by CJ Roberts
“So, Sara is a girl scout,” he muttered, closing his eyes as she rolled the thin sheath down his shaft.
“Yeah a girl learns how to take care of herself.” His cock was so hard it pressed up tight against his lower belly. She straddled him, allowing herself only minimal penetration.
“Wait.” He gripped her hips, not letting her envelop him fully. “You have to understand something. This is your choice. Something you can take away anytime. But…” He sighed, releasing her so she could drop down further, making them both groan. He tugged her chin down, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You scare me Sara. The way I feel about you terrifies me. And when I get scared I act stupid, fair warning.”
She reacted to his voice like an animal, every inch of her skin sensitized in way that made her nearly mad with need. She wanted him – all of him, all of the time, but if this was all he would give, well, she’d take it. She responded by sitting on him fully, taking his thickness deep, gasping from the familiar stretching sensation.
His put his hands on her hips and forced her back up, then looked at her a moment, his gaze puzzled. But New Sara ignored his confusion and lowered herself back down, taking him into her fully, again and again. She closed her eyes and let it happen, felt her orgasm roaring up with every penetration. She shoved his shirt up and ran her hands across his incredibly sculpted upper body. Consciously tightening her vaginal muscles, she watched his eyes, aware of the response she would get.
“Don’t be silly Jack,” she whispered, breathless. “You can trust me, too.”
When he reached around and grabbed her ass with both hands, and brought his lips back to her nipple she tipped over the edge, moaning and crying out his name as the orgasm embraced her. She brought his face up to hers, wanting to kiss him, to share it with him. She continued to flex her inner muscles and raise herself up and down on Jack’s magnificent cock, until he reached his own climax, groaning into her mouth.
She remained in place a few minutes, trying to restore her normal breathing pattern. He sighed into her neck. “Okay,” he muttered, “I think I’ve been used and abused, but I liked it.” He shifted as she lifted herself off him.
She laughed. “Let’s go, the party’s started. Might as well face Blake now. That’s part of my deal. He has to know.”
Jack groaned. “Okay but try to keep him from throttling me, will ya?” She leaned over to kiss him, her body sated, her mind clear.
By the time they reached the cabin, its lights were ablaze, music poured out of all windows. There were people inside and on the expansive deck. Jack started out with his arm around her shoulders but released her once they climbed the steps. She figured he was going to grab drinks for them and started across the deck to talk with a friend.
When she caught sight of an extremely tall and exotic looking woman making a beeline for Jack, she blinked, still in a slight stupor from her recent orgasm. Her eyes narrowed as the woman whispered something in Jack’s ear, making him frown.
Heather.
It had to be. She swallowed hard.
Trust him Sara. You have to give him a chance. He’s probably telling her to back off.
She walked up to Blake who stood at the grill turning hamburgers.
“Hey sister.” He glared over at Jack then leaned in to whisper into her ear, “You smell like sex. What the hell is he doing here?”
“Hey Blake.” She put her arm around his shoulders. “He’s, ah, my date.” The sudden feel of something cold against her arm made her squeal. She jumped and turned, fully expecting Jack to be standing there with a cold one for her. When she looked straight into Craig’s deep chocolate eyes her skin prickled.
He smiled, and held out the sweating brown bottle. She tried to tamp out the distinct sound of Jack’s laughter drifting across the room as she took the bottle, emptying half in one drink.
Blake shook Craig’s hand, and Sara looked around the room pretending not to notice Jack and the woman he claimed was a stalker. As if sensing her glare, Jack turned his head, winked at her, and then turned the full force of his attention to the woman practically panting in front of him. She kept touching his arm, his chest, but to his credit, he would remove her hand whenever it reached him. Sara clutched the bottle tighter, finished it off, and put the empty down before stomping away.
God damn it. Why was he making this so difficult?
Sara greeted some friends on her way to the beer coolers, grabbed another one, stood and opened it as she turned. Craig was at the other end of the long table filled with food, laughing with Jen, the admin girl he’d been linked with through company gossip. Sara’s face flushed.
She attempted to locate Jack without looking around too obviously. Her second beer went down quickly, and she made her way over to Rob, ignoring Craig as she passed him.
“Hey,” her brother’s handsome lover said as he turned the shrimp and chicken kabobs on the massive grill.
“Don’t,” she demanded. “Just…don’t, okay?”
“You said yourself it was only physical,” he muttered to her. “Why do you expect him to act any different?”
“You know what,” she hissed at him, “You don’t know the whole story. We are together for your information and he just has to tell her that.” She nodded over to where Jack and Heather had been standing. They were nowhere in sight. She gulped and clenched her fists. Rob put a hand on her shoulder.
Needing space from him and his unspoken “I told you so”, she made her wobbly way across the large deck. Passing by an open door, she heard Jack’s low laughter – the sound of him in full on seduction mode was hard to miss since she’d been on the receiving end of it so frequently.
While her brain screeched at her to keep walking, to ignore what she heard, her feet led so she found herself in the gloom of the one main rooms of the cabin. She kept walking until she was in the doorway out to the back deck. The overgrown wisteria vines provided dim corners perfect for secret trysts as Sara well knew from years of experience. The sound of a woman’s giggle and the distinct and recognizable noise of a kiss froze her in place. She sucked in a deep breath and stepped out onto the deck.
“Jack.” A woman’s high-pitched voice stretched his name out to several syllables. “I thought you had forgotten about me.” The woman giggled again, an annoying nails on a chalkboard sound to Sara’s rattled brain.
“No, no. Now, now hang on. I’m here with someone. Cool your jets.” Sara stood and listened, willing to hear his side of the conversation. “Listen, Heather, I’m not…I mean I think I’m, whoa hands off sweetheart.”
Sara heard the woman whimper.
“Hang on, aren’t you gonna finish what you started?” Heather’s voice got breathier. “I mean, you found me at this thing even though you came with. . .” Jack cut her off.
“Actually you found me. Look, I gotta get back. Sorry but you can’t, oh hell, seriously, stop it.” He groaned, making the hairs on the back of Sara’s neck stand up.
Mine.
The woman made a disappointed, whiney sound. Sara finished off the beer and set the bottle down with a clunk, alerting the asshole and the slut with him to her presence.
There was more rustling and a feminine squeal. She took another step out into the sunlight and saw Jack sitting with Heather half draped over his lap. She turned her head and glared at Sara, putting a blatant hand on Jack’s crotch. He shot up, knocking her to the floor, watching Sara the entire time.
Some combination of post Jack-induced orgasm stupor and extreme anger at his bullshit attitude since they hit the party made her body thrum with fury but she forced herself to get real. God, she should know better by now. The guy was nothing but a walking hard on, apparently, without any scruples or emotion whatsoever. His stupid email excuses, and her own willingness to let it slide these past days collided in her brain. She would never, ever trust him, no matter how badly she wanted to. It invited heartbreak and disaster, two things she had no room in her life for anymore.
“
Sorry to interrupt.” Sara put a hand on the wall to steady herself. “Don’t stop on my account, Jack,” she hissed at him, ignoring the woman as she sat back on the bench and tugged at Jack’s hand. His eyes narrowed, “Since we came together I thought you might need to know I’m leaving. You know, so you won’t wonder where I am or anything.” Sara whirled around before she let tears drop then turned back to him and ground out. “By the way, your time is up.”
“Wait, Sara. Christ, Heather would you please stop.”
She picked up her pace, able to sidestep the furniture through her veil of tears since Blake hadn’t changed anything from the time they used to hang here as kids. Her brother stood in the small kitchen and caught her arm as she passed by.
“Don’t touch me,” she yelled loud enough for the partygoers outside the front door to stop talking and stare. Blake grasped her arm anyway, and pulled her close enough to hiss into her ear.
“I didn’t invite him, remember?” He put his arm around her waist. “Now calm the fuck down and don’t make a scene. He doesn’t deserve the attention, okay?” He pulled her close and she melted into this side, nodding her head and wiping her eyes. He gave her a tender kiss on the forehead, brushed one last tear from her cheek and propelled her ahead of him straight into Craig.
Brushing past the handsome blonde man, she marched down the steps to the front yard, determined to get control of herself before talking to anyone else. She made it as far as the battered wooden swing her father had installed for them in the large oak tree. She grabbed the ropes in both hands, letting the tears drip onto the seat worn smooth by years of use.
I am such a fucking idiot! I do want him. I just admitted that today. He asked me to trust him and if I really thought about what he said to her out there…no. Fuck him. I won’t do it.
She let go of the ropes and sat hugging her legs, leaned against the giant tree trunk. Her head pounded with unshed tears and too much beer. A band tightened around her chest, choking her, making her chest ache and her mouth dry. She kicked her legs out in front of her and snorted in disgust and self-loathing, then yelped when a hand touched her shoulder.
“Sara,” Craig’s soft, musical voice intoned. “Hey, here, drink this.” He handed her an ice-cold water bottle. She ignored him and stared straight ahead.
“Won’t your date miss you,” she said through clenched teeth.
“She’s not my date.” He slid down the tree trunk next to her, dangling his hands between his knees. She grabbed the water bottle from him and slugged half of it back, letting some spill out the side of her mouth, no longer caring how she looked. “Wanna get out of here?” He bumped against her shoulder.
She turned to him. His deep brown eyes were wide and inquiring. He shrugged.
“Or not, whatever.” He studied his fingernails.
She stood, drained the water bottle and looked up on the deck filled with partiers. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Jack stride around from behind the house, Heather scurrying after him, trying to keep up. She watched Jack’s eyes scan the crowd, land on his friends Evan and Suzanne, then continue looking around, ignoring the woman standing next to him trying to talk until she threw up her hands and walked away. Sara smiled coldly. She turned to Craig.
“Yes, please, get me out of here.” She put a hand on his chest, and was satisfied to hear his breath quicken at her sudden, unexpected touch. He grinned and took her hand, guiding her towards his motorcycle. She pulled back, then shrugged.
Why the hell not?
As she threaded her arm through Craig’s relishing his familiar clean-washed scent a feeling of calm slipped over her zinging nerve endings.
“Sara!” She turned to see Blake on the step. “Headed out?” he yelled, louder than was necessary, Sara thought. She faced him, standing next to Craig’s bike as he handed her an extra helmet.
“Yeah, thanks.” She blew him a kiss and he waved as Jack came up behind him. Sara put a helmet over her hair and Craig adjusted it under her chin. She watched as if from far away as Jack started down the steps and Blake’s strong arm shot out, blocking him.
“Not today Gordon,” Sara heard her brother growl. “You’re lucky I don’t kick your sorry ass down the steps and off my property.”
She watched Jack glance down at the arm across his chest and shoot a murderous look at her brother. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of Evan taking three long steps across the deck to stand between her brother and her lover, facing Jack, pushing him backwards. Rob had positioned himself in front of Blake who tried to follow Evan and Jack.
Craig gunned the motor so she couldn’t hear anything but it was painfully obvious that Rob had some difficulty restraining Blake. The crowd stared first at him, then at Jack who had broken free of his friend’s influence and was pointing at Blake. Suzanne and Evan stood on either side of him, holding his arms, until he turned and stomped off to the opposite side of the deck and out of Sara’s line of sight.
Blake stood, fists clenched, neck vein popping in anger as Rob put an arm around him and led him inside. She turned, put her arms around Craig – for safety, she told herself – and laid her aching head on his shoulder as he put the bike in gear and took off down the dirt drive.
She had the distinct sensation of having ripped a huge chunk of her soul out, leaving it back on the deck when she saw how possessive the woman was with Jack.
Craig may ease that but he won’t ever be what you need.
Enough! You are done with Jack Gordon. Everyone is right about him. Focus on the man who rescued you twice now – see what he has to offer instead.
Sara sighed and tried her best to force visions of Jack’s face out of her head, the sight of his eyes that night when he pleaded with her to let him get close and not be afraid, that he would hurt her.
12
Sweat poured off Jack’s body by the time he finished an early morning ten-mile run on what promised to be a ninety-plus-degree day. He stood stooped with his hands on his knees in his front yard, surveying the street scene on the muggy Michigan early fall morning, shattered in body and mind.
“Hey Mr. Gordon,” the kid across the street yelled. “Need that lawn mowed again this week?”
Jack waved at him and shook his head. “Not until it rains a little, but I’ll let you know.” He had a brief vision of his own father, yelling at him to get up off his ass and mow the lawn again, even after he’d mowed it a few days before. Jack had spent hours staring at the ceiling in his room vowing never, ever be the type of unrelenting, critical father his was. Now look at him, over thirty with not a kid in sight to ruin with his impossibly high expectations.
And who can you blame for that, eh, Gordon?
The thought of his own stupid behavior last week brought chills to his sweat-soaked skin. He stared up at the piercing blue sky to regain his composure. The memory of Sara’s gorgeous green eyes filling with angry tears nearly seared him in half, all over again. Even though he had truly been trying to disentangle himself from Heather, she had caught them at a bad moment. Bad timing was the name of his game lately it seemed.
He turned and walked into his house – the house he’d bought with his hard-earned money, and renovated himself calling upon the years of equally hard-earned experience on the job with his father as a young man. Anymore, though, it was just an empty cavern, mocking him with its lack of a certain female presence.
The night they’d shared in his bed was never far from his mind. He’d felt so content then, better than he had in years. Had convinced himself that Sara would complete his life, could bring out his best as he coaxed out hers, and he was imagining the future with her on his run the next morning when he’d walked right into the shit storm created by his own bad behavior.
The crazy bitch, Heather, he’d picked up in his friends’ beer bar would not let go of him, even though he’d only fucked her once. In a colossal fit of bad judgment, he’d reverted back to his old ways in her office at the title company a few weeks earlier. He’d at
tended some stupid fundraising thing with her, gotten drunk off his ass, and spent hours wishing it were Sara on his arm, even sending her texts the whole night, before passing out on Heather’s couch.
She’d kept at him for days afterward, ramping up the sex talk until he’d snapped. He’d had a frustrating day, felt thoroughly avoided by Sara and had taken the woman, never once picturing any other face but Sara’s the entire time. It was the stupidest thing he could have done and he was far from proud of it.
Yep, King Shit of Bad Timing Mountain, that was him.
He’d tried. He truly wanted to be trusted. And had seen Heather at that party and decided that was the right moment to set her straight.
Jesus.
The hot shower felt great, going a long way to soothing his troubled brain. Jack let the water slide across his face, and he turned to let it beat a pattern on his back as he recalled the fallout from Sara’s brother’s party. He and Blake had come within seconds of a brawl, and Jack knew that the man would have kicked his ass, but damned if he would let him treat his sister like some sort of precious jewel, unworthy of Jack’s presence.
She was a grown woman, capable of making her own decisions. Blake’s overprotection had reached unreasonable proportions, something Evan and Suzanne agreed with him on, although they had both beaten him around the head and shoulders that night for his behavior even though he’d tried to explain. No one believed him. Suzanne’s disappointment had been the most palpable and upsetting.
“Stop trying to prove what an asshole you are, Gordon,” she’d said, her eyes bright with angry tears. “Maybe people will figure it out on their own.” She’d not talked to him the rest of the night. He’d sat with Evan and stared at a baseball game until his eyes were numb with boredom. Evan had put a hand on his shoulder before he left.
“I’m going to ask Julie to marry me,” he said. “But I swear on all that is holy if you don’t start acting like a man and not a sex-crazed teenager, you are not gonna be invited much less stand with me. I know what you need Jack. Why you won’t admit it to yourself is beyond me, but keep acting like this and we are through. And that will piss me off so much I may even revoke your Mug Club card.” He’d given Jack a fierce hug and pushed him out the door.