by Frost, Thea
Finally, at long last, the verdict comes through: innocent. Jack and I are cleared to return to work, but he immediately submits his resignation. I find out through a contact in the police force, and in a panic immediately call him.
"You quit?"
It's the first time we've spoken on a personal level in over two months.
"Stone cold. I'm done. I'm out."
My heart's in my throat. "Are you leaving?"
"Yes. This city's not safe for me anymore. I'm going far away."
My heart sinks from my throat to my stomach. "Oh."
"What about you?"
"I--I'm torn." And I really am. This was meant to be my career. My life. How could I abandon it so quickly? So easily?
There's silence on the phone. Is this it? Is he just going to say goodbye and disappear forever?
"Come to my room," he says. "I need to see you."
"To say goodbye?"
"Maybe." He gives me his hotel address. "I'll be waiting."
I leap into the shower. I've also been staying in a hotel room these past few months, paid for by the bureau and free of any damn surveillance cameras. I dress, grab my clutch, and catch a cab to his place.
Rising up in the elevator, I try to decide what I want. Realize that what I want--my career--is at odds with what I need. Jack.
He answers the door looking devastatingly handsome. White button-up shirt rolled at the sleeves, showing his tattooed forearms. Jeans. Stubble. Six feet of insanely hot former underworld boss.
"Hi," I say, suddenly shy.
"Hey," he says. "Come in."
I brush past him, catching a hint of his scent as I do. I bite my lip to control myself from touching him, from leaning in to inhale deeply. His hotel room is almost exactly like mine, but with one key difference--his suitcase lies open on the bed, already packed.
"So you're heading out today."
"Come with me." He moves up behind me and places his hands on my shoulders. "I've got enough money that we can travel for a time. Take some time off. When we're done traveling, we can find a place to stay. Anywhere in the U.S. You can go back to work. Law enforcement. Whatever. We'll figure it out."
I close my eyes and press my cheek to his hand. "You don't mean that."
"No?" He turns me around and lifts my chin so I'm staring into his dangerous eyes. "I can't imagine living without you. Your body. Your touch."
Heat pools between my legs, and I can feel myself creaming my panties. Oh god. It's been so long since I've been this close to him. What would life be like with Jack, outside of the madness of crime, lies, and murder?
I realize that I very much want to find out.
"Yes," I whisper. "I'll go with you."
His green eyes are a universe of stars and mystery, love and ardor, and I'm at the center of it all. "Then my life is complete. I burn for nothing else."
My breath hitches in my throat, and he kisses me, kisses me hard. My legs go weak, and I find myself asking, is it always going to be like this? This magical, this hot, this intense? Part of me knows that no, it will change, ripen, our relationship growing more mature, but another part of me, wilder and free, knows that Jack has an infinity of vitality and life to him, a burning desire that will never go out. That with him in my life, things will never grow stale.
I groan as his arms wrap around me. My reserve from before melts away like frost in the sunlight. I press my hands to his chest, then move them down to his crotch where I can feel his rigid hardness straining at his jeans.
He smiles into our kiss, bites my lower lip provocatively as I massage his bulge. "You do that," he growls, "and I won't be held accountable for my actions."
I kiss him again, hard, then pull back. "You're no longer the subject of my investigations. We can be as unprofessional as we like."
"As if that stopped us before." He cups the back of my neck with his hand. "Are you giving me permission to do what I will with you?"
Desire pools within me, a liquid yearning for his touch, his cock, all of him. I give him my most salacious smile. "I'm all yours. But this cuts both ways."
He mock-growls and kisses my neck, the faint rasp of his stubble on my skin sending shivers down my spine. "I'm glad," he whispers into my ear, his warm breath tickling me and sending a flush of desire through my body. "I may need to borrow your handcuffs, though. I had to turn mine in."
I laugh throatily, tingling all over as he resumes kissing my neck, working his way down to my clavicle. "You can borrow them, but I get to keep the key."
He pulls back and looks me full in the face again, smiling wickedly. "That's fine. With what I've got planned, I know you won't try to escape."
I kiss him, running my tongue over his lips, then his own slips into my mouth and glides over mine. We kiss deeply, a soul kiss, and I feel him rumble deep in his chest. I'm getting to know him better. I know when his beast is fighting to take control, push him over the edge, make him act on his instincts. I love that sense of him losing control, losing his calm, ironic detachment over me.
Jack leans back and takes me by the hand. No words now. He presses me against the wall and drops to his knees. His dexterous fingers have my belt unbuckled and my jeans around my ankles before I can blink. I gasp and reach down, sliding my fingers into his dark hair as he pushes my panties aside and flicks his tongue over my sex.
I buck my hips forward. The pleasure is sharp, intense, the lash of a whip. I gasp again as he inhales deeply and looks up at me, his green eyes smoldering with an inner light. "I fucking love your scent, Bryce."
I don't know how to respond. I can only smile as he licks me with luxurious care, using the breadth of his tongue, from base to clit. It sends a shivering wave of raw pleasure surging within me. I whimper and press his face closer.
"Like that, Jack." I close my eyes and lean my head against the spines of books. "Lick me. Taste me. Make me come."
Jack's tongue is magnificent. One moment it's working slow circles around my clit, building it up to a trembling peak of tension, then it dips between my lips, into my canal, sending waves of hunger for a deeper penetration through me. His hands are tight around my ass, squeezing my flesh, and I feel my knees giving way as the pleasure mounts. I reach up and grasp at the shelves, trying to hold myself up, to keep from collapsing as he continues to torment me.
"Fuck," I whisper. "Jack, that's not fair." I can barely stand.
He looks up, eyes bright with amusement. "Fair? Who said anything about fair?"
Before I can reply, he inserts two fingers deep inside me, a smooth, perfect penetration that makes me stand on my tiptoes, followed right after by his tongue on my clit. I'm being buffeted by a hurricane of pleasure, and when he curls his fingers to work them in and out of me while licking even harder I cry out, my grip on the shelving knocking books to the floor.
"I'm going to devour you," he says, looking up at me again, fingers pumping. "You're mine. Your body is mine. Your juice. Your orgasms. I'm going to make you scream. Beg for mercy."
"Oh," I whimper, unable to speak.
"So smooth," he whispers, lips against my wet slit. "So ready."
Where did he learn such skill? I can't stifle a cry of pleasure as he pushes me closer to the edge. I want him to stop, it's too intense, but I can't catch my breath, can't get the words out.
"Your body is so eager," he says. "You want to come, don't you? You want to come hard." His voice is unbearably sensual, dripping with desire.
"Yes," I cry, pushing my hips forward, needing release, needing to come.
"Come for me, Bryce. Show me how good it feels."
His command, his authority, his confidence arouse me further than I think is possible. I cry out and my climax is hard and intense. I fall forward and he rises swiftly to catch me as I do, holding me against his chest as the pleasure pulses through me.
I try to think of something witty. Of anything. But nothing comes. It's been a hot week of sex, and I'm still not used to how intensely he ca
n make me respond to his touch, how powerfully he makes me orgasm.
His lips meet mineas his hands push his jeans and boxers to the floor. I reach down to grasp his shaft. I love how hard he gets, how his need for my body, for my sex, is so obvious by his rigid erection. He strains for me, and I work his silken length for a few moments before he growls with barely restrained hunger. "I need you," he says. "To be deep inside you. Now."
I want to feel his cock between my lips, to taste his precum, to work my tongue around his throbbing crown, but my core needs him more, the throbbing pleasure from the previous orgasm fading and leaving me hungry for more.
"I've been thinking about fucking you since the trial began," he growls, his cock between my thighs. "Watching you. Needing you. For months now. I need you so bad, Bryce."
My whole soul aches at the sound of those words. I've never felt so desired, so alive, so fiercely in love. This man is passionate and rough, gentle and demanding, fire and control. I want him, all of him, now.
I widen my legs, and he catches one thigh and lifts it, opening me wide. I feel the tip of him touch my lips. We lock eyes, and he's like a stranger, the burning intensity of his need making him fierce and predatory. I shiver with delight and fear, with hunger and passion.
"Fuck," he groans as he sinks himself into me. I wrap both arms around his neck and close my eyes, the sensation of him stretching me, filling me. It's almost too much. I angle my hips just right and feel him grind in slow circles against my clit, his cock completely within me.
Each heavy thrust feels so good. The stack behind me shakes each time he drives into me, but right now I don't care about anything but the sensation of Jack inside me. I clench tight around him and he pumps harder and harder.
"Take me, Jack. I'm yours. Take me."
My words push him over the edge. He growls, and begins fucking me for real, his strokes long and hard. I clutch at him, hold him tight, and take all of him, over and over again. I want him to consume me, devour me, to obliterate me with pleasure.
"Bryce," he grunts. "Fuck, you're perfect."
Deeper. Faster. Harder. I hear myself crying out, over and over again, until he kisses me deeply, and just as he does so I come hard, my whole body shaking as he roars and strains against me one last time, hot seed spilling into my depths.
I collapse in his arms, head on his shoulder, chest heaving for breath, blinking away the flashing lights behind my eyelids as I slowly come back to myself. He's growling softly, kissing my neck. Still inside me, throbbing still. I moan in a low, happy way, and kiss him.
Gentle, then teasing, and he smiles, eyes alight. "In a way, you saved me. If you hadn't come, I don't know where Blake's manipulations and Francesca's madness might have taken events."
I sigh and shift, enjoying the feeling of him deep inside me. "Perhaps. But I was lost as well. Unsure of what I was doing. Or why. Blake was manipulating me too. Perhaps we saved each other."
Jack's smile becomes sardonic. "In a way, we should be grateful to Blake. Were it not for him, we'd never have been thrown together."
I laugh softly and gaze deep into his eyes. "You're right. Despite everything that happened, there's no place I'd rather be."
Jack's eyes burn with ardor and he leans down to kiss me once more. I close my eyes and realize that for the first time, I'm at peace with my past, present, and future. With Jack, I know that life will remain exciting almost past the point of endurance-- and that's exactly how I want it.
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