyn’s vision.
Then she stood beside the car, looked down the hill to a Jeep by the water’s edge. What was she doing up here?
A whisper of something close to her. Dark, dangerous murmurs growled in the air. A chill stole over her.
“Mommy, noooooooo.” Hannah’s voice faded into the moaning wind that pulled at her hair like angry claws. Jesslyn leaned down and peered into the window.
Hair, crystals and beads, cascaded in one long woven wave against the woman’s left side and back. The woman wasn’t moving. Nothing moved or stirred, yet Jesslyn could feel the air all but breathe around her. Waiting . . . waiting . . .
Goose bumps rose on her arms.
She should go back to the Jeep. But what if something was wrong with the woman and Jesslyn could help her? On a sigh, she opened the door. The woman still didn’t move. Jesslyn tried to shake her.
The woman started to fall out of the car, and Jesslyn instinctively tried to catch her. Wet. The woman was wet. Jesslyn shoved the woman back into the seat, her head lolled to the side. Dull green eyes stared sightlessly back at her. Jesslyn stumbled, a cry locked in her throat.
Lightning flashed. The air around her pulsed. She looked down. The wide silver band of her watch caught the bright light. Red. Blood.
Her palm was covered in blood. Rain began to fall, fat, large drops crying from the heavens like tears, splattering in her palm, washing the crimson stains away.
“Mommy, hurry. Hurry. Run!” Hannah’s voice.
Jesslyn looked around. The darkness was impenetrable, but alive. She skidded and slid down the hill. The more she tried to hurry, the slower she went. The coppery smell of blood surrounded her. Fog caught her heels, held her when she tried to flee.
“Please,” she begged, pulling, hurrying, terrified.
She heard a growl, low and feral. The sound children fear from under their beds. The sound of monsters.
Moving, Jesslyn finally managed to reach the Jeep. Slowly, so slowly as though the fog swirling at her feet held her in its clutches.
She hopped into the Jeep as lightning flashed. Thunder crashed around her, shook the air, and ripped it apart.
In the Jeep. Safe in the Jeep. Jesslyn was shaking. Terror tore at her as fiercely as the monster stalking her. Then she heard the noise. Right behind her.
“MOMMY!”
The blackness swirled around her. Pulled her in different directions. Grays, bright whites, deep crimson reds. Cold. It was so cold.
She couldn’t see. Noises. Humming. Something or someone was humming a familiar tune. White against her eyes. Then the reverberation of thunder tumbled down the mountainsides.
The choppy sound of lapping water filtered through. Cold, she was so cold.
Movement. Floating. Sinking. Why couldn’t she see? Where was she? Where was Hannah?
“Mommy. Wake up. Wake up. You have to hurry. Hurry. Time’s running out.”
The cold got worse. It froze half of her. Where was she? Jesslyn focused on what was around her.
A boat? No a dashboard, but water was everywhere. Rising. Quickly rising.
Like a lover’s hand, the water caressed her face. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. Her lungs burned.
Freezing. It was so damn cold she couldn’t feel her feet, or her hands.
Lightning flashed above her, far, far above her. Swirling around. Why couldn’t she breathe?
Underwater.
“Mommy hurry, hurry. There’s not much time. Harder. Don’t give up.”
Too far. It was too far. Something pulled at her.
Then the cold murky water gushed unmercifully into her lungs.
• • •
A choking sound woke him. He sat up. Jesslyn.
She moaned and pushed against the air. Strange gurgling sounds came from her throat as she thrashed about in the tangled covers. Just as he reached down to take her arms, she sat up gasping for breath.
“No!” she all but screamed out, trying to throw him off.
“Easy, honey. Easy.” Aiden wrapped her in his arms. “Come on, now. Come back.”
Her chest moved in hard fast pants. She was freezing and trembling.
Cold fingers curled against his bare chest. He rubbed his hands up and down her back trying to calm her down.
“Jessie. Jessie, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe, here with me. Come on, talk to me. What did you dream?” he whispered against the top of her tousled hair.
She clung onto him as though he were her lifeline. The trembling was so bad he wondered if her bones would snap.
“I couldn’t breathe.” She panted against his chest, her br
eath warm. “The surface was so far away. I knew I couldn’t make it. The water was so cold, so cold.” Her jagged whisper was so soft, Aiden strained to hear. “I didn’t get away from him. The fog wouldn’t let me get away.”
Fog? Water? “Wouldn’t let you get away from whom?” he asked her.
“The monster. The killer. He was there and I couldn’t get away. Behind me. Then the lake. I couldn’t get to the top. The water just came gushing in. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. Hannah kept telling me to hurry.” She shuddered against him, tightening back up almost into a ball in his lap.
“Shhh. Shhh. You’re safe. It was just a dream.” He rocked her, tried to comfort her even as her words sent a chill down his spine. No wonder the dream scared the hell out of her.
Aiden continued to rub her back. When the trembling finally calmed to occasional shudders, he pulled her back and looked into her haunted eyes.
“Hey,” he said, cupping her face in his palms. “I’m not about to let anything happen to you. It wasn’t real.”
“But, I’ve dreamt it before.” Her brows furrowed in thought. “Three times now, or maybe four. It’s hard to remember. I’ve never dreamt about the drowning part though.” Her face was pale, and her hands, where they came up to grab his wrists, were still chilled.
“A nightmare, that’s all. It wasn’t real.” He stared into her eyes, willed her to believe him.
“But it seemed so real, Aiden. I could smell the burnt smell that charges the air behind the lightning. Her blood, that metallic scent of her blood when she fell out of her white car. And I could feel him. I swear I could feel him right there beside me.” Terror flashed in her eyes and a shudder wracked her body. “And lilies, I could smell those damn lilies.” He pulled her back to him.
“With everything that’s been going on, it’s no wonder you’d have a nightmare.” Aiden knew what he said was true, but he had a funny anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Forget about it. Okay?” He pulled back and gave her his no-nonsense look.
“That’s easier said than done.” She tried to smile.