by Maisey Yates
He wasn’t going to ask, though she knew exactly what he was wondering.
If anyone had ever done this for her. What he was about to do.
Part of her wanted to stop him. For the same reasons she had been horrified by her own signs of arousal earlier. Because what he was clearly getting ready to do was so intimate, so raw, that it terrified her. Just the idea of it.
And no, no one had ever done it to her.
But neither of them said anything, and he kissed her inner thigh, the scrape of his beard on that delicate skin sending an erotic shiver through her body.
She could tell him to stop. But as he kissed and licked a path to the most intimate part of her, she could only wait. Wait and anticipate.
She didn’t know what kind of magic he had worked on her body, only that it was very real. And that she was under his spell.
He pressed his hand against her intimate flesh, spreading her open and sliding his thumb over that sensitized bundle of nerves there a few more times, bringing her back to her body. Bringing her back to that state of need that superseded everything else. Then he leaned forward, replacing his thumb with his tongue, tracing shapes, drawing the most intense pleasure from her that she’d ever experienced.
It was so sharp it almost hurt, that slick glide of his tongue over her clit. She was bucking her hips in time with his mouth, unable to worry about embarrassment, unable to care what it said about her. What it betrayed about her desire for him.
She could only feel. His every lick, his every kiss, the welcome invasion when he pressed two fingers inside of her and worked them in and out of her body in time with the rhythm of his tongue.
He lifted his head, just for a moment, his eyes burning into hers. “Good girl,” he said, before lowering his head and sucking her clit into his mouth as he spread his fingers inside of her wide. She hadn’t felt it building. Not really. It had been an ache, something sharp and fiery. She hadn’t realized the explosion was coming.
It was hard and intense, lightning behind her eyes as her internal muscles clenched tightly around him, a wave pulsing through her body. It went on and on. She didn’t know if it would ever end, and she didn’t know if she could survive it. The pleasure felt like it might break her apart from the inside out. Deep inside, where she had never been touched before. And he didn’t stop, his fingers drawing out deeper, harder responses while she shivered and cried out, her cheeks wet with tears. Then he moved away from her, leaning over and opening up a drawer by the bedside, taking out a small plastic packet and tearing it open quickly. He rolled the condom over his length and returned to her.
She was boneless. Spent, her mind reeling with what had just happened. Her body still trembling with the aftereffects. She couldn’t handle more. She couldn’t. But she couldn’t find the voice to say it, and much like right before he had placed his mouth on her, she wanted to push herself. Dare herself.
She didn’t want to allow herself to be the one that stopped what was happening.
He had said that she could trust him. So she was going to. He positioned himself between her thighs, that thick, blunt head teasing her entrance.
She was so wet, more than ready for him. She looked up at him, at that beautiful face, so acutely aware of the fact that it was Jackson slipping inside of her now. He felt different. Every inch of him. From that hard, muscular chest pressed to her breasts, to those big, rough workmen’s hands. To that thick, glorious cock that made her feel so full it took her breath away.
He flexed his hips forward, hard, and she gasped as his pelvis made contact with her clit again. She had never felt it like this when Darren was inside of her. Had never felt stimulation there before. It was something about the way Jackson moved, or the way he had so thoroughly aroused her before. The way he had already brought her to completion. She was sensitive. So sensitive. She could barely stand any more stimulation.
He kept moving, and each thrust deep inside of her found some glorious place deep in there, sparking need against those nerves.
She felt like she would die of it. Another orgasm built from somewhere deeper inside her this time.
And she recognized it. What that ache was. That need that verged on pain.
She didn’t fight it. She chased after it. Suddenly she was desperate. For more. For everything. She wrapped her legs around his waist, trying to take him deeper as he whispered filthy things in her ear. Working her hips in time with his as he claimed her, over and over again. As he seemed to lose his control, his movements becoming fractured and uneven, harder.
Harder.
She realized she was saying that out loud. Making demands of her own.
And he obliged.
He slammed his mouth against hers, his tongue going deep as he froze above her, his hardness pulsing inside of her as his muscles shook, trembled. It was his own release, and the realization that he was in the grips of an orgasm as powerful as the one she’d had earlier pushed her over the edge again.
Her internal muscles gripped him tight, pulled him deeper, drew out their pleasure longer. Impossibly so. She clung to him. Held on to him until her breathing slowed. Until her heart rate returned to normal.
And she realized she had made a huge mistake.
Sleeping with a man she was living with. A man she couldn’t get away from. A man whose baby she was taking care of. A man who paid her wages.
She also didn’t care. She couldn’t.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
He kissed her forehead, pulling her against his chest. “Now you do.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
JACKSON WASN’T SURE what woke him up. He had been sleeping better than he could remember sleeping in months, and suddenly he wasn’t. His bed felt empty, and for a moment he couldn’t figure out why that was notable. Not when it had been empty since Lily had come into his life. And then he remembered.
Savannah.
He had taken Savannah to bed last night.
Thoroughly.
And while part of him wanted to give himself a pat on the back for rocking her world the way that he had, because damn, she’d been shaking and crying in his arms, she’d come so hard, another part of him knew that he didn’t deserve to feel proud of what he’d done.
But then, he didn’t feel proud of much. He wasn’t sure why suddenly that was a requirement. She hadn’t stayed in bed, and that did concern him. It made him wonder if maybe she was feeling...regretful, or something.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t had his share of sexual encounters that had some regrets in the end. Tipsy hookups ended that way a lot. On both sides, frankly. But...he cared. Because hookups that ended in regret weren’t something Savannah normally did. And he didn’t want her to feel any regret over what they’d done. Mostly because he wanted her to be able to enjoy the fact that it had felt good.
Is that why?
What other reason could there be?
He got out of bed and put his jeans on with nothing underneath, zipping them and walking out into the main part of the house. It was quiet, and then he noticed that there was a small shaft of light coming from under Lily’s bedroom door. He walked that way, and pushed it open.
Savannah was there, dressed in a simple pair of gray thermal pajamas, cradling Lily to her chest, rocking in the chair and rubbing his daughter’s back as she hummed.
Her voice was sweet sounding, soothing.
It reached down inside of him and made him feel like she had grabbed hold of his heart. Like she was cupping it in her palm, and could decide whether or not she was going to squeeze it, twist it or destroy it completely. On her whim.
At the same time, she was holding his daughter in her arms, an extension of that feeling. That she had his heart in her hands. But she was gentle, the look on her face serene.
“Hi,” he said, his voice rough.
She looked u
p, her green eyes wide. “Did she wake you?”
“No,” he said. “The fact that you weren’t in bed did.”
“Lily started crying, and I realized we forgot to bring the monitor in. I could hear her through the walls.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t hear her at all.”
“I wasn’t... I wasn’t sleeping,” she admitted.
“Are you all right?”
Her smile turned dreamy. “I’m fine.”
It was hard to breathe all of a sudden. “I was worried that you were upset,” he said heavily.
“No,” she said. “I was just... It’s silly.”
He walked farther into the room and stood in front of her, leaning back against Lily’s crib. “I’m here for silly.”
“Are you?”
“It would be a pretty dick move if I was here for sex and nudity but wasn’t here for silly.”
Savannah looked down at Lily, her expression concerned. “I...”
“She doesn’t understand,” Jackson said.
“I don’t know,” Savannah replied. “This could be an early repressed childhood memory situation.”
He chuckled. “I’d make a joke about how she needs something to tell her therapist, but sadly, I have a feeling she’s actually going to have a lot of things to tell a therapist.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Savannah said softly.
“Why weren’t you sleeping?”
“I didn’t want to sleep, because I was afraid that it was a dream. I spent so long feeling like there was something wrong with me. And I just had to let go of the idea that I was a woman who didn’t enjoy sex. Sometimes it was okay, and sometimes it wasn’t. But most especially when it caused problems in my marriage... I just felt like a failure. This clarified a lot for me. An orgasm, of all things.”
“Two,” he said.
She laughed softly. “Two. But...what happened to me with Darren was a lot more him than I realized. I think I came into our marriage with more baggage and more fears than I thought. And I think that he exploited that, used the places where I was naive and afraid, to create a life where he never had to be the bad guy.”
She shifted, adjusting the blanket over Lily. “He managed to have an affair and still make it my fault. I accepted it to a degree because of how I felt about myself at that point. And now... I just don’t. I’m mad at him. And he deserves it. But I’m also relieved. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me, Jackson,” she said, meeting his gaze, the words making his chest feel too tight. “And I can honestly say it’s been years since I thought that. Since I thought I wasn’t broken.”
“Definitely not broken,” he said roughly.
“Do you know why I was such an easy target for Darren?”
“Why?” he asked.
“This goes back to why I think Lily might not be as messed up as you think.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously.
“I didn’t have parents in my life who built me up. If it weren’t for my teachers I wouldn’t have had any affirmation. My parents were too busy screaming at each other. Too busy fighting and reveling in their own unhappiness to care much about me. That isn’t true with you, Jackson. I know that Lily’s mother abandoned her. But you changed your entire life to give her a home. To be her father.”
“I don’t deserve any kind of medal for that,” he said. “It’s just what a man should do.”
“But my point is men don’t. And women don’t. People can’t get past themselves to give to others. Not my parents. Not my ex-husband. But you are doing it. For her. And tonight you gave me something, too.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t like you thinking of it that way.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not a vibrator and it wasn’t a charity orgasm. I didn’t have sex with you just to make you feel good.”
She looked down at Lily and kissed the top of her head, and the simple action tilted his world over on its head. Then she slowly put Lily down in the crib. Silently, she walked over to him and took his hand. He grabbed hold of her and pulled her up against him, her other hand splayed over his bare chest. “I really, really liked fucking you,” he said, making sure her eyes stayed trained on his. “And I want to do it again as soon as I possibly can.”
She shivered in his arms. “I think...now is as good a time as any,” she said, looking up at him, her expression hopeful.
For just one moment he had the thought that this was a mistake. In this small, cozy house, where his daughter was sleeping in the other room, it was a mistake. This little place that was built for families, where it would be so tempting to...
To imagine that something was happening here when it absolutely wasn’t, and most definitely couldn’t.
But then her fingertips trailed over his chest, and she stood up on her tiptoes, bringing her mouth scant inches from his. Whatever caution he’d been about to exhibit evaporated. All that was left was need. So he closed that distance and he kissed her. All the concern and all the thinking better could wait until another day. Right now, he just wanted Savannah. Back in his arms. Back in his bed.
And he wasn’t going to let himself wonder why.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“YOUR SISTER TEXTED me to ask if we wanted to come over for dinner tonight. To the main house.”
“Stepsister,” he commented.
“Sorry. Does it matter?”
Jackson frowned. “Not to me.”
“But to someone it does?” she pressed.
“I get the feeling it matters to Tanner,” Jackson answered, “though, I don’t know exactly why.” He knew how Chloe felt about Tanner. It was obvious to anyone with eyes. But Tanner would never, ever reciprocate the feelings. But even so, there was a definite difference in the way Tanner treated Chloe versus the way Calder and Jackson did. He was meaner and less patient with her, for a start.
Though that didn’t seem to dent Chloe’s hero worship. Not at all.
“I don’t have to go,” she said. “If it makes you uncomfortable.”
He frowned. “Why would it make me uncomfortable for you to come?”
Her lips twitched. “Well, I think we both know it doesn’t make you uncomfortable when I come.”
He couldn’t help but smile at that. She’d changed a lot in the weeks since they’d been together, in the weeks since she’d been here. She was more confident, in bed and out. And he liked it more than he should. “True enough. But I meant to dinner.”
“Just... Boundaries.”
“We’re not doing the best job with boundaries,” he said. “But I don’t really mind.”
“I assume that you’d like it if your family didn’t realize just how badly we were doing with boundaries?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“Then we won’t tell them.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“If you think I’m going to get a dirty secret complex, you’re talking to the wrong girl. I already know what it’s like to have half a town involved in my relationship. I’m not saying that this is a relationship. It’s just... I don’t have any interest in having a whole ton of people commenting on us and what we’re doing. Doesn’t appeal to me at all.”
He shook his head. “Me neither.”
But he couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty about it. He never brought women he was sleeping with around his family, so he didn’t know quite how to handle the politics of it.
He, Savannah and Lily had set up a little isolated hideaway of sorts, on his corner of the ranch. They did venture out, sometimes taking afternoons to go to some of the local farms with petting zoos. A pumpkin patch to get Lily’s first pumpkin, even though he knew she wouldn’t remember it.
And then there was what they did at night.
That was just for them
.
It was much simpler, and less political, if they simply didn’t know. There was no reason for them to know.
But it gave him an even stronger sense that he might be taking advantage of Savannah in some way.
Though she had made it abundantly clear she didn’t feel that way. Still. “Do you have any work to do before dinner?”
“Yeah. A bit.”
“I’ll see you then.” She hesitated, and then stretched up on her toes, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “Since I won’t be able to do that later.”
That kiss burned. And it kept burning all through the rest of the day until it was time to pick Savannah and Lily up from the cabin and take them to the main house.
When he saw Savannah standing on the porch, her blond hair blowing in the early-evening breeze, wearing a floaty, flowered dress and a pair of leggings, his heart honest-to-God stuttered. She was holding Lily on her hip, his baby girl clinging to Savannah’s dress like Savannah herself was a lifeline.
She felt like it just then. To him, too.
In the time since she’d been here, his life had changed. Again. He expected to see her in the house when he got in from work. Warm and waiting, with a kiss. Dinner sometimes, but the kiss was what mattered. He was used to seeing her car, a little Camry he’d helped her choose, in the driveway.
He was used to her.
He parked his truck and got out, walked up to the porch. Lily flapped her arms and rocked back and forth, making a series of cooing sounds as she tried to launch her body toward his. Shock, and another feeling, deep and painful, overwhelmed him as he reached out his arms and took hold of his baby girl.
“She knows her daddy,” Savannah said, smiling.
“I guess so,” he said, damn near flabbergasted by the whole thing. Babies were weird. You could mark the passage of time with them. In the months since Lily had been with him, she had changed so much. And in the months since Savannah had been with them, Lily had changed even more. She was making sounds and moving more, kicking her feet, rolling onto her stomach. He had lived a long, steady life of bachelorhood where very little had changed. He lost his father, and that had been devastating. In his experience, change was usually bad. But Lily had brought a series of changes to his life, each one kind of miraculous.