by Anthology
Katie gasped at the assault on her senses. Her head was spinning, and her heart was racing. She couldn't make sense of any of this, and she was almost beyond even wanting to. The longer the encounter went on and the more her body was overtaken by sensation, the stronger her desire came to just surrender to the power of Jason's hands, Jason's lips—to just surrender to Jason altogether.
As soon as his tongue slipped inside her mouth, an explosion of passion, unlike any she had ever felt, was released through her entire body. His tongue was searching her mouth, probing, sweeping back and forth insistently. She found herself matching his intensity jab for jab and parry for parry.
He wasn’t just kissing her. He was devouring her. He was owning her.
His hand had found exactly the right spot between her legs and he was expertly manipulating her flesh. The fact that she was still fully dressed and he was touching her through denim didn’t slow Jason down in the least. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, he was somehow using it to his advantage.
His fingers started moving faster, applying ever-increasing pressure, and she felt the waves of pleasure rolling inside of her increase to Category 5 Storm levels.
That little voice in the back of her head, the one that always wanted to follow the rules and made her a pretty successful lawyer, kept telling her that she should stop. But…she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. She wanted nothing more than for him to keep touching her, keep kissing her, keep making her feel more alive than she had felt in so, so long.
Katie heard sounds coming from the back of her throat she didn’t even recognize. Her heart felt like it was beating to the rhythm of his fingers. Her entire body felt infused with spine-tingling bliss.
Just when she was thinking that this couldn’t possibly get any better, that she was at the outer edge of pleasurable oblivion, Jason pulled his mouth from hers and began kissing his way down her neck. He licked, trailing his tongue down her burning skin, and stopped several times to suckle the sensitive little niches on her throat. This sent jolts of electricity directly down to the exact place his fingers were working their magic, and to her shock and amazement, she found that she had not reached the outer edges of the pleasure landscape that was possible for her. No, Jason was taking her even further into unexplored territories of bliss. He kissed a trail back up her neck, alternating sucking and licking the whole way, stopping at her jawline.
“Jason,” Katie thought she heard herself say with a hint of pleading in her voice. She felt as if she were floating without an anchor, as if she were going to be set adrift in this sea of pleasure. She reached up and grabbed his shoulders so that she would have something to hold on to.
“Say that again,” he growled against her ear.
The sound of his voice vibrating in her ear almost pushed her over the peak.
“Jason,” she said again, and this time she was definitely pleading, more than just a hint of desperation coloring her voice.
“Damn, Katie. I love how you say my name. Now, come for me, baby,” Jason commanded seductively as he lightly bit down on the sensitive area right below her ear.
That was all it took. Katie went up and over the edge, a cry tearing from her throat. She dug her nails into Jason’s shoulders and gasped as every part of her body was flooded with mind-numbing pleasure. She held on to him tightly as her body shook, burying her face in his neck as she climaxed. He held her tightly against him as she rode out her orgasm—the single most intense orgasm she had ever experienced.
As the dense, sexual fog that had taken up residence in her brain began to slowly dissipate, the painful awareness of what she had just done began to seep into the edges of her consciousness, piece by tiny piece.
Katie found herself clinging to Jason for dear life. Her face buried in the crook of his neck, resting her head on his shoulder. His fresh, manly scent filled her senses as she luxuriated in the soft sensation of his skin against her cheek. His arms surrounded her in a cocoon of safety. She could feel his chest moving in and out against her body, his labored breathing the only sound in the cab of the truck.
After several moments, the bubble of intimacy she’d been floating in was popped when Jason shifted, moving his hand from between her legs so it was now resting again on her upper thigh.
In a split second of awareness, embarrassment and shame flooded Katie. She abruptly pulled away from Jason and covered her hands with her face. She couldn’t face him. She was mortified.
From the relative safety of hiding behind her fingers, she managed to blurt out, “Oh my God, what did I just do? How could I? What was I thinking? How could this…this is not really happening. I don’t do things like this.”
Katie, trying with all her might to make sense of all of what was going on, let her thoughts flow out loud with hardly any filter as she hid her face and shook her head back and forth.
She heard Jason's voice, sounding irritatingly amused, as he said, “FYI, I can still see you. Covering your face does not make you invisible, Kit Kat.”
She kept her hands in place but managed to retort, “I realize that you can see me, Jason. I am not delusional. A slut maybe, but not delusional.”
She forced a bark of laughter after the last statement, trying to make herself believe that she’d only meant it as a lighthearted joke.
Then, just to make herself feel better, she added for good measure, “And don't call me Kit Kat.”
“Take your hands off your face,” Jason commanded in a surprisingly authoritative tone.
Katie shook her head, she barely recognized herself in this moment. These were not the actions of a lawyer, or even an adult. Nope, she’d just acted like a horny teenager and because of that, she was sitting here, covering her face like a child who was pouting with embarrassment.
Even knowing that she was being ridiculous, she couldn’t seem to snap out of it. She just wanted to get out of this truck. Now. “No. Just hand me my purse and I’ll go. Please, Jason.”
Then, taking just one hand off her face, still keeping her eyes tightly shut, she stuck out her hand to retrieve her purse.
Rather than placing her pocketbook in her outstretched hand, Jason took her hand in his and repeated his directive. “Katie, open your eyes and look at me.”
“Would you please just hand me my purse and let me go?” she begged as she tried to feel for the door handle, still refusing to open her eyes.
Had anyone actually died from mortification? No? Well, there was a first time for everything.
“Kit Kat, it’s just me. Come on. Just turn around and open your eyes.” Jason's voice was calm and in control, almost as if he were trying to sooth an unruly child.
Which made sense since she was acting like a bratty kid. But hey, bratty kid was still better than brazen slut.
Feeling none of the confidence she had in a courtroom or mediation, she kept her eyes shut. She couldn’t look at him. She just couldn’t.
Katie sat there, unmoving, facing the window with her back towards him and her hand reaching back so she could retrieve her purse. When she was met with only silence, she waved her hand back and forth insistently to illustrate how serious she was.
“Fine, Kit Kat. Go ahead, run away,” Jason muttered as Katie felt her purse being pushed into her hand. He then added, pointedly, under his breath, “I guess some things never change.”
Katie spun around without thinking, eyes narrow and blazing, and spat out indignantly, “Are you kidding me? This is not the same thing. I have to go to the bridal luncheon. I don’t have time to deal with this right now. If you honestly can't see the difference between those two situations—”
“See? I knew you could be a big girl.” Jason cut off her rant, and Katie noticed for the first time that he had a very satisfied grin on his face.
Frustration filled her as she realized she'd been had.
“Fine. You win, Jason. Does that make you happy? Mister Calm and Collected, teasing me with ‘See? I knew you could be a big girl’ and then si
tting back to enjoy the show.” Katie mimicked him, making her voice as deep as she could. “You enjoy this, me all flushed and flustered and you completely unaffected.” Katie got more and more annoyed the longer her speech went on and the more and more she attempted (unsuccessfully) to pry open the passenger’s side door handle.
She felt her hand being grabbed, and before she could pull it back, her palm landed on something hard and thick. Instinctively, she wrapped her fingers around it at the same time her eyes darted down to see the evidence that, oh yes, Jason was, in fact, very much affected by what had just occurred. His jeans were so tight that it looked as though he was going to burst out of them.
She pulled her hand away as fast as if she had touched a hot stove. She looked up into Jason’s eyes, shocked, as he calmly stated, “Well I think that takes care of the notion that I’m ‘unaffected.’”
“Oh well, um…okay,” Katie stammered, trying to come up with an exit strategy that would still leave her with (even a tiny bit of) dignity. It wasn’t easy, especially since her palm still tingled from her intimate touch of his arousal. Katie held her head high as she said, “Alright, well affected or not, let me just say that I am sorry for my behavior. I am not quite sure what came over me. I don’t seem to be acting much like myself today.”
She sat for a moment in silence. She expected Jason to respond, but he didn't. He just kept watching her.
Maybe he realized she had more to say. In a small voice, trying to make it sound like an aside, even though she realized as she said it that it was the true heart of the matter, she added, “I can’t even, and don’t want to, imagine what you must think of me.”
She heard Jason take a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. If Katie wasn’t mistaken, Jason was…irritated. That is weird, she thought. The Jason she had known never let anything get under his skin. Maybe he wasn’t acting like himself today either.
As she slowly turned in her seat to face him, her suspicions were confirmed. Yep. That was definitely the face of one perturbed Jason Sloan. He clearly had something on his mind that he was dying to say, so Katie decided to just be silent and let him get it out.
He took a deep breath and launched in. “You're really something, you know that? So let me ‘just say’ that you never—never—have to apologize for that kind of ‘behavior’ with me, past or present.”
He looked out the front windshield of his truck and slammed his palm against the steering wheel. He then visibly re-centered himself, took another deep breath, and continued. “Look. I'm sure you feel a little off balance and out of your comfort zone. That must be scary. But you've got to know something—that’s the Katie I've always loved. Not the ‘cool, calm, and collected’ follow all the rules, black and white version most of the world sees. That's for them. With me, you can be yourself.
“I know you, Katie, better than most. I know you inside and out. I’ve seen you at your best, at your worst, and everywhere in between, and I love it all. Every bit. So don't apologize to me for letting go and losing yourself. That's what's special between us—the fact that you can lose it, and you are just you. You are acting like there is something wrong with that and that pisses me off. It's not a bad thing. It's special, and I wish you saw that.
“We have a past that has included good times and bad. But I have been, I am, and I always will be, here for you. That's a given. That’s a fact. To speak your language, you can consider it a legally binding agreement. No matter what you think—even though you know I love to give you a hard time—you never have to be embarrassed around me. Ever.”
Katie was speechless. She tried to respond, but when she opened her mouth to speak, words would not come out. Hell, sounds wouldn't even come out.
Jason continued his speech as he started up the truck. “Now, Kit Kat, as much as I would love to continue this conversation—and believe me, I have a lot more to say—the girls are waiting at Salvatore's for you and I don’t want you to be late. So you need to get to the luncheon and have fun, and we'll talk more soon.”
“Jas.” Katie cleared her throat and made every attempt to choose her words carefully. “I just want to make it clear that this”—she waved her hands back and forth between them as she swallowed hard—“can never hap—”
“No.” Jason interrupted, raising his voice to Katie for the first time she could remember. “You are not going to do that. You are not going to make ridiculous statements like that. We are going to deal with this, whatever this”—he waved his hand back and forth between them, mirroring her gesture—“is. You and I are going to deal with it this weekend like the mature adults both of us are and at least one of us is acting like, and that is happening whether you want it to or not. And just so we’re clear, that’s not a request—it’s a statement.”
Jason reached across her lap and opened the passenger door. “You're close enough to walk. Now go have a nice lunch, and I'll talk to you later.”
Katie was overwhelmed. She had never expected things to play out like this. And Katie Lawson always thought of every possible outcome before entering into any given situation.
She had prepared herself for several outcomes in facing Jason this weekend:
Scenario 1 - Jason would ignore her and she would suffer through several awkward situations they would naturally be in as part of the wedding party.
Scenario 2 - Jason would still be upset about that night and have a few choice words to impart. She would apologize, he would accept (because that's the kind of guy he is), and they would get through the weekend and part on newly-reconciled terms.
Scenario 3 - Jason would appear to have forgotten all about what happened ten years ago. He would say that it was great to see her, and she would say the same. The customary small talk would ensue, and Jason (being Jason) would slip in some sly comment that made an oblique reference to the night oh-so-long ago. By doing so, he would let Katie know that, while he did remember, she was, for all intents and purposes, off the hook. She would return to San Francisco unscathed and with a huge weight lifted off her shoulders.
She could have lived with any of those three scenarios. Some would have been more pleasant than others, but they all had one thing in common—they fit within the narrow box she had relegated Jason to in her mind.
This…did not.
Never in Katie’s wildest dreams did she prepare herself for:
Scenario 4 - Katie and Jason see each other again and there are more sparks than the Fourth of July. He almost immediately brings up the fact that they need to talk, and he confesses within hours of her arrival that he did not one but two incredibly “knight in shining armor-esque” feats during their childhood. He then proceeds to not only kiss her silly, but also to give her one of the most incredible orgasms of her life. Fully dressed. In broad daylight. In a parking lot.
Yeah, not the sort of thing that fits in a carefully crafted box. This was definitely some outside-of-the-box material.
Dear Lord, what could possibly happen next?
No. She stopped herself. She definitely could not let her mind go there. She needed to get away from Jason and process all of the events that had occurred in the past four hours. Then she needed to prepare herself, mentally and emotionally, for any future out-of-the-box onslaughts that may come flying at her over the course of the rest of the weekend.
As she turned to say goodbye to Jason and exit his truck as gracefully as possible, she was stopped dead in her tracks by the look of pure and utter amusement in his eyes. That was the exact smug look that got her goat. For some reason, that little I-know-something-you-don't-know-and-it's-really-damn-funny expression had always irritated her down to her bones. It could definitely take her from zero to furious in about 2.5 milliseconds.
“What?” she snapped before she immediately wished she could just once have a normal civilized response to him.
“Kit Kat, I could practically hear the wheels turning in your head as you sat there trying to compartmentalize everything that’s
happened between us this morning,” Jason said, his tone light and amused.
“Oh, please. What are you, a mind reader now? You don’t know me that well, Jas. I was actually just thinking about how underdressed I am going to be at the luncheon. There was not a single thought in my mind that had anything to do with us,” Katie lied, her tone steady and controlled even though her brain was screaming, You know he’s right.
“Sure there wasn’t, Kit Kat. Just keep telling yourself that and maybe one of us will believe you.”
Katie opened her mouth to respond, but Jason immediately went on.
“But speaking of being underdressed, I got so, well, let’s say distracted, that I almost forgot to tell you. While you were in CVS, I made a call to my friend. Her name is Amber, and she’s the owner of Bella. She is holding a dress for you. I told her you were a size four. You can go in through that back door.” Jason pointed to a door painted a deep red.
Katie's eyebrows rose in amazement. It seemed like every time she got frustrated or irritated with him, he went and revealed some over-the-top, knight-in-shining-armor gesture he had put together and took all the wind out of her annoyance sails.
“After you change, just head out through the front entrance, and Salvatore’s is right across the parking lot.” He grinned before adding, “Now get going, Kit Kat. We both know how anal you are about being on time.”
“Okay,” Katie said as she stepped out of the truck feeling dazed and more than a little off balance. After a few steps, she realized she needed to at least try to handle this with a scrap of grace. She took a deep breath before turning to say, “And…thanks for the ride and thinking of the dress and…everything.”