Drive

by Stephanie Fournet

  Rainey had no comeback for this.

  “You’re mad as hell at your dad, but it’s clear you still love him,” Jacques said gently. “I know all about that.”

  Rainey blinked. “You said he doesn’t deserve it. Does that mean you think I shouldn’t love him?” she asked, fearing the answer even as she did.

  Jacques shook his head. “No. That’s not my call. But I do think it means you have a heart as big as the sky, and the people who get to stand underneath it are damn lucky.”

  She couldn’t help her smile. “That sounds like a song.”

  He shrugged innocently. “It might be. One day.”

  Rainey wriggled her wrists, still trapped in his hands. “Can I have these back now?”

  Jacques pursed his lips and assessed her arms. “I don’t know. I kind of like keeping you prisoner like this.”

  She wasn’t ready to admit it aloud, but she liked it too. It kept him close, but Rainey wanted to touch him.

  She shifted beneath him and hooked her left leg behind his right, drawing her bare heel along the inside of his knee. As soon as she did, Jacques stilled and his teasing gaze sharpened. He entwined his fingers with those of her left hand before releasing her right. And free to explore, it traveled back down to the hem of his T-shirt, finding again the smooth plane of skin over the firm muscles of his back.

  “Do you know why you like me?” he purred.

  The ridiculous question made her giggle, but it didn’t stop the journey of her hand up his spine. “I’d be a fool not to like you.”

  He pressed his lips to the space just below her left ear. “That’s not why you like me,” he said, full of confidence.

  She spread her fingers, spanning the valley of muscles between his shoulder blades. The terrain was fluid beneath her fingers as he moved his free hand down the length of her arm until his touch landed on her waist.

  “Oh?” she managed, though her mind wasn’t completely tuned in to the conversation. “It’s not?”

  Against her curls, Jacques shook his head. “You like me because I’m really good at finding B&B’s.” He punctuated his sentence by capturing her earlobe with his teeth.

  Rainey sucked in a breath. “That’s not…” But the words that formed her protest seemed to float out of her head like soap bubbles, the sensation of the tip of his tongue tracing her ear washing her mind clean.

  “And you like that I carry a first-aid kit on road trips.” He was trying to make her laugh, and it was working, but when she laughed, the sound came from deep in her throat, a husky purr she didn’t recognize. The hand at her waist moved lower until it stroked the length of her thigh, still hidden under the bathrobe.

  “And you like that I’m the one man in an all-girl band.” This time she shook him with her laugh. “Oh, and that I live with my grandfather.”

  “Stop,” she begged. “You shouldn’t be teasing when I’m trying to show you how I feel.” Too late, Rainey clamped her mouth shut. Jacques pulled up to stare down at her, his eyes alert.

  He didn’t say a word. He just gazed down at her with sharp attention. His focus, so unrelenting and seemingly endless, made all the nerves in her body roll up in her stomach like a ball of yarn.

  “How do you feel?” he asked finally.

  Rainey bit her lip. He was the one who could open his mouth and spout song lyrics. She couldn’t compete with that. If Rainey could write a song for him, she’d pour her beating heart into it, but she had about as much a chance of that as she did staying afloat in the ocean with her hands and feet bound in chains.

  She brought her free hand between them and pressed hard against his shoulder, lifting her hips. Jacques took her cue and rolled off her, but before he could make another move, Rainey followed and climbed astride him. Mimicking his actions, she took both of his hands and pinned them to the bed beside his head.

  Heat flared in his eyes, but Jacques remained silent.

  With her movement, Rainey knew that the robe had separated beneath her, so when she shifted down, she settled bare onto the crotch of his jeans. The proof of his arousal and sensation of rough denim along her soft flesh made her shiver. It wasn’t enough, though, to surpass the splendor of having him beneath her.

  Hours before, Jacques had lit her ablaze, taking her places with his hands and mouth that she’d almost forgotten existed. He’d made her feel desired and desirable. Beautiful. Needed. Now, with his whole being beneath her and a night that stretched out before her, Rainey wanted to do the same for him.

  She fisted his T-shirt and hauled it up over his head. Of course, Jacques had to be a willing participant for this task, and thankfully he was. Neither of them spoke now, but his quickened breath communicated everything.

  Spreading her fingers, Rainey placed them lightly on his bare chest, and for the first time, she felt Jacques shiver. And it filled her with immense pride. He brought his hands up to her face, and Rainey caught them, shaking her head.

  “No, keep still,” she whispered. “I’m showing you, remember?”

  Locking eyes with hers, he allowed her to lay his arms back down on the mattress before he blinked and gave her a hooded gaze.

  “Oh, my God,” Jacques murmured when she ran her fingertips down his torso, just grazing him with her touch. Rainey reveled in touching him, and she feasted her eyes on his male beauty. With the tips of her fingers, she traced the seam between each muscle in his shoulders and down his arms — and there were many. She watched as her hands skated back to his chest and a crop of chills peppered his skin. When she let her ring fingers outline his tight nipples in synchronous circles, Jacques hissed in a sharp breath, closing his eyes with an expression of near agony.

  The sight of him sent ripples through her middle. Watching him come apart in ecstasy would be like a sacred rite. Rainey wanted to give that to him as much as she wanted to claim it as her own. She knew it didn’t make any logical sense, but Rainey could not help but feel that if she gave him that bliss, she’d be able to keep it as well. She’d have that moment of beauty that would belong to her. And no matter what happened, no matter when Jacques’s music took him, nothing could take the moment away. Memorizing his perfect form with her eyes and fingers, Rainey knew that claiming him — even just once — would give her heart and memories a treasure to hold that was far sweeter than regret.

  But as she sat atop him, the impulse that drove her wasn’t the one that focused on taking, but the one centered on giving. From the moment she’d met him, Jacques had given of himself. She couldn’t think of a time when she’d been with him when he didn’t show her an act of kindness or consideration or treated her with care and concern.

  He was always giving.

  And this time, she wanted him to take what she had to give. She wanted him to know that she was his. For as long as that lasted. Rainey leaned over him and took his mouth, letting her lips tease and taste his before her tongue sought entry.

  But when she gave, he took. He took her kiss with a groan of satisfaction. And Rainey kissed him like she was made for it. For that and nothing else. When his hands lifted to her hair, Rainey shook her head against his mouth. At the silent scolding, he gave a huff of protest, but he dropped his hands, this time tucking them behind his head.

  The position drew her eyes to the sublime splendor of his biceps and the carnal, masculine thatch of hair in his armpits. Kissing his mouth was exquisite. Sacred. Undeniable. But the need to kiss those biceps made her tear her lips from his and move with precision and focus down the side of his jaw, to the muscled slope of his neck, over his broad shoulder and up the inside of his left arm. The skin there was shades lighter than his shoulders or forearms, and as Rainey tasted the flesh, she smiled. Here was a secret even the sun did not know.

  “Rainey…” he rasped, his whole body shuddering beneath her. “My God…”

  She let her tongue stroke once more over the arch of muscle. “Does it tickle?” she whispered.

  His eyes were shut, his brow furrowed
. “Yes… no… it feels…”

  Speechless Jacques was a new phenomenon for her. Inspired, she scooted lower, dragging her lips down the terrain of his arm to the top of his chest. Her hands ran down his sides until they met his jeans. His arousal was unmistakable beneath her. With steady hands, she unbuttoned his fly and snaked his zipper down.

  “Rainey.” His voice held a note of caution, but this was her turn. It was only fair. After all, he’d breached her undies just hours before. She glanced up under her lashes and found him watching her. With the tip of her index finger, she touched the point where the band of his boxer briefs met his skin. His muscles bunched, and his breath tore as she ran her finger low across his abdomen.

  “Rainey.” This time he spoke through gritted teeth, but he kept his hands anchored under his head, his whole body now twitching with what appeared to be barely contained energy. She let her finger make its lazy way back, his struggle mesmerizing. And then — with her heart pounding — she slipped her hand beneath the band, and Jacques’s control broke.

  In a lightning-fast move, he grabbed her wrists. “Enough!”

  Chapter 25

  “Are you with me?” he growled, gripping her wrists as though they were the reins of his control.

  “I’m with you,” she answered, breathless.

  Rainey’s eyes went wide when her back hit the mattress, but heat flared in them as Jacques covered her body with his. She’d pushed him to the edge of his limits, and she hadn’t even touched him. The woman was going to make him lose his mind, his heart, and even more farther south.

  “I need to be inside you.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  In her one, breathy assent, Jacques heard the whole world. And it was a world that belonged to the two of them alone.

  His fingers sunk into her hair, pulling it free so that her locks spilled into his hands. “You are mine,” he confirmed, grinding his hips into her even though his jeans still held them apart.

  “Yes.” Her admission was half-cry, half-sigh, and Jacques thought the beauty of it would slay him. He kissed her deep, worshipping her mouth as one hand tugged down the tie of her robe. When the palm of his right hand ran over the silken skin of her waist, finding nothing separating them beneath her robe, Jacques’s body trembled with need — the need that knows deliverance is in sight.

  Yet as much as he wanted her, as much as he needed to claim her, as much as Jacques longed to find release, his ache to join with Rainey transcended all other desires. He wanted to be as close to her as he could possibly get. He’d kept his distance long enough.

  But when he finally closed that distance, joined with her, and tipped into bliss, he wanted her to be right there with him. Nothing less would do. She might not feel in her heart what he already carried in his, but this was a moment they had to chase down together.

  So, he would have to fight for restraint as he brought her with him — which was maddening now that he pushed her robe open and could take in all of her beauty. She was the muse to conquer all muses. Human and divine. Rainey’s skin, as fair and luminescent as an opal, was an unbroken, creamy perfection, and he longed to taste every last inch.

  Her breasts now bared before him, not trapped under the confines of her clothes as they had been that afternoon, left him helpless. Jacques would have begged to kiss them if he’d been denied the pleasure.

  But no denial emerged from Rainey’s lips, only fretful panting and intoxicating whimpers as he closed his mouth over her right breast and sucked to his content.

  “Oh, Jacques…” Rainey’s hands fisted in his hair again, and this sensation, this claiming, both familiar and new, filled him with gratification. She needed him. She wanted him, and one day, if he were very lucky, she might love him.

  It was new, and it surprised Jacques with a frightening strength, but as he lay above her, desperate to enter her, Jacques Gilchrist knew he loved Rainey Reeves. He loved her for all of the reasons (and countless more) he’d avowed moments ago that he’d liked her, but that had been such a cop-out. The promise of love had made it impossible to let her go, and love, unnamed and unknown, had driven him to take her on this journey. It was love that had possessed him to find a sanctuary for her tonight, and it was love that demanded to be consummated now.

  Jacques was smart enough and — for the moment, anyway — clear-headed enough to know that even though he was ready to admit this truth to himself, Rainey was nowhere near ready to hear it. Her life was in too great a state of turmoil to process that, and if he gave her the burden of his heart and all he felt, Jacques feared that she would run again.

  And he could not let that happen.

  So, for now, he would let his body speak for him. With kisses and caresses, he told her what his mouth could not utter in words. He moved from her right breast to her left, silently vowing his love. And Jacques was relieved to find that he spoke no monologue. Rainey’s heart, insistent and strong, beat hard against his worshipping mouth. Her body squirmed deliciously beneath his. In fits and starts, she pulled him against her, grinding her pelvis into his, driving him nearly out of his head.

  His fingertips grazed down to her smooth, quivering belly and then down again until he found the whisper of hair at the apex of her sex. He growled his pleasure, and Rainey bucked against him when he slipped two fingers inside her. Her soaked flesh gave him a heady surge of pride that mixed with a humbling tenderness.

  This was sacred. Her desire was his holy ground, the place he was meant to worship.

  The knowledge drove him down, and in one move, he’d shifted down her body, spreading her legs. With her knees pressed into his shoulders, Jacques gazed at her pink, glistening shrine.

  “Jacques,” she spoke, a question in her tone.

  He answered with his mouth against her flesh. The taste and scent of her charged him like a live wire. He felt a jolt of desire rocket from the top of his head to the balls of heels. She was beauty. And need. And desire. And fulfillment.

  And love made flesh.

  All for him.

  He heard her call his name, but taste and touch had overthrown all other senses. He was tongue and lips and teeth feasting on pure love. He was hands and fingers cupping her rounded bottom as she trembled in his grasp. He was face and neck, cradled in the valley of her straining thighs.

  But with the third echo of his name, her words drifted through his haze. “Jacques, I… I need you…”

  He would admit to himself later that it took a moment — a rather long moment — for him to understand what this meant. But once he did, Jacques was up like a shot, and it was all he could do to kick out of his jeans and boxers.

  He fell on her again, ecstatic at the sensation of his naked body pressed to hers. Soon, soon he would know what it felt like to be inside her. He pressed the tip of his cock against the searing heat of her.

  Soon—

  Her lips were near his ear. “I’m not on the pill,” she panted.

  Jacques froze. He swallowed and nodded. Condom. He had to find a condom.

  “My wallet,” he muttered, pushing himself off her. Where was his damn wallet?

  “Jacques…” He heard her draw a deep breath as he picked up his jeans. “…please hurry.”

  He nodded again like a man convulsing. The front pockets were empty. The back pockets — curse them — were empty.

  “Damn,” he hissed, dropping the disappointing jeans.

  “Jacques—” Her cry seemed to light each nerve in his body like a fuse. Her eyes were closed, and she wore a small frown on her lovely, flushed face. Where was his fucking wallet?

  And then he spotted his wet jeans in a heap at the foot of the bed. He picked up the sodden garment, groped around until he found the leather rectangle in the back pocket, and yanked it free.

  “It’s been six years,” she whimpered. He felt those words — and the plaintive tone — deep in his core. His fingers prized the condom from his damp wallet, which he let drop to the floor. As he leveraged bac
k onto the bed, he tore open the packet, and then he was there between her legs again. Right where he needed to be.

  Her eyes flew open and held his. “It’s been a lifetime.” The words were just a whisper, but they might as well have been a shout from heaven. Because as she said them, Jacques heard both the words and the sense.

  It had been a lifetime. She had waited a lifetime to be loved. Just as he had.

  Just as he had.

  And in that moment, Jacques knew his purpose.

  He hovered over Rainey, smiling down at her. “For me too.” Jacques brushed his lips against hers. “For me too, love.”

  In one, fluid movement, he thrust inside her to the hilt.

  Rainey’s lips parted. “Oh, God…”

  For the span of four heartbeats, they held perfectly still, their eyes locked on each other. The sweet torture of her body, her heat contracting around him, her thighs pressing into his hips, made him afraid even to move, but the look in her eyes…

  He could have sworn on his life that her eyes spoke the words he so desperately wanted to say.

  Her mouth closed and opened as if she wanted to tell him a sacred truth. And then she closed her eyes with the slightest frown, and before he could press her to speak, she rolled her hips and called his name. “Jacques.”

  And the world tipped off its axis and rolled like a marble down a flight of stairs. His hips obeyed hers like heavenly bodies obey gravity, his motions as precise, as irrefutable as the laws of physics. When she wrapped her legs around him and lifted her hips, he drove them higher on the bed, his own body straining to claim more of her before their falling ceased.

  “Rainey,” he echoed with her name, knowing for him that it was code, a symbol that now meant love. Love. Love.

  His mind was swept clean of anything else. All that remained was the increasing rhythm of their bodies, the mounting ascension of her cries, and the blinding radiance of bliss that overtook him.