by Bella Andre
“Let’s start here,” she said softly. “With tonight. Please, Jack, come inside.”
She held her breath as she waited for him to decide if what she was offering was enough for him.
Finally, he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them. “Let’s go in.”
Nerves fought with heady anticipation as she led him up the steps. He might spend all day working on computers in a dusty garage, but Mary knew just how dominant, how alpha Jack could be. She’d felt it in every stolen kiss, in the hard press of his body against hers when she’d sworn that getting tangled up with him wasn’t what she wanted. But tonight she sensed he wanted her to lead him only as far as she was comfortable going…even if it was a distance she honestly couldn’t yet calculate.
Her house was so quiet she wondered if he could hear how hard and fast her heart was beating. He helped her off with her coat, and even though she was still fully dressed, she felt as if she was already standing naked before him in her foyer.
“So they girls are really all gone?” His warm breath heated the bare curve of her neck as he remained behind her with her coat in his hands.
Mary took both her coat and his from him and hung them up before turning back and saying, “We have the place entirely to ourselves.”
“I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you, Mary. I didn’t think it was possible to want like this.”
He hadn’t yet reached for her, hadn’t yet pulled her in for a kiss. But when he spoke, heat rolled across her skin as if he’d done that, and more.
And yet, though she knew Jack was different from the other men she’d been with, the hard lessons she’d learned over the years had her wondering if it was just her face, just her body, he wanted so badly.
“I’m sure you’ve been with plenty of beautiful women before.” And, Lord, she prayed she could measure up to them.
“Don’t you dare try to act like that’s what this is about.” There was a fierceness in him now. “Yes, you’re beautiful. And yes, your stunning face, your gorgeous body might have been what first drew me to you, but that’s not why I’m going to make love to you tonight.”
“Then why?”
“You could be at a glittering Christmas party full of movie stars and moguls. You could snap your fingers, and a dozen of the world’s most eligible bachelors would come running to give you everything you desired and more. Instead, you spent the night with my family and even made us dinner. You laughed with my brothers. You put my sister-in-law at ease, and you played on the floor with my nephew.”
Ever since Mary had become famous, the men she’d met assumed she craved the glitz. The spotlights and flashbulbs. Only Jack had ever seen the truth—that she’d take spending time with a loving family over all of the fame and flash.
Just like that, her nerves fell away, and she reached for him. He’d remembered to shave that morning, but his jaw was already dark with an evening shadow. Gently, she ran her fingertips over his face as he slid his hands around the curve of her hips.
“It’s my turn to steal a kiss from you tonight,” she whispered as she ran her thumb across his lower lip. He was so tall that she had to go on her tiptoes in her heels and thread her fingers into his dark hair to pull his mouth down to hers.
And as she kissed him, the breath Mary realized she’d been holding since the moment she’d met Jack Sullivan escaped her lips in a happy sigh.
Chapter Twelve
Mary’s lips were so soft, her breath a whisper of warmth across Jack’s mouth. Every kiss they’d shared had been spectacular, but nothing could have prepared him for this. He’d been stealing passion from her before, but now she was giving him her boundless sensuality freely…and so damned sweetly that his hands were shaking as he cradled her hips.
She drew back just far enough to murmur, “You taste so good, like lemons and sugar and you,” and then she was kissing him again, slicking her tongue over his lower lip. Meeting her halfway, his tongue found hers, and she gave up a gasp of pleasure.
The small tastes of her that he’d had this past week had made him ravenous for more than just a few fleeting moments of heaven. He wanted to learn every inch of the incredible woman in his arms. What made her pant. What made her plead. What made her eyes flutter closed as she came apart in his arms.
Slowly, he slid his hands up her curves, from her hips to her back and shoulders. She was trembling by the time he threaded his fingers into her silky hair, and as he took their kiss deeper, her hands clasped his shoulders as if she needed to hold on to him to keep her balance.
Tilting her head back further, he began to rain kisses over her jaw. Drawn like a magnet to the rapidly beating pulse at the side of her neck, he covered it with his mouth. Her skin was even softer here, and she shuddered when the bristles from his evening shadow brushed over her. When she arched back, he licked once into the hollow at the base of her throat, before moving down to press his lips over the bare skin of her collarbone where her sweater had pulled away.
In the heat of their passion, they’d moved so that he was pressing her back against the front door, and as he cupped her face to kiss her again, she lifted one leg around his hips to try to pull him even closer.
Sliding his hand from her hair back down her body, he realized he’d never lost control this fast. He could barely focus on anything but how sweet her lips were, how soft her skin was, how good her hair smelled, how much he loved her soft moans of pleasure as she kissed him back with a desire that matched his. He knew that if they didn’t get into her bedroom soon, he was bound to take her their first time right here against her front door. He gave her one last, hot kiss, then swept her up into his arms.
He should have known she wouldn’t miss a beat as she drew his mouth back down to hers. Somehow he made it through the living room and down the hall to the door at the end of the hall without just dropping with her to the floor like a wild animal. Pushing her bedroom door open with his foot, he carefully walked through with Mary in his arms and laid her gently on top of her coverlet.
Wanting to remember every moment of their first night together, he took a step back from the bed and gazed down at the beauty before him. Mary’s long dark hair was spread out across the pillows, and her dark green sweater and gorgeous flushed skin were utterly enticing as she lay atop the red velvet bedcover.
“Come be with me, Jack.” She shifted up on the bed to reach out for him. “Please, I need you.”
As he went back to her, he made a silent vow to give her everything she deserved—not only more pleasure than she’d ever known before, but also the love he’d been keeping deep inside just waiting for the moment when she appeared in his life.
Mary’s lips curved with joy as she pulled him down over her on the bed. He didn’t know how long they kissed, rolling over with each other on the soft velvet, hands stroking, mouths devouring in their hunger for each other. Her passion matched his, and he found himself wondering if a lifetime could possibly be long enough to fill such a deep well of need.
And then her hands were moving to the buttons of his shirt, and he didn’t stop kissing her as he captured them with his. Holding her captive against him, he gave a final nip to her lower lip before lifting his head to stare down at her.
Already a stunning woman, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes heavy with arousal, there wasn’t any painting, any vista, any wonder in the world that could match her beauty as she lay in bed beneath him.
Jack’s breath caught in his chest as he looked down at her. “What did I ever do right to deserve you?”
“Everything. Everything you do is exactly right.”
Shifting over her, he found the pulse point at the side of her neck again and let his teeth scrape gently over her sensitive skin. The way she arched against him put the silent vow he’d made to go slowly their first time almost out of reach.
Sliding his hands beneath her back, he lifted the hem of her sweater. Her breath came quickly, her chest rising and falling fast beneath the soft
green wool as she shifted her shoulders so that he could slide the fabric up to reveal the swell of her breasts above her lacy bra.
“Beautiful.”
Forgetting all about stripping her sweater the rest of the way off, he reached out and brushed his fingertips over her soft flesh.
“Jack.”
His name shook on her lips as he lowered his head to trace over her skin with his mouth. Her scent made his head spin, her soft sounds of pleasure sending his heart racing faster than it ever had before.
When he’d been stealing kisses from her, he’d always been gentle. But now, as he gripped the softness of her sweater in his fists, Jack couldn’t stop himself from roughly dragging it all the way off. Excitement glittered in her eyes as she stripped away her slacks from her legs so that they landed on the colorful rug beside her bed.
If he’d been stunned by the flash of lace at her breasts, the lace at her hips knocked every last bit of oxygen from his lungs.
For a long moment he couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but marvel. Lost in the wonder of her, he didn’t realize Mary had taken his hands in hers until she lifted them to her lips. One quick kiss to his knuckles and then she was slowly opening his hands to slide them down over her jaw, her neck, her collarbones, and then—sweet Lord, he wasn’t sure he’d manage to make it through tonight in one piece—she placed them over her breasts.
As she let him feel the hard beat of her heart, then lifted her hands from his so that he was the only one still touching her, Jack knew she wasn’t just silently telling him she wanted him to make love to her…she was also saying she trusted him enough, for tonight at least, to put her heart in his hands.
Notorious for his steady hands as he soldered the wires on a circuit board, Jack couldn’t keep his fingers from shaking as he moved to slide the straps of her bra down off her shoulders. She trembled beneath him, just as unsteady but with him all the way as he finally uncovered one perfect breast and then the other.
It was pure instinct to cup Mary’s soft flesh with his hands and lower his head to take first one peak and then the other into his mouth. She tasted even better than she looked, and as he drew on her with lips and tongue, she arched into his hands and mouth to let him have even more of her.
Reaching behind her, he flipped open the latch on her bra and tossed it to the floor to join her clothes. Her skin was rosy and damp from where he’d been kissing her, and when he brushed his jaw across her aroused nipples, her hips came up against him in a silent plea for more. Her stomach muscles quivered beneath his lips as he ran kisses down the center of her body. When bare skin was replaced with lace, he drove both of them crazy by tracing the edges of her panties with both his fingertips and tongue. She was even softer here, her scent spinning through him.
Lace scratched against his tongue as he covered her with his mouth, and then he was being just as rough with her panties as he’d been with her sweater in his desperation to have her completely bare and open to him.
Again, his name fell from her lips in a whisper of breath and need, and he answered the sweet plea with a slow brush of his tongue over her. A moment later, his fingers found her hot and slick, and when she shuddered and cried out his name, Jack was so lost in the pure sensuality of the way she moved beneath him that he nearly fell over the edge with her even though he was still fully clothed.
Slowly, he kissed his way down her legs, from the incredibly soft skin of her inner thighs to the sensitive spots behind her knees, then over her toned calf muscles, until he was pressing soft kisses to the arches of both feet. With his hands, he massaged her muscles, making her moan from the pleasure of his touch. He could have spent all night working his way back up her body with his hands and mouth, finding all of the spots he’d missed on the way down, but when she took his hands in hers, he let her pull him back up over her.
Her kisses made him dizzy enough that she easily rolled them over so that he was on his back and she was gorgeously naked over him. Silently, and with intense focus, she began to work open the rest of the buttons on his shirt. When she had the fabric completely open, instead of moving it off his shoulders, she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss over his heart.
Jack had never known a woman as beautiful, as intelligent, as gracious as Mary. And he’d never known lovemaking like this before, either. Because with every kiss, with every touch he and Mary gave each other, heart was as important as heat.
That kiss over his breastbone was the first in a sweet path of damp heat she made across his chest, neck and jaw, until she’d made it high enough to cup his face in her hands. When she rocked into him and they moaned into each other’s mouths, he was too greedy for another one of her beautiful climaxes to even think about taking things further.
“Again,” he urged, following his words with caresses that had her eyes closing as she levered up over him again to rock closer, faster, harder against him. And as her breath hitched and her hands gripped at his forearms, she was so heartbreakingly beautiful that he knew she really was an angel.
His angel.
Jack could have listened to the sweet sounds of her releases all night long and might have done just that had she not reached for his belt buckle. The light brush of her fingertips over his abdomen was almost too much to handle by that point, and he had to tense every muscle in his body to keep from losing control as she finally pulled the leather open and slid down the zipper.
She didn’t tease him as she stripped the rest of his clothes and his shoes and socks away, but when her elegant hand came around him a beat later, a hard hiss of air whistled out from between his clenched teeth.
Jack wanted their lovemaking to be as much an equal adventure as everything else they did together, but he was too close to the edge to let her keep touching him like that tonight. In one quick move, she was back beneath him, her hands in his on either side of her head as he kissed her.
For a week, Mary had clearly believed she needed to fight what was meant to be, and Jack had worked to hold on to his rapidly disintegrating patience until she felt that she could give herself to him without reservations. But now the time for waiting was long past. And yet, even as she whispered to him that she was protected and she lifted her hips to welcome him into her, in the moment that he moved between her legs, Jack wanted to stop everything so that he could tell her how much she’d already come to mean to him.
But for tonight Jack knew he’d have to use his body to tell her everything he felt in his heart, instead.
The pleasure built with every stroke, with every thrust, with every kiss. Damp skin against damp skin, heated breath over aroused flesh, they were perfect partners in passion.
And as they moved together, with desire driving them higher and higher, Jack knew that every breath, every dream, every prayer had led him here, to the warmth of Mary’s arms around him.
* * *
The velvet coverlet and sheets lay tangled around their bodies as they held tightly to each other, still breathing hard, Mary’s head cradled in the crook of Jack’s arm. Outside her bedroom window the rest of the city was sleeping. Warm and safe in her bed with the most wonderful man she’d ever known, sleep should have finally come to claim Mary, too. But so much had happened tonight, much more than just lovemaking that had left her breathless. It would be a long time before she could settle down enough to get some badly needed rest.
Tonight she’d trusted Jack with her body, but though that might have been enough for another man, she knew Jack wanted much, much more.
He wanted her to trust him with her heart, too.
Not just for one night but forever.
For a few hours, she’d been able to drop her guard and allow desire to take the place of decisions. Jack’s touch, his kisses, had brought her fully to life in a way that no other man’s had before him.
Come morning, she’d have to decide if she could let what was between them continue to grow…and risk letting herself fall in love with him.
Sh
e’d known from their very first kiss that making love with Jack would be wonderful. But nothing could have prepared her for the extraordinary sensations of his mouth moving across her skin, the sensuality of his hands caressing her…or the perfection of coming together with him until she lost hold of where she ended and he began.
Nothing could have prepared her for the wonder of feeling as though he was her very first, her only.
And nothing could possibly have prepared her for the way the heart she’d been so careful with had opened wide with reckless abandon.
Fortunately, looking at their entwined fingers resting over his chest helped to calm her racing heart. As if he could read her mind, he lifted their hands to his lips and softly, slowly, kissed each of her fingers.
Raising her gaze to meet his, she was hit with yet another shock: Jack wasn’t hiding a single emotion from her. And—oh God—what she saw in his eyes echoed what she felt in the deep, secret part of her heart she thought she had locked down, sure it was the only way to prevent ever being hurt again.
Through the haze of her post-pleasure brain, Mary couldn’t lie to herself: From that very first moment he’d spoken to her, from the very first press of his lips against hers under the mistletoe, had she ever had a choice about falling for Jack Sullivan?
Suddenly finding it difficult to breathe, Mary tried to move from his arms, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“I promised you I’d be patient,” he reminded her softly. “I’m not going to break my promise.”
Didn’t he see that just because he hadn’t said the word love aloud, it didn’t mean his body, his expression, his heart beating steadily and hard against hers, weren’t saying it to her even now?
Mary had been on her own for all of her adult life and had carved out a successful career in a supremely difficult field. Yet, as Jack held her on her bed, she finally had to face her own weaknesses…and accept just how far and deep her fears ran. Fears that had plagued her since the day she’d walked away from everything she’d known as a teenager.