Jackson's Trust

by Violet Duke

  Immediately, her hands slid down his spectacular eight-pack until she reached the waistband of his jeans.

  “Really, Jackson? Even in your own home, you don’t wear a casual pair of workout sweats, or flannel PJ bottoms?” Not that she was complaining. She’d never seen denim look sexier.

  Leaning down, she placed a kiss against the tempting strip of tanned skin she could see behind the button he’d so thoughtfully left undone. She snagged his open zipper with her teeth and slid it down.

  A hungry, mildly exasperated sound rumbled out of him. “This is exactly why I only wear jeans around you, woman.”

  Lordy, what a reason it was. His now partially freed erection felt gloriously hard in her hands, and almost angrily hot in the confines of his cotton boxer briefs. She nipped a slow path along his happy trail to her quickly rising target, feeling almost drunk with power when she felt his abs contract almost violently as a result of the warm stream of air she blew against his rigid cotton-covered flesh.

  “Dammit, sunshine. You win.”

  When he moved to free his hands, she stopped him. Swiftly shoving his jeans down to a puddle at his feet and pulling his boxer briefs down to free the length of his shaft, she effectively kept him pinned to the spot.

  “You’re going to make me spill the coffee…among other things.”

  If that was a complaint, it lost its efficacy somewhere along the deep groan of pleasure when her hands finally slid over his steel-hard flesh, skin to skin. Stroking him once gently, and then a second time, with just enough pressure to drive him crazy, but not enough to be anything more than a playful tease, she looked up and saw him staring down at her with dangerously glittering eyes promising all sorts of payback.

  Unfortunately for him, she took challenges even more seriously than dares.

  She started in on slow, deliberate pumps then, while the tip of her tongue traced his hard ridge from base to tip. Her mouth hovered, but never closed over him fully.

  “Babe. I’ve never been one to spank a woman in bed, but you’re seriously asking for it.”

  That’s when she lost it a little. On a broken moan, she closed her lips over him and with her lust-blinded gaze finding his, she took him as deep as she could.

  For Leila, the idea of spanking during sex had never been her thing before, either. But right now, as far as her clenching, trembling core was concerned, she was clearly open to experimenting, if Jackson was the one doing the spanking.

  Suddenly, the coffee mugs were magically gone, and Jackson’s tense fingers were threading through her hair, guiding her movements in tandem with each rough breath sawing in and out of his chest.

  Her mouth drew up and down his hard, pulsing length a few more wild, reckless passes before she regained her senses. Grasping the base of his now fully engorged length, she pulled back in a shaky attempt to bring her breathing back under control.

  His hands let go of the gentle but firm hold he’d had of her scalp, only to reappear as searing hot brands on her breasts, his fingers and thumbs the equivalent of medieval torture devices as they circled, rubbed, and finally pinched and pulled her to the verge of climax.

  Leila had to bite her lip, hard, to stop herself from tumbling over.

  She called truce on the game then, and began pumping him from base to tip—lips and tongue following each stroke of her hand, while she dipped her free hand down her own torso to find some measure of relief.

  Her eyelids slid shut the moment her hand slid under the waistband of her panties. Too far gone to settle for a gentle touch, she stroked two fingers against the bundle of nerves that were practically throbbing.

  “You’re torturing me, baby.” A rough sound split between pain and pleasure broke out of his chest. “Jesus, I could come just watching you touch yourself.”

  Her own stomach clenched tight then. And she quickly squeezed her thighs together to prevent herself from tumbling over the edge. Even though his hands had yet to even touch her this morning, she was two seconds from coming.

  Something in her expression must’ve gave her away because before she knew it, she was flat on her back on the couch, and his hands were yanking her panties down her legs. Pushing her legs open gently, his eyes practically burned in hunger as his thumb tested how wet she was for him.

  “Poor baby. You’re hurting just as hard as I am, aren’t you?”

  She really was.

  “Are you going to apologize for torturing me this morning?” he rasped as he licked his way up the inside of first one thigh, and then the other.

  She maintained military silence—she wasn’t sorry, not even a tiny bit.

  He chuckled, the sound dark and seductive as he slid two fingers into her…one measly inch, before stopping. “You’re not, are you, you adorable little witch?”

  He knew her so well.

  Almost as if in reward, he dragged his tongue up her center while pushing his fingers in deep. She felt her knees buckle when he began lapping at her heated flesh, every stroke of his tongue was carefully placed to provide maximum pleasure.

  But no relief.

  Her limbs started to shake as she teetered close, so close to the edge of a violent orgasm.

  “Ten-second warning,” boomed a loud Oz-like voice out of the clear blue sky.

  Leila practically jumped out of her skin.

  The voice resounded over some hidden hi-def sounding speaker and began counting down. But instead of sounding menacing and all-powerful and leading to the yellow brick road, this one sounded wickedly amused and more mischievous than anything else.

  —

  “Shit!” cursed Jackson as he yanked his jeans on, foregoing his boxer briefs to save time.

  He was going to kill Bennett.

  And judging by the sound of a second quiet laugh on the other side of his front door, it looked to be a double homicide sort of day.

  While Donovan never instigated these ridiculous violations of Jackson’s privacy and personal space, he never exactly discouraged Bennett from taking liberties with the definition of the word “emergency” to employ his use of the emergency spare keys they each had for the five loft units in the building. Jackson had inherited the lot from his uncle, and after asking Bennett to handle the construction of the apartments, Jackson had asked his four closest friends—guys he’d trust with his life—to buy the four other units.

  He, Bennett, and Donovan owned each of the two-story units in the middle of the building, while his college buddy Owen, a brilliant tech genius who’d made his billions on his own right out of high school, had the penthouse unit, even though he was currently living overseas on business. Shane, their ex-military friend who doubled as security for the building, had the ground-floor unit.

  Given that they were all as close as brothers, having one another’s spare keys had seemed like a good idea. Once upon a time.

  Now he saw the huge error in judgment.

  Listening to Bennett’s countdown nearly at its end, Jackson grunted in frustration. There was no way Leila was going to make it to the stairs on the other end of the unit by the front door before the guys came in, and there was no way in hell he was going to let her run up the stairs bare-assed right in front of them.

  While he searched in vain for a blanket of some sort to cover Leila’s too-gorgeous body from the two yahoos who were about to barge in, Jackson looked over and saw that his smart girl had come to the same conclusion he had and was brilliantly donning his boxer briefs, just as the front door clicked open.

  “I guess you were right,” Bennett’s wholly unapologetic voice entered the room a second before he did. “Those were sex torture noises we heard through the door and not I’m-getting-tortured-against-my-will noises.” With a teeth-glinting-for-the-camera smile, Bennett waved at Jackson. “My bad, man. You never have anyone over, so we weren’t sure. Naturally, we had to come in and investigate.”

  Clearly, Bennett was using the royal “we,” if Donovan’s silent chuckle was anything to go by.

>   With a straight face, Bennett added gravely to Jackson, “As you know, I take the safety of both of our special resident billionaires very seriously, which is why I used the listen-in feature of the security—” His head swiveled around suddenly. “Hey, is that Romano’s Pizza I smell?”

  Aaand, he was off. The man had a bottomless pit when it came to food, and the nose of a bloodhound. With Bennett now redirecting his course toward the kitchen, Jackson moved his attention to the other unwelcome guest in his house.

  Donovan was already making himself comfortable next to Leila on the couch. “Don’t worry, Bennett’s exaggerating; we didn’t hear anything. Nice shorts, by the way. They look way better on you than on Jackson.”

  For Pete’s sake. The jackass was hitting on her right in front of him.

  Note to self: Change the friggin’ locks later today.

  Chapter 25

  Seeing Jackson look just about ready to commit murder only served to make the entire situation all that much funnier. With an amused head shake, Leila studied first Donovan and then the pizza-munching Bennett who joined them on the couch, sandwiching her in.

  Seeing as how there were at least five other seating options in the room, clearly, they were doing it to mess with Jackson.

  She liked them already.

  “Bennett and Donovan, I presume? I’ve heard a lot about you both.”

  “All bad, of course,” reassured Jackson dryly.

  Both guys grinned proudly.

  Jackson just shook his head tiredly—mouth twitching in a valiant effort to keep a smile at bay—and made his way over to the stairs. “Since my friends ruined the excellent reason I was having for being late this morning, I might as well go get dressed.” He speared them both with a look. “Don’t either of you hit on my girl.”

  “Can’t promise that,” called out Donovan in a semi-serious tone.

  “The good news,” Bennett informed Leila with a shamelessly suggestive brow arch, “is that you can still hit on us.”

  Leila waited until a quietly grousing and growling Jackson was out of the room before she let loose her chuckles. “Wow. You guys rile him up even more than I do. I’m totally impressed. Huge fan of your work.”

  “We could give you pointers,” offered Donovan helpfully.

  “But you’ve got to put in the time and really work at it like we do,” added Bennett in a grave tone.

  Correction: She loved these guys.

  Turning to face Bennett, she asked the question she’d been so curious about. “You were the contractor for this building, right? Clearly, you knew that Jackson was a billionaire—doesn’t the building need some, I don’t know, super high-tech security features to ensure no one mobs and robs him?”

  “No worries, we do. You just can’t see ’em. We actually have one of the most state-of-the-art security systems in the state,” he replied matter-of-factly. “It’s just not overt. Plus, the lot is situated to help prevent access as well. The lake surrounds our south and west borders, and the acres of highly secured land surrounding the solar farm covers makes northern access virtually impossible. So for vehicles, there’s just the one way in through the security gate at the front of the lot because the boarding and breeding ranch you passed on the way in butts up to the dog park in Cactus Creek and takes care of our eastern border. If any intruder somehow manages to get on the lot, they can only get so far before the silent perimeter alarm is activated and the entire building goes into lockdown. We’ve never had anyone even get close to our perimeter alarm without one of our four security guards intercepting them first.”

  “Four? I only saw one security type guy on our way in at the building entrance.”

  “That would be Shane,” explained Donovan. “He lives on the first floor of the building, so if you can get anywhere near the building, he’ll be the first to know about it. His two back-ups are his security mutts that roam the property—he brought them both back with him from deployment. We’ve yet to see them in action, but let’s just say that even the few military buddies who have stopped by to visit Shane now that he’s retired give the dogs a wide berth.”

  Leila didn’t even recall hearing a single dog bark when they came in last night. While normally, she would’ve thought that made them the worst guard dogs ever, in this case, she saw that made them all the more dangerous.

  As she replayed their drive in, she realized who the fourth security guard was. “The woman on the horse at the ranch—she works for you guys as well, doesn’t she?”

  “Told you this one was smarter than all of Jackson’s other women,” praised Donovan appreciatively.

  Hearing the “all” in that statement stung a little, but she took the compliment for what it was.

  “Yep. That would be Chelle, the owner of the ranch. I’ve seen her out-sharp-shoot even the best in the nation, and she has four mammoth brothers who taught her to take care of herself. But it’s her quick mind that makes her the best first line of defense for us. Haven’t had to worry any of them since we moved here last year, but I imagine now that Jackson’s secret’s out, that’s probably going to change.”

  Just then, Bennett let out a low whistle. “Look who’s all grown up and wearing his big boy pants.”

  Leila turned and did a double take when she saw Jackson walk down the stairs in a suit that looked red carpet ready.

  He stopped at the foot of the stairs, his assessing gaze studying her face. “You don’t like it.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No, no, I do. You look gorgeous.”

  He watched her with eyes simmering in curiosity. “But?” he pressed, his voice and sheer presence pinning her to the spot.

  “I just…I like you in your casual clothes. You usually look more comfortable.” She nodded, certain that was the biggest distinction. “You also usually look a little less…” She tried to find the right word. “Tame.”

  Holy hell, this time, when his seemingly provoked gaze dropped to her lips, they didn’t just linger, they seared. Scorched.

  Dared her to call him tame again.

  All at once, she saw him shift from nice, handsome designer-suit model featured on page seventy-two of the billionaire’s shopping catalog to dangerously hungry lone wolf disguised in GQ clothing.

  Slicking just the very tip of her tongue over the center of her top lip in response was as much an unbidden reaction as it was her one feeble attempt to cool off the effects of his laser-hot glance.

  She swore she could practically taste him, and lordy, if wishful thinking had a flavor—

  Attempting to block that runaway train of thought, she pulled her now parched lower lip between her teeth, registering the sharp nip of her incisors a full heartbeat after she even realized she was holding her breath.

  To keep from panting.

  —

  She’d all but unraveled before his eyes right in front of them.

  Jackson practically growled as he watched that pretty pink blush on Leila’s cheeks flush deeper, but in belated awareness of her surroundings now instead of unfiltered arousal.

  Part of the growl was a warning to the two men flanking her on the couch who’d looked just as affected by her sweet blushes.

  They were his best friends, and he trusted them with his life. But they were still guys; and she was an angel-goddess wearing nothing but one of his shirts and a pair of his boxer briefs.

  So yeah, their nearness to her was driving him a little crazy.

  And they damn well knew it, the jackasses.

  Donovan just settled even more in his seat, looking fully entertained with his arm on the back of the couch almost touching her shoulders—the prick. At least Bennett had the decency to eventually stand up, albeit with a sigh that indicated he was giving up a fabulous new toy.

  Good man. Or at least smart man.

  Either way, the move was enough for Jackson to definitively promote Bennett to the better of his best friends, official ceremony pending. Donovan, on the other hand, was quickly working on gett
ing demoted to that-guy-whose-ass-he’d-once-kicked, seeing as he was now leaning over and whispering something in Leila’s ear.

  Bennett proceeded to help himself to some more cold pizza from the kitchen before heading to the front door. “Now that we’ve determined Jackson wasn’t kidnapped or being tortured with sex here against his will, I’m out. I’m going to be late for a meeting this morning with a building inspector…Not that I’m worried, of course.” A slow, confident grin slid across his face while his eyes drifted up to the ceiling as if he were watching a memory replay. “After all, when I left her apartment an hour ago, she was still completely tuckered out.”

  Despite the zoo that his living room had become this morning, Jackson couldn’t help chuckling in tired amusement. There just wasn’t anyone else like Bennett when it came to treating the world like his playground, and each day like a ride ticket on his favorite roller coasters.

  “Plus,” continued Bennett, in almost comic disbelief, “this whole parallel universe thing where I’m not the hottest man in a woman’s eyes when I’m in a room with these two isn’t doing it for me.” He winked at Leila. “My apartment is on the second and third floors of the building if you come to your senses.”

  Leila’s chuckling—and Jackson’s scowling—was interrupted by the almost simultaneous ringing of Donovan’s two cellphones. In response to her questioning look, Donovan merely winked at her as well, pocketing the phone that had never once seen a male name or number in its contact list while answering his business line on his way toward the door Bennett had left open.

  Never one to be rude though, he made sure to pause what sounded like the start of a heated discussion over the merger deal they all knew he’d been working overtime on, to give Jackson a brief wave, along with a not-at-all-subtle return to the couch to slip Leila his business card—with his personal cellphone number already scribbled on the back, of course.

  That settled it. Jackson was getting new friends along with new door locks.