by Jen Doyle
The boys were outside, but Lola wasn’t. The babysitter had come in while Lola was bundling up the kids about twenty minutes before and then taken them, insisting Lola stay inside. There had been some major Wii-related chaos going on at the time, so Jack wasn’t surprised the others hadn’t noticed, but he couldn’t believe Nate hadn’t picked up on it.
Jack honestly had no idea how the rest of them could be so entirely clueless about Lola’s whereabouts, in fact, since it was entirely obvious to him that she was in the basement doing another load of laundry. Could they not hear the dryer thumping over and over again? She’d been down there for going on twelve minutes now, in fact, but pointing that out would only highlight how aware Jack was of where she was and how long she’d been there, which would not be good.
“Oh, hey,” Nate said, his eyes still on the TV. “Did I mention the architect said she’d be sending Lola her drawings for the farmhouse on Monday?”
Jack made sure to keep his eyes on the TV even though his whole body had gone on alert. “You did not.”
Obviously, because if that were the case, it would have been clear Jack had flat-out lied yesterday and Nate would have been aware of it then.
With a flick of his gaze, Nate’s mouth quirked up. Then he turned back to the TV. “Huh.”
Jack ran his hands through his hair.
So, the gig was up. If Jack knew what was good for him, he would pull himself together and get the hell out of here. What right did he have to hang out in her house with her kids and her friends and pretend that he belonged?
Then again, if Jack truly knew what was good for him he should’ve done that as soon as the first of the reinforcements showed up at the door.
No—the second he realized Silas had given Jules the complete wrong impression, at which point he should have called Nate and admitted he was in entirely over his head. But since he hadn’t done that, and since he’d outlasted Jules already and none of these guys looked like they were going anywhere anytime soon, Jack decided it was time to make a statement of his own.
In no universe did Jack think Nate was okay with him becoming involved with Lola. But Nate didn’t make tactical errors. And Jack had picked up on the part about Deke now being engaged to Nate’s baby sister. So maybe there was a little bit of payback going on. Really, who was Jack to get in the way of Nate’s schemes? After all, he obviously owed the man big. He stood up. “Then how about I go find her and let her know.”
Considering the way Deke’s head came up as soon as Jack stood up, it might not have ended smoothly. But there was a well-timed ping-pong dispute, causing Jason and Wash to start arguing. Jack took his opportunity and headed downstairs.
He did pause on the way downstairs, though. It was one thing to hassle Deke; under no circumstances, however, would he be anything but straight with Lola. He was not a good person. He was not interested in a relationship of any kind. What he wanted was sex and, despite all the signs in the universe pointing to it being a bad idea, he wanted it with her.
That she appeared to want it too was mind-boggling, especially after his behavior the other night at Nate’s, although he supposed there’d been no better penance than the eighteen hours he’d just spent. Turns out dealing with sick four-year-olds—even mostly dealing with the recovery phase—wasn’t at all like the rookies. But the light he’d shut down the other night when he’d walked away from her had come back in full force this morning. Hell, in that T-shirt she’d been wearing, with its thin, worn-out cotton, she’d been downright iridescent. Feeling her hands underneath his, her body against him, had nearly short-circuited the entire neighborhood, the flash had been so strong. His reaction to her just wasn’t normal. And although Jack may be an ass, he wasn’t a fool. There were only so many roadblocks he was willing to throw in her way. At a certain point there was nothing else he could do other than go with it—and that point was coming soon.
Sooner rather than later, he hoped. Because when he got to the door of the laundry room and saw her standing against the dryer, her back to him and her hand sliding down around her hip, he had a moment of wondering if she thought about him the way he did about her. If maybe she got herself off while doing so. The thought made him groan to himself.
At least he thought it was to himself until she suddenly looked over her shoulder and he realized he might not have been able to keep it in. Her cheeks flamed bright red as she jerked her hand away. But her eyes held his unapologetically as she straightened up.
Holy fuck. She’d just been about to get herself off
And hell, yes, she’d been thinking about him.
He closed the door behind him. “Don’t stop,” he said, the words so raw as they were torn from his throat that he barely recognized his own voice. “Don’t even think about moving.”
He had no sense of crossing the room. One moment he was at the door and the next he had her locked between his arms, her back against his front, just as they’d been this morning. Except this time when she sank back into him and tilted her head to the side, she moaned.
“I can’t have sex with you while my family is upstairs,” she said.
He hadn’t actually even gotten there yet. His brain was about eight steps behind his body, which was mostly just at the point of: need to touch her now. But if she wanted to talk about sex, he was a thousand percent on board. “Just to be clear, is the limiting factor the ‘upstairs’ part or the family part?” Because those were two very different things. Either way, however, he needed to taste her again, starting with the column of her neck.
“The upstairs part,” she gasped, backing her hips up into him.
Jesus Christ.
“That’s okay,” he managed. “I don’t have a condom, so I can’t have sex with you right now, either.”
An idiotic choice on the one hand, but a Godsend on the other. It had been far too long since he’d been with a woman, and a hell of a lot longer since he’d been with one he wanted as much as he wanted her. He was so far gone just from touching her that he wouldn’t make it long enough to put a condom on in the first place.
“So much for always be prepared,” she muttered, her head coming to rest on her forearms.
Actually, this was him being prepared. He hadn’t carried a condom since the day he found out Courtney was pregnant with his baby, partly because he wasn’t sure if he could trust himself to ever have sex again. Whether its complete lack of efficacy was due to malfunction or him being too drunk to use it didn’t matter, especially since he couldn’t even remember the deed itself. He therefore figured the only 100% guarantee of not getting anyone else pregnant was A) never having sex again, and B) never drinking another drop to make sure he didn’t go back on A.
But that didn’t mean all was lost. He took her hand in his, put it to her stomach, smiling as her body tensed at the contact, and then slowly eased their way down past the waistband of her pants, inside of her panties, and through those tight curls to where she was so wet that he could feel it against his hand even before he thrust his finger deep.
“Oh, God,” she gasped as her entire body trembled.
“That’s all the preparation we need,” he whispered into her ear and then gently bit down on the lobe. She nearly keened.
“Not yet,” he said, pulling their hands away. “Don’t come yet.”
“Oh...my freaking...God,” she said, short, little bursts of air coming in between. Then she turned enough to nip at his jaw. “It’s been over three years since I’ve had sex. If you make me wait too long I’ll kill you.”
In another life, he’d sit back on that and think for a bit. Wonder why she waited so long, what the implications were that he was the one to break that spell—that she was the one who broke his.
In another life he wouldn’t have Lola McIntire in his arms, however, and right now he didn’t give a shit. He spun her around, thrust
his hands in her hair, and pulled her up against him. Then he kissed her.
He kissed her. Again. And then again, which was really freaking strange for someone who hadn’t kissed any other woman in years. Licked, nipped, tongued, yes. But she tasted so damn good—like sunbeams and candy and a bright, starry night. He almost forgot he wasn’t the guy who got the girl, that there was no way she’d ever truly be his.
Grasping the back of her neck, he tilted her head back and looked down into her eyes. Yeah. He could get lost in there. Sink down to the bottom and drown in those crystal, clear depths. And a frighteningly big part of him found that entirely okay.
Chapter Eleven
Lola was ready for an orgasm.
Lola was so ready for an orgasm, she’d skipped right past mortified at being caught, to Please, God, I want his hands on me right freaking now. What she wasn’t ready for, however, was that look he gave her. A look that said he was maybe thinking the same things running through her mind. Things that went far beyond bending her forward and spreading her legs and having his way with her.
“Orgasms,” she reminded him, shaking off the rest of her thoughts. Plus, she’d had twenty minutes to herself already; the countdown clock was ticking.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem put off by her directness. He never was. His eyes crinkled up as he smiled. “Right. Or else you’ll kill me.”
“And I won’t even be nice about it,” she answered, sighing as he bent down to kiss her jaw. Behind her ear. The hollow of her neck.
With each kiss her breath hitched and her heart sped up a little more. His hands closed over hers again as he stepped in closer, his thigh between her legs, his chest just close enough to brush her very sensitive breasts. Then his hand came up and his thumb brushed her nipple and her entire body convulsed. That’s how desperate she was for his touch. She also may have whimpered, as was evidenced by a rumble of laughter in his chest.
He wasn’t laughing when she dared to look at him, though. His gaze was hooded and dark as he pulled away, traveling down her body and taking everything in. They lit up when he got to the tie that held her thin gray wraparound sweater together.
“Just like a present,” he murmured, tugging at one end of the bow and then slowly pushing the sweater over her shoulders as it fell open.
She was glad she’d chosen to wear a formfitting tank top underneath rather than one of the ratty T-shirts she typically pulled on for a morning at the house. Not bothering to move the fabric aside, he bent down and took her nipple in his teeth and tugged.
Holy. Lord. She almost came right there. If she’d been able to breathe she would have grabbed his hair and held him there. That alone would have been enough. But before she could catch her breath, he’d sunk down to his knees and begun to pull her sweats and underwear down over her hips.
If she’d been in her right mind, she might have been worried about the stretch marks—she’d carried triplets, for God’s sake—or the not-tight-enough skin or, well, everything. But none of that seemed to matter as he pushed up the hem of her tank top and placed an open-mouthed kiss on her stomach. Trailed his tongue to her hip. Brushed his fingertips down her legs as he leaned in to kiss the back of her knee, the inside of her thigh.
He pulled back slightly and for a second time stood still. She was trembling. Quivering. Tears were falling from her eyes from the sheer perfection of it all. And then, as if she weren’t already so turned on she was about to explode, he made one of those eminently male, you-are-mine growls before he leaned in and undid her.
That was the only word for it. He held her to his mouth and feasted. He lapped at her clit, thrust his tongue inside, pressed against her with his chin... She arched up into him, grabbed the sides of the dryer for all she was worth, and bit down on her lip so she didn’t give away to the whole house that Jack had just shown her the true meaning of bliss. He coaxed her through every single second of the most glorious orgasm she’d ever had. She wanted to roar. She wanted to scream and cry out to the whole world that she’d just found the Holy Grail and they hadn’t even had sex.
At what point she finally collapsed she had no idea; just that she could feel Jack bring her pants back up over her legs, pull her tank top back down, and wrap the sweater around her again. Then he pulled her into his arms and tucked her head into his chest and held her as, still shaking, she came down.
She was mentally present enough to realize he was still hard—even to register that she not just needed to return the favor, but that she desperately wanted to. Except, oh, for Heaven’s sake, she was crying.
“I’m not sad,” she said into his chest.
He chuckled. “No, babe. I got that.”
“And I’m not about to go all crazy clingy,” she added, despite the fact that she couldn’t physically remove herself from his arms yet. “I’ll let go as soon as I can walk again.”
“No rush.” The smile was still in his voice. “We can stay just like this for as long as you like.”
Using the principle of gravity, it was actually possible for her to let her hand drop down between them and at least get a little bit of a feel. Despite his appearing cool and calm, he sucked in a breath as her hand tightened around him.
“Maybe not quite as long as originally thought,” he said, his voice cracking a little.
To the contrary. “Longer.” And thicker, come to think of it.
Or not, because it suddenly occurred to her that she could hear the boys clamoring around upstairs and she had no idea how long they’d been up there.
Thank God they were still up there and not down here, however. “I, um, I think that’s my call to go.”
“Yeah.” He loosened his arms a little, but didn’t release her. Almost as if he wanted to stay here with her just as much as she wanted to stay with him. “I think maybe I’ll just stay down here to finish up.”
She snorted. She couldn’t help it.
“The laundry,” he emphasized, grinning down at her.
“Right,” she answered. “Well, there are some clean towels in that basket over there. You know, if you needed something to fold.” She gave him one more squeeze. “Or whatever.”
He laughed as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her close again.
She knew she had to go. If Deke came downstairs searching for her with all of the kids in tow? Oh, God. But she wasn’t quite ready to leave. She had no business staying here and having a moment with Jack Oxford. She wanted to, though. Oh, how badly she wanted. If she was frightened at how much, he had to be about to go out of his mind, so there was no way she’d attempt anything more than a quick peck on the cheek.
Except then he thrust his hands in her hair again and gave her another one of those searing kisses. The taste of her on him had her clutching his shirt so tightly she might have ripped it a little.
He pulled away suddenly, stepping back. It would have given her a sincere complex if he hadn’t then said, “I am never not having a condom on me again.”
“Next time we do this, my entire family won’t be upstairs.”
“And here we go with the crazy, clingy,” he groaned.
If not for the impish smile on his face, she might have been a little worried—more at herself for responding that way than for the way he might have taken it. But there was that smile, and she had some imp of her own. Pulling her sweater tighter, she gave a light tap to his chest as she walked past him. “No worries. My mouth can be just as clingy with someone else’s cock. I mean, now that I’m back on the bike again.”
To her great satisfaction, he sputtered. But then he laughed and crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall to watch her go. “My cock stands ready and willing for whenever you’re ready to take that next ride.”
Yes, she could see that. She even contemplated staying regardless of the consequences. She had a fe
eling he was as ready as she had been; it most likely wouldn’t take that long. But that was argument enough in itself. She wanted it to take longer. And she did not want to have to explain herself to the crowd above any more than she was going to have to now. This would be irritating enough.
Reaching the door he’d very thoughtfully closed, she put her hand on the knob. “Don’t keep it standing for too long,” she said over her shoulder. “I hear that hurts like a bitch.”
Then she slipped out of the room and closed the door behind her to give him the privacy he needed. If she maybe lingered a minute or two so she could hear him then nobody needed to be the wiser.
After straightening out her clothes and smoothing down her hair, she forced herself to head upstairs.
* * *
It wasn’t possible for one of the best sexual experiences of Jack’s life to have taken place in a laundry room. Hell, it wasn’t possible that one of the best sexual experiences of his life didn’t even involve him having sex or that it required he take matters into his own hand. Literally.
It was a full twenty minutes later, however, when he finally felt recovered enough to face what awaited him upstairs. Twenty minutes of tasting her on his lips, craving the lingering scent of her, remembering the softness and warmth of her skin. Twelve hundred seconds of having every nerve ending crackle and snap and demand to know when he was going to see her again.
Yes, see her.
Not get inside her or kiss her or even touch her. Just see her. Something was seriously wrong with this scenario.
Even more fucked up? He didn’t care.
For the first time in maybe ever, he felt life coursing through him. Anticipation. Euphoria. He’d do almost anything to feel that again, including facing her family and friends.
Although right now might not be the best time, he realized, coming up the stairs just in time to hear Deke say, “You seriously expect me to believe he was down there helping you do laundry?”