by Noelle Adams
The knowledge was all she needed to know.
He wanted this just as much as she did.
“But I was wondering,” Isabella continued, lifting her upper body so she could look down on his strained face, “if maybe we could break that rule… a little.”
Jace's back arched up slightly as she palmed his arousal. “Isabella,” he rasped. “What…”
At any other moment, she never would have said this out loud, but there was no way to stop herself now. “I want you, Jace. Please. Don’t make me wait anymore.”
He groaned helplessly, clearly giving up on his resistance. He took hold of her and rolled them over so he was on top of her. Then he kissed her fiercely.
She clutched at his hair and rocked into him as their tongues tangled and dueled. Nothing had ever felt so good, so right.
Nothing was as good as this.
She was so aroused now she couldn’t lie still. She kept trying to grind herself against him, trying to ease the pulsing ache between her legs.
Repositioning himself again so he could make better use of his hands, he cupped one of her breasts over her shirt, brushing the hard nipple with his thumb. “Can I…” he began, his voice so thick she barely recognized it.
“Yeah.” She arched her back, lifting her breasts into his touch, and her eyes fell shut as he caressed her. “God, yeah.”
Her blood, her pulse, her heart were all throbbing with her body as he moved in nearly slow motion, stroking her breasts, her belly, and then lower.
“Yes,” she gasped, lifting her hips as his agile fingers moved beneath her waistband.
He teased her for a few minutes until he slid a finger inside her. He couldn’t possibly mistake how wet and aroused she already was, and he added a second finger and started to pump them slowly, watching her face as if he trying to learn her responses.
She sucked in an urgent breath and tried to grind her pelvis against his hand, her hands clutching at the rug beneath her.
With this encouragement, Jace lowered his head until he could mouth one of her breasts through her shirt. He sucked and twirled her nipple with his tongue, until the thin fabric was so damp it was transparent and Isabella was mewling with pleasure.
He started curling up his fingers as he pumped them inside her, a shift that caused Isabella to buck her hips up against his hand and pant out a lot of loud, breathless sounds.
His mouth still working on her breast, he murmured, “Isabella? Can you come?”
His question made her halt her shameless squirming and give him a half-dazed look. “Um, I’m not quite there yet.”
He huffed with amusement. “I meant,” he explained, still nuzzling against her nipple, “Is this working for you? You’ll have to tell me what you like.”
She giggled warmly and moved one of her hands to the back of his head, stroking his hair. “I like this. It’s definitely working.”
He shifted his hand so that his thumb could rub against her clit, and her amusement vanished as she cried out sharply and her back bent up in an involuntary arc.
“God!” Isabella gasped, tossing her head and squeezing her eyes shut. Nothing in the world had ever felt like this—like Jace, her Jace, touching her this way, making her feel so good. “Oh, God!”
Then all of the excruciating tension shattered as she came, her muscles clenching hard around his fingers and her body convulsing as she cried out her pleasure.
He watched her as she came. She knew he did, and it made everything even hotter.
Before she’d even caught her breath, he was kissing her again. She couldn’t seem to keep her hands off him now. She pulled eagerly at his clothes, wanting to touch his skin, wanting to see his body in a way she never had before.
They couldn’t seem to stop kissing, even as they fumbled with their clothes, even as they were both naked, their skin touching intimately at last.
And they still couldn’t stop kissing, even as he was settling between her legs and she was trying to guide him inside her body.
“Wait,” he grunted. “Condom.”
She sucked in a ragged breath, trying to clear her mind enough to think through whether she even had one in the house.
“In my pocket,” Jace said, as if he’d just remembered himself.
Since he was so tense he was shaking with it, she managed to sit up and search his clothes until she found the condom. Then he was on top of her again, kissing her, stroking her, rolling on the condom and finally—finally—moving inside her.
She cried out at the tight penetration, and she could see his features twist as if he were just as affected as she was.
It was so right. So exactly right. Having him inside her this way.
No one had ever been closer to her than Jace. And no one ever would be. And this felt like the culmination of that truth.
At last.
After a minute, he seemed to get control of himself, and he started to move. She could tell he was trying to keep his thrusts slow and steady, but he was failing utterly. He couldn’t hold back, and she didn’t want him to.
She bent her knees up around his hips and rocked with him, clawing at his back and urging him on with loud pants and little squeezes. Her body was tightening again. It knew what it wanted.
And knew that Jace was the one who could give it.
“Jace,” she gasped, as all the pleasure rose up in a wave. He was taking her hard and fast now, exactly as she needed. “Jace!”
“Yes, Bella. Yes, baby.” His grunts were low and hoarse and almost helplessly. She’d never before seen him like this. “I want you to come, baby.”
She cried out as the tension released inside her, her body shuddering in the wake of intense feelings. She was saying his name, over and over again, as he grunted a few more times and came too, hard, uninhibited, completely.
Then they collapsed together, holding onto each other.
Isabella had never known it was possible to feel so completely sated, like there was nothing else in the world she could possibly want.
Just Jace. Like this.
Eventually, however, she started to get a little cold, and he started to feel a bit heavy on top of her.
When she shifted, he pulled off, rising to his knees to shake himself off and then take care of the condom.
Being naked just a minute before had felt perfectly natural, but now she was hit with a sudden wave of self-consciousness.
What had just happened? What was Jace thinking now? What if everything between them would change and never go back to what they’d had before?
She reached for her clothes and pulled them back on. The skin on her bottom and shoulder blades were rubbed slightly raw from having sex on the floor like this.
She hadn’t even realized it while it was happening.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, zipping up his pants and reaching for his shirt.
“Yeah.” When her voice broke, she cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes. The rug’s not actually the most comfortable place to have sex.”
“I guess not.”
His voice was so soft, so careful, that she finally had to look him in the eye to see what he was thinking.
Even looking at his face, she couldn’t tell.
“Jace,” she began, her mouth twisting with a sudden surge of panic.
“Let’s not do that,” he interrupted, before she could get anything said.
“Do what?”
“Over-analyze everything. We both wanted this. It was good. Really good. And we’re still friends. We’ll always be friends. Right?”
She nodded, relieved by the confidence in his words. That was what mattered the most, after all. “But what… I mean, how are we going to…”
“Let’s just play it by ear. If something happens, it happens. I don’t think trying to figure everything out right now, on the floor, after a bottle of wine and the best sex of my life, is really going to lead to any deep understandings.”
She sucked in a breath that caug
ht just slightly. Intense relief was washing over her. Maybe they didn’t have to hash everything out right now.
It was sex. Great sex.
He’d said it was the best sex of his life.
It was definitely the best of hers.
But they were still friends. They’d always be friends. And they could just see what happened from here on out.
They didn’t have to figure everything out about their relationship right now.
He was watching her closely, and he seemed to see her relief. It evidently relieved him too. He smiled fondly. “All right?” he asked. “Does that sound okay?”
“It sounds… great.” She dropped her eyes, feeling suddenly shy. “But…I mean… will we do this again?”
“If we want to. That’s what it means to just see what happens.”
She nodded, relieved by this too—because the truth was she definitely wanted this to happen again. “So nothing really changes. We just have sex again if we want to?”
“Right. We just let things happen as they happen.”
There was something about his posture and expression that made her think he was being careful—very careful, like he was afraid the wrong word would send a tower of cards toppling over.
She could understand that. This was the kind of thing that could destroy a friendship.
But they didn’t have to let that happen.
She wasn’t sure how she could survive if that happened.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Good. So what do we do now?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I…I think I need some water.”
He smiled, and her heart skipped a beat in a ridiculous way. “All right then. You do that, and I’ll clean up the Scrabble board.”
“It’s really too bad,” he said in a different tone. His normal teasing one. “I was on the cusp of a remarkable victory.”
Isabella snorted. “You were on the cusp of being a big cheater. Zoroastrian. Right.”
“You’re just jealous because you weren’t the author of such a piece of brilliance.”
“I’m not a Scrabble cheater.” She managed to stand up, slightly sore between the legs in a way that made her feel ridiculously fluttery. And a little proud. Then she remembered she was supposed to go get some water.
She was walking toward the kitchen when she was hit by a surge of fear and turned back to look at Jace.
He’d been pushing a hand through his messy hair with the strangest expression on his face. She couldn’t even begin to interpret what it might mean.
When he saw her looking back at him, his face cleared, and he smiled again.
“You’re sure it’s going to be okay?” she asked.
“Of course it will. We love each other, right?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Then we’ll make sure it’s fine.”
She felt better at the words, at the reassurance. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Of course.” Then his eyes took on that warm, teasing look again and he added in a lazy drawl, “When you think about it, it’s all very Zoroastrian.”
Ten
“I loathe myself,” Jace muttered as he kicked his apartment door shut. The entire drive home from Isabella’s had been spent calling himself every kind of idiot. “You had it. You had it all, and you just couldn’t man the hell up and tell her how you felt. Idiot.”
“Idiot!” The voice echoed from across the room, and Jace groaned. Great. Now he’d have to deal with being mocked by the damn bird. Why hadn’t he covered the cage when he’d left?
Stalking across the room, he was tempted to do just that, but decided that being mean to animals wasn’t another bad move he was going to add to his resume. Beau had been in his cage all day, and Jace figured he might want to get out and fly around a bit. Opening the cage, he stepped back and waited. The bird blinked at him several times, and just when he was sure he wasn’t going to fly out, Beau fluttered and made his way out of the cage, squawking, “Idiot!”
“Awesome,” Jace mumbled. “This is my life.”
While Beau did his thing and stretched his wings, Jace changed into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt before grabbing a bottle of water and collapsing on the couch. It didn’t matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to clear his mind of anything except how Isabella had felt as he’d sunk inside of her.
God.
Never in his life had anything felt like that.
And how had he gone about letting her know? By saying they should play it by ear. He shook his head in disgust, just like he’d been doing for the last twenty minutes. So now what? How were they realistically supposed to move forward?
Sure, they could go back to the way things were and just chalk this up as a one-time thing. But he had a feeling Isabella wouldn’t mind them doing it again. He knew he sure as hell wouldn’t mind. If it were up to him, he’d be there right now, going for round two. Only this time they’d be in her bed, and he wouldn’t be rushing.
Great. Now there was that image in his mind.
“Such a damn idiot,” he muttered, taking a drink of water.
“Idiot!” Beau repeated.
So not what he needed right now—a snarky bird hammering the point home. He was about to get up and put Beau back in his cage when his phone dinged with an incoming text. Pulling it from his pocket, he looked down and smiled.
Isabella.
Thanks for going with me tonight her text read, and Jace had to let that sink in for a moment. It was such a benign comment—something that under normal circumstances wouldn’t mean anything beyond the surface. But after what they’d done? He had to think about it. It didn’t take long for him to realize that she was simply reaching out and looking for reassurance again that they were going to be all right.
What are friends for, right?
As soon as he hit send, he groaned. Could he seriously be any worse at this?
I’m so lucky to have you. That we have each other. I don’t know what I’d ever do without you.
Jace stared at the phone for a few minutes. Should he call her? Stop this mild avoidance? His heart began to hammer in his chest, and he took a steadying breath.
You’ll never have to find out. We’ll always be friends.
Coward.
She instantly replied with a smiley face emoji and wished him a good night. He wished her one as well and threw his head back on the sofa cushion and blew out a breath. Beau landed beside him, tilted his head, and studied him.
Yeah, this pretty much summed up his life—he could be in bed with Isabella right now, living out his every fantasy, but instead he was sitting on his couch with a bird.
“Idiot,” Beau said.
And Jace didn’t have it in him to argue.
***
A week later, Jace was still mildly confused.
But sexually satisfied.
With their promise to take things as they came and not let that one night change them, they stuck to their usual routine of seeing each other on an almost daily basis. The day after had been the most awkward. They had run into each other while grocery shopping and, at the sight of him, Isabella had instantly blushed.
And he had gotten instantly hard.
They ended up shopping together and laughing and joking as they always had, and by the time they’d checked out, Jace was convinced that he had imagined the hot sex of the previous night.
But then Isabella had shown up at his place that night out of the blue and… hell, he was still shocked by that one. He had opened the door and seen the hesitant look on her face, and he’d known. He’d known exactly what she was thinking because he was thinking it too. They made it as far as the couch.
Beau definitely learned some new words that night.
Harder.
Faster.
Yeah. The bird needed to go—especially if this relationship with Isabella kept going the way that it was. Nothing killed the moment faster than a bird mocking you at the height of passion.
&
nbsp; Isabella hadn’t said anything about it though. She didn’t spend the night. If anything, she’d seemed just as shy and hesitant as she’d been when she arrived and then made an excuse about having to go home.
And like an idiot he hadn’t stopped her.
Probably because he was still trying to catch his breath.
Yeah. She had come and gone that fast.
They’d texted on Sunday, but Jace was working on some reports for work and had been too bogged down with them to do anything but that. They’d gone to lunch Monday and Tuesday, and then he had been the one to pounce Tuesday night. Just the thought of it had him grinning. They had played a game of dirty Scrabble—not that it had started out that way—but sometimes when you had the right letters, you just had to play them.
Spank.
Deep.
Wet.
Horny.
Yeah, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where his mind was, and Isabella had been completely on board. He reached behind him and blindly rubbed at a spot on his back where he was pretty sure there was still a letter X tile imprinted there.
They had kept their sexy shenanigans to themselves and went about business as usual around town, so Jace wasn’t sure why he was so surprised that people were still hell-bent on setting her up on dates.
But they were.
When he’d shown up at the salon on Wednesday, it hit him like a ton of bricks. Everyone was talking about the “great guy” they’d found for her and how they were certain he was “the one.” Isabella had looked at him warily, and it was all Jace could do to keep a smile on his face and pretend that he didn’t feel like he’d been kicked in the gut.
He was on the verge of telling her that he’d meet up with her later simply because he couldn’t stand to hear any more details, when she’d let out a scream and plastered herself against him.
With a sigh, his arm went around her. “Spider?”
She nodded and then looked over her shoulder. “Over there. By the wheel of my cart.”
“You know it’s probably more scared of you then you are of it, right?”
At this point, she would normally be pulling away.
But this time she wasn’t. If anything, she pressed a little bit closer, and for a moment it was like they were alone in the room.