by Jessa James
We had a connection. I felt it each time our lips met, as yet another orgasm slammed into me.
By the end of the second day, we took it slow, the edge finally worn off. Jack’s hands reached for my ass as he moved his dick in and out, in and out, just as another orgasm rippled down my spine. He held my legs spread apart while I splayed across the sheets and he dripped sweat down his glorious, tan chest. He was worn down, too, but neither of us stopped. Neither of us wanted to.
His jaw was tense and all of his muscles strained as he held back his orgasm… for me. “I’m going to make you come two more times, princess, then it’s my turn,” he bit out, barely audible over the moans of ecstasy I shed.
That totally worked for me.
Jack placed the pad of his thumb on my clit and, immediately soaked with my desire, rubbed circles around the already-sensitive bundle. As if my body couldn’t handle more, my back arched and Jack’s mouth settled over my breasts. He licked my nipples and bit down just as he smacked my clit roughly. The shockwaves went from my sex to my nipples and back down again as the orgasm came from somewhere in my core.
Jack’s assailing thumb and mouth didn’t stop, though, and the tension from the last orgasm barely subsided before it turned into yet another one. As the friction from his cock and hand became unbearable, he whispered, “Scream for me, baby.”
And I did.
I woke up sometime later, alone. I was still dazed from my orgasms and the sound Jack made as he finally came. It was territorial, guttural, and somehow vulnerable. Like I undid him.
Oh no, you don’t, my rational brain shouted at me. Now is not the time to fall for someone. Now is the time to leave Alaska, remember? I didn’t bother to tell my rational self I already fell for him; I knew it.
I stood up and found one of Jack’s shirts on the floor, slipped it on. As I did up the buttons, I worried that my body already knew what my head did not.
I’m in too deep.
My dreams were too important, too big, to be derailed by a guy who wanted to hide away in the Alaska wilderness. No matter how much Jack meant to me, I was leaving Alaska. It was that simple and that difficult all at once.
I peeked into the living room and wondered where Jack was. I heard a small noise from the study, nestled down another hall. Jack sat leisurely at his computer, sweatpants hung low on his waist and no shirt to be seen.
Probably because I ripped it.
He hadn’t seen me from the angle he faced his computer screen from, so I stealthily tiptoed around to his back, prepared to scare the daylights out of him.
“You’re incredibly un-sneaky, princess,” Jack declared as he spun his chair to face me. Apparently, “Sneaky” was not my middle name. Jack pulled me to him, situated me on his lap, and spun the chair back to his computer. He buried his face in my hair and breathed deeply.
“You smell like me. I like that,” he whispered in my ear.
I pretended to not like his words and instead glanced at his computer screen.
What did the serious Mr. Simms look at while I was sleeping? Porn?
“What’s this?” I asked him and reached for the mouse. I straightened as I recognized the logo of a company based out of Seattle: Buchanan Industries.
“A tech company with a hot new startup I’m interested in investing in. Nothing important,” Jack mused as he reached to close out of the window.
“A startup?” I chuckled, but then continued. “Are you going to do it? Invest in them? Get back on the horse?”
I looked at his bare chest and dragged my thoughts back to the conversation with difficulty. Our eyes met and he smirked knowingly, but said, “Yeah, I think they might be the ones. Solid portfolio, tons of success thus far, a steady team, a great business model… They have all the right parts.” He punctuated this last statement when he stroked my “right part,” which jerked me upright. “But there are other projects I’m involved in that are keeping my attention at the moment.”
Jack leaned in to kiss me as he reached up beneath my shirt to cup my breast gently. My nails slid down his arms to his elbows, then to the waist of his sweatpants.
“Yes, Mr. Simms.” I nodded against his lips. “I think I’d like to explore this opportunity myself.”
I giggled as he lifted me off his lap, placed me on his hard desk. Nudging my knees wide, he settled himself between them. When his fingers coasted up my inner thighs, I fell back.
“When I give a project my attention—” His lips followed the same path until his hot breath fanned over my pussy. “I give it all my attention.”
I awoke to the sound of a prop plane engine just overhead and then I heard the unmistakable sound of floats as they cut through the water.
The plane! My replacement float is here.
I sat up bolt upright but forgot that Jack laid next to me on the floor of his study. We’d settled there after revisiting his desk.
I smacked him in the face in my rush to peek out the window and he groaned, rolling over. “What the hell, Princess?”
I ignored him and made it to the window just in time; the pilot had turned toward the dock and I heard the lack of noise that indicated his engine was turned off.
“My float is here. I need to go out and meet the pilot!”
I sprinted towards my clothes, finding one of the shirts I’d borrowed by the fireplace, my pants in the kitchen. Spinning about, naked, I looked for my panties.
“Looking for these?” Jack stood there, my panties dangling from his finger.
Grabbing them from him, I threw everything on haphazardly, and ran to the door. The pilot, Joe, was on the dock, tugging his anchor loose. He was an old friend of my dad’s and I was happy to see him. We talked about the damage to my float, the storm I nearly crash landed in, and Dad’s place.
“I heard someone put in an offer?” Joe asked and my heart stilled.
“What? Really? I haven’t heard anything, I’ve been here for almost three days, no contact,” I stuttered out.
Sold? The house sold?
“Well, from the sounds of it, you got yourself a deal. You moving to Seattle with the money?” Joe asked as he pulled my spare float from his cargo hold.
I tried, and failed, to ignore the stinging image of Jack that came to mind when I said, “Yep, ready to rock as soon as the papers are signed.”
Joe and I worked diligently for the next hour as we turned my plane to face the dry shore. We pulled the dented float off and screwed the new one on, a feat that would have been unmanageable if Jack hadn’t come out to help.
“Not bad for a City Boy,” I nudged Jack as we scrubbed our hands in the freezing cold water to clean the grease off. Joe was nice enough to go through the safety checks on my plane before he climbed into his own, cleared the signals, and started his propellers. He waved as he turned towards the open water, ready to take off. Jack and I watched his plane grow smaller and smaller before we spoke, the unwanted words hanging in the air between us.
Time to bite the bullet, Anna. I took a deep breath. “Jack, I—,” I managed to start.
He cut in. “Don’t leave yet, princess.”
Jack’s brown eyes were full of pain and unspoken emotion and it nearly undid me. But I pulled it together and clasped his hands.
As I looked into his eyes, I said, “It’s been really, really great. These were probably the best few days of my life. It’s definitely been the best sex.” I laughed, but Jack didn’t find it funny. “But you and I both know this—whatever this is—wouldn’t extend past that. I need someone who wants to live life to the fullest, go out into the world and go on adventures with me, not someone who wants to hide out here.”
Those last words came out as a blow, I knew it, but I needed them to sting enough for him to let me go. For me to push him away enough so I could get on the plane.
Jack’s eyes turned cold; clearly the comment hit him like I’d intended. I felt a punch somewhere in my solar plexus at the sight, at the realization that I hurt him. Bu
t I took my chance and backed away from him slowly. I had nothing to load up; everything was still in the cockpit. I had my clothes, I had my new float. Time to rock and roll.
Just as I stepped onto the foothold, I made the mistake of looking back. Jack stood there on the dock, pants soaked to the thighs and white T-shirt streaked with grease from the float bolts. His brown, wavy hair was tossed in the wind and mussed from my fingers running through it again and again; I couldn’t help but smile. I leapt down from the foothold and walked slowly to him, prepared to give him one last kiss.
“Anna, don’t go,” he pleaded as he took my face in his hands. I angled myself up on tiptoes to kiss him softly on his bowed, perfect lips. “I love you.”
I hugged him and, as I did, whispered, “I love you too, Jack.” And I did, but I couldn’t stay.
He looked down at me, confused. “I’ll see you next week, right? My regular delivery?” he asked and attempted a wink. I smiled noncommittally and backed away, soaking in the last sight of him. I wasn’t coming back. I couldn’t.
I turned and jogged back to the cockpit, stepped all the way up, and kick started the propellers. The anchor dragged up too slowly for my liking and I watched Jack pace the length of the dock like a caged tiger. His tan skin gleamed and his chocolate eyes looked a little misty, but just as I almost lost sight of the dock, I saw his arm wave in goodbye. A single motion but my heart broke at the gesture.
Goodbye, Jack.
I cleared the water and flew north, away from the cabin, away from Jack, away from my life in Alaska, tears streaming down my face as I left behind the only man I’d ever loved.
Chapter Seven
Jack
The week passed so fucking slow as I waited to hear Anna’s old floatplane fly overhead. Sometimes, I thought I heard the propellers of her plane from the north and I ran towards the front door, out onto the lawn, and peered straight up. Each time, I was embarrassed at the level of disappointment I felt in the hollow of my chest.
I was totally whipped. I knew I’d see her again in just a few days, but my pillow smelled like her, my study smelled like her, and I couldn’t get her out of my head. Hell, we’d fucked on practically every horizontal surface in my house. There was literally nowhere in my house I could look without seeing her, hearing her, feeling her.
Missing her.
I tried to shake off the Anna-induced fog and made one big move, one that would set my course for the foreseeable future. I sent an email to connect with the startup. We scheduled a conference call, outlined my involvement in the company, and I offered my investments with clear expectations. The CEO, a no-bullshit man, welcomed me on board as a consultant. I was back in the game and it felt good. Most of all, though, I couldn’t wait to share the news with Anna. This meant that we could leave Alaska… together. That our paths would be parallel rather than star-crossed.
The day came, finally, for Anna to deliver my groceries. I sat around the living room, unable to even consider work or research. As the afternoon approached, I became downright agitated. I paced like a madman around my house.
Where the fuck was she?
There was no storm, no reason to delay. I nearly worked myself into a frenzy when I heard it—-the faintest sound of a prop engine plane coming from the north. I stood stock-still, just to be sure it was actually a plane before I ran into the yard like a maniac. Again.
The noise grew louder and I leapt for the door; I nearly pulled it off the hinges in my excitement. I launched off the patio and hustled across the lawn, my eyes on the sky. I saw it— Anna’s plane—as she swooped over the treeline, coasted a few dozen feet off the water, and then landed with grace just to the south. She steered the plane to the dock, cut the engine, and anchored just as her floatplane drifted with a gentle bump into my dock. I had already made it to the dock and covered the twenty or so feet to her cockpit in just a few bounds. I yanked the door open and was greeted by…
“Joe?” I asked, my entire worldview tilted and tipped on its ass. The old man looked just as shocked as I did. Probably because I yanked his cockpit door open with more eagerness than he was used to when making deliveries.
“Yes, Mr. Simms,” Joe answered. “You had a delivery set for today? Sorry if I’m late, I had to fuel up before I flew out here. Long trip home.”
Joe smiled weakly.
“I have all your goods in the cargo hold, if you’ll just let me…”
He shifted out of the cockpit but couldn’t move with me in his space. I shook myself and moved back, still too stunned to speak. He stepped onto the dock, opened the cargo hold, and pulled out the two coolers full of my damn groceries.
As he did so, Joe added, “Guess you heard about Anna by now. Finally sold her daddy’s house. The offer came in when she was stuck here with you, actually. Buyer bought it with cash the day she got back home. She was so excited. She took the first flight out to Seattle as soon as she was packed.”
The old man struggled to push the heavy coolers to the dock and my senses kicked in long enough to help him. We carried the coolers into the cabin and Joe, nice as he was, helped me unload. The entire time, my mind whirred with noise.
She wasn’t coming. She left. Gone.
I looked out the window at the plane and I turned to face Joe. “You have her floatplane,” I stated dumbly.
Joe looked up from the cooler with a slightly bemused look on his face and answered, “Yeah, she sold it to me. Tried to give it to me, but it’s a good old girl. I paid her a fair price. She’s gonna need the money to get settled down south. And I helped her daddy keep it up all those years, I guess she wanted me to have it.”
That was it; the final blow. She sold her plane, her only way she had to make a living up here. That meant she was done. She was gone, really gone. I thumped down on the barstool in the kitchen and stared at my hands as that realization sank in.
To avoid being a total pussy, I cleared my throat and asked Joe the last question I could think of, “Do you know where she is? Did she leave a number to call…just in case?”
I had no other way to reach her. I hadn’t thought to ask for her number when she was here. I was a fucking idiot! I scolded myself, infuriated at my own goddamn stupidity. The old man mumbled something while I internally shouted, but my monologue cut off when he passed me a small piece of paper.
“She left her cell number, told me to call if I had any problems with the plane or her deliveries. You need it?”
I beamed at Joe and copied the written numbers into my satellite phone. There wasn’t any cell service up here, not for miles.
I thanked Joe profusely and walked him out to the dock. He told me he’d see me next week, jumped in the cockpit, and reeled in his anchor. Within a few short minutes, he was airborne and I ran to the cabin, phone in hand. I hit “Send” on her contact information and held my breath as the phone connected, then rang. Once, twice, three times.
Pick up the damn phone, Anna!
Apparently she heard me because she picked up on the fourth ring, slightly breathless and worried. “Hello?” she asked.
All the breath whooshed out of me. Even her voice made my cock hard.
“Hello? Joe? Are you okay?”
Her anxiety ramped up and shook me from my stupor as I quickly cleared my throat and responded. “Uh, actually it’s me. Jack.”
The silence on the end of the line was deafening. I waited a beat and then continued, “Joe gave me your number. He just delivered my cargo and… and it wasn’t you. What the hell, princess? Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”
I heard a small hiccup on the end of the line, like a sob but not quite. I waited for a response, but all I heard was silence.
“Damn it, Anna, talk to me!” I snapped, aware that I had lost my mind. The woman I loved was hundreds of miles away and I had no way to reach her. No way to touch her. “Are you all right? Are you okay down there? God, Anna, why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”
She stuttered a bit b
efore she responded, “I tried to tell you, Jack, that day in your car. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you when dad’s house sold. I didn’t really have a way to get ahold of you, and it all happened so fast. I’m in Seattle now, I actually think I found a job.” She paused for a moment before she added, “I’m really excited about this, Jack. This is what I have been dreaming about since Dad died. The house sold, I got the money, and now I’m out of Alaska. This is it, my big dream. I can’t come back.”
I could hear it as she bit her nails on the other end, obviously nervous about my response.
I took a moment and breathed in deeply, tried to collect myself, and asked, “Can I come see you? I want to see you.”
My voice broke a bit at the tension and I stopped myself before I actually begged her to come back to me. I heard her tiny gasp over the line and knew she was just as upset. We both sat in silence for a moment, unable to speak.
Anna finally cleared her throat and said, “Jack, I think we both know this can’t go anywhere. We had fun… so much fun. But long distance relationships never work. And I deserve more than that.”
She was right. She did. I had no right to ask her to give up her dreams for me. I had chosen a life of isolation far from civilization. But Anna had too much life in her for that. That inner fire was one of the things I loved about her.
I heard the smile in her voice, the innuendo lying just beneath the surface, but she spoke again: “And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fall for you, more than I should have. But this is my dream, Jack. This is a really big deal for me. There’s nothing for me in Alaska, Jack. Nothing but you. And that’s—”
“Not enough. I know, princess. I know.” I took a staggered breath as the weight of her response settled. She had no idea that I was ready to leave the cabin and Alaska behind, that I had reached out to the startup company the day after she left and started the process of working my way into Buchanan Industries. That I was done with my solitary confinement. I considered saying it then and there, but I held back. I didn’t want to burden her with my tentative ideas and aspirations. I wanted to give her something that was real, honest and steady. That’s what she was, and that was what she deserved. And so I said, “Anna, I’m so proud of you. Look at you, out of Alaska and into the Big City.” I forced a smile into my voice, though it was softer than usual and tinted with sadness.