Turning back, he pulled down his boxers and stepped into the half-full tub. The water was hot, just how he liked it. As he lowered down, the water level rose quickly. As nice as this tub was for Jessie, he really didn’t think it had been designed for someone his size. However, when his ass hit the bottom and he leaned back, he was pleasantly surprised at just how accommodating it was. He rested his arms on the edges and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the rushing water as it flowed out of the spout.
A vision of Jessie lying naked in the bathtub, bubbles floating around her, filled his head. Her skin, moist from the water, glistened under the light of the candles he’d seen scattered around the bathroom. He felt himself growing hard beneath the water as he pictured the upper swell of her breasts at the water’s surface.
Opening his eyes, he shook his head. If he continued down that line of thinking, this was going to turn into a much different bathing experience than he thought was appropriate to be having in Jessie’s bathroom. Unfortunately, thinking of himself tugging one out only led to thoughts of whether or not Jessie touched herself while she was taking a bath.
Zach groaned as he pictured Jessie’s hand running down her body, dipping below the water as she spread her legs. Her head falling back as she pleasured herself beneath the water. Now his length was not just hard, it was pulsing with need.
Great.
Leaning forward, he turned the water off and then ran his fingers through his hair as he slumped back against the porcelain tub. Zach had to do something about what was going on—or not going on—between him and Jessie.
He’d never had trouble with staying focused at the gym, especially this close to a fight. But since the moment he’d seen his uptown girl standing at the bottom of the stairs in the basement, he hadn’t been able to think of anything else.
At first, it had mainly been a physical attraction. Sure, he’d wanted to get to know her and instantly knew that she wasn’t like any other woman he’d ever met, but most of his thoughts had not featured them talking and getting to know each other. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. In his daydreams, he’d definitely gotten to know her on a very personal level and there was some talking, like when she screamed his name while she was coming.
Now, that wasn’t the case at all. Especially, not after Thursday night. If he didn’t know himself better, he would say that he’d fallen in love with her that night. Which was crazy. How could he possibly fall in love with someone he hadn’t even kissed, much less made love to? He was a physical person. Not just in his profession, but also in his personal life. Affection, kissing, touching, sex—that is how he expressed himself in relationships.
Stretching his legs out, he rolled his neck from side to side. The intense heat of the water was beginning to loosen his tight muscles. He tried to clear his mind and just relax, but he kept hearing Jessie’s words playing on repeat in his head. He remembered what she’d said to him verbatim.
“You’re selling yourself short. Athleticism is not the only talent you were born with. You are smart. Really smart. I hate to admit it, but I know you are actually smarter than I am. Also, you have a natural ease about you that instantly makes people comfortable. Then there’s the fact that you have more charm in your little finger than most men have at all. Plus, you are pretty easy on the eyes. There is not a doubt in my mind that, even if you had never stepped into a ring, you would be just fine.”
Boxing and females. That was the only thing he’d ever gotten acknowledged for. When he talked about wanting to go to school with his old publicist, before he hired Maxi, the asshole had told him, “Stick to fighting and fucking, kid. It’s what you’re good at.”
Other than his grandparents and his mom, Jessie was the first person to see him as more than that. Part of what made his chest tighten, every time he thought about it, was that he knew that she wasn’t just blowing smoke up his ass either. Jessie did not say things unless she meant them. Even then, half the time, it seemed that saying anything at all physically pained her. Like with each admission, she was having a verbal root canal.
She was it. The real deal. He was never going to meet anyone else like Jessie. He was never going to feel for anyone else what he felt for Jessie. Zach knew it like he knew that the sun would set tonight and rise again in the morning. There was no question in his mind about it.
Being around Jessie was making Zach want things he had promised himself he’d never want. Relationships were fine, and Zach had no problem being with only one woman. If the only issue was wanting to be in a relationship with Jessie, he wouldn’t be stressing, but there was more to it than that. The problem was that he knew that, if he and Jessie were an actual couple, not pretending, he wouldn’t be able to keep her at arm’s length like he had with every other woman he’d been involved with. Hell, he wasn’t keeping her at arm’s length now and, for all intents and purposes, they were just roommates.
Not a lot scared or worried Zach. His mom’s health was pretty much the only thing that ever kept him up at night. But the thought of getting close to someone, really close, scared the shit out of him. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew why. His dad had left when he was barely out of diapers, his grandparents had died when he was a kid, and his mom had gotten sick when he was a teenager. He didn’t need to pay a therapist to tell him that he had abandonment issues.
But that didn’t mean that he knew how to handle them. Because he didn’t. The more drawn to Jessie he was, the more he felt himself falling for her, the more he wanted to stay away from her. Which made no sense.
He’d been avoiding her since Thursday night but, that could only last for a week because Thanksgiving was in three short days and not only would he be spending the entire day with her, her family, his mom, and the M&M sisters, but he would have to pretend she was his girlfriend the entire time. Right now, that sounded like his own personal version of hell.
How could he do that and keep his distance? Just seeing her briefly with his mom, the way they’d laughed and talked, had made him feel more than he’d ever wanted to feel for someone.
Zach knew he needed to stop thinking about this and relax. His fight was coming up, and every ounce of energy he wasted on this situation took him one step away from putting another ‘W’ on his record.
Deciding that he needed a little distraction to help, he reached down and pulled his iPod out of his sweats pocket. He flipped through until he found the playlist he wanted, put his earphones in his ears, and set the device on the small chair that sat beside the tub.
Lying back so that his shoulders rested against the porcelain tub, Zach closed his eyes, listened to the music blaring in his ears, and zoned blissfully out.
Chapter Seventeen
Jessie’s hand brushed over the railing as she walked up the stairs. Her pulse quickened at the thought of knocking on Zach’s door and…and… Well, she wasn’t sure yet. That was all she’d mentally written in the story of her life so far. Jessie planned on improvising after that.
Disappointment hit her square in the chest as, halfway up the stairs, she noticed that Zach’s room door was wide open and she saw no activity inside the darkened space. It looked like plan be-the-screenwriter-of-her-own-life was already experiencing rewrites. She tucked the revision into the ‘revisit at a later date’ folder in her mind.
Zach wasn’t in his room or on the first floor either, so that meant that he was either not home or he was down in the basement.
Mmm, the basement.
Jessie knew that the basement in this brownstone would forever be etched in her memory. Every time she thought about that six hundred or so square feet, a little thrill ran through her. Not because anything scandalous had ever happened in the confines of its dim walls. But that’s where she’d been the first time she met Zach, so it would always hold a special place in her heart.
As she stepped into her room and shut the door behind her, Jessie’s mind began to wonder what her life would look like right now if she had decided to come to the
fateful open house in the morning or at lunch instead of after work. If she hadn’t gotten delayed by Martin with a hundred questions that needed her attention, but at the time, she’d been more than a little frustrated with their timing.
If she’d arrived at the house even an hour earlier, would she have had her basement moment? Would she have met Zach? Would she be undressing to go soak in her love-of-her-life clawfoot bathtub?
No. She didn’t think so.
After slipping off her shoes, she placed them heel to toe in their cubby. Just seeing her shoe cubbies made her happy. Structure. Organization. Those things were like therapy to Jessie.
Some people emotionally ate. Some people emotionally shopped. Some people emotionally drank. Jessie emotionally organized.
Once she’d unzipped the back of her skirt, she felt the silky smoothness of her stockings as she slipped her skirt off. She then unbuttoned her lemon-yellow blouse, removed it, placed both items on hangers, and hung them up in the dry-clean section of her small walk-in closet.
Moving across the room, she decided to start her bath water filling so that, by the time she finished undressing and washed her face, she would have a relaxing, hot bath waiting for her. If she lived alone, tonight would include a couple of glasses of wine, but with the temptation that lived ten feet down the hall from her bed, feeling the fuzzy warmth of lowered inhibitions that a nice glass of red gave her was the last thing she needed.
That’s weird, she thought as she turned the knob to the bathroom door. Did I shut this before I left this morning?
Stepping through the doorway, she lifted her eyes and jumped at least a foot off the ground as she gasped in surprise. When she reached out to steady herself on the counter as she stumbled back, she hit the wooden handle of her barrel brush and sent it sailing across the room like a spiral football. It landed with a loud splash in the bath water, which was currently inhabited by a very naked Zach Courtland.
Zach’s eyes flew open and he stood up with a start, the water sloshing wildly as he did. She was vaguely aware of the white strings that fell from his ears and the soft thud of his earbuds hitting the tiled ground.
“What the—” Zach stopped mid-sentence as his green eyes met hers. He froze in place, his face in shock.
Beads of sweat formed on the base of Jessie’s neck as her eyes traveled down Zach’s body. She wasn’t intentionally staring, but how could she not look? Heated arousal spread through her entire body as she slowly studied every sinuous line of his muscular body. She stood perfectly still, visually feasting on the chiseled, dripping-wet masterpiece that was displayed in real-life 3D before her.
Every muscled contour was highlighted in moisture as drips of water ran down and fell from his powerful chest and rippling abs. Her stare followed one of the droplets down past his narrowed waist to the impressively thick erection jutting out from the sprinkled patch of dark hair that covered his groin area. Her eyes widened as she watched his manhood grow even larger before her eyes.
Wow.
“Sorry.” Zach’s gravelly timbre washed over her, sending a shiver down her spine.
Jessie watched, totally captivated by his overwhelmingly male form, as his long, strong arm reached out and grabbed a towel while he gracefully stepped out of the tub.
“I thought you were working late.”
Jessie barely registered his explanation.
“I’ll get out of your way.” Zach’s baritone voice sounded strained as he quickly dried off his legs, causing his arms to flex as he moved the towel up and down the steely leanness of his legs. There was an air of efficiency and vitality to Zach’s movements that fascinated Jessie and drew her to him like a magnet.
Straightening, he wrapped the terrycloth towel around his waist. After picking up the clothes—that she hadn’t even noticed—lying beside the tub, he began walking purposely in her direction, causing a tingle in the pit of her stomach.
Jessie felt her chest rising and falling rapidly as her breaths came in choppy pants. Her breathing grew more and more shallow. She’d never hyperventilated in her life, but if anything could cause her lungs to cease working properly, it would be this.
Stopping directly in front of her with a smoldering flame in his deep-green eyes, he spoke her name, and it held as much promise as it did warning. “Jessie.”
The air around them felt electrified with stimulation. Jessie’s head was spinning with a light and airy sensation, and she knew she had to ground herself in this moment or she was likely to pass out or float away—probably the former.
Centering herself in the environment, Jessie concentrated on the feeling of the cold, hard tile beneath her nylon-covered feet as she tried to tame the dizzying current running through her. She listened to the erotic sounds of their labored breathing echoing off the walls in the small, enclosed space. Inhaling deeply through her nose, she breathed in the masculine, clean scent of his soap.
As she began feeling connected and present, she instantly became aware of the pulsing heartbeat of desire deep in her core. Jessie knew that this moment was her chance. Her chance to take over as the writer of her own screenplay, which was shaping up in her mind’s eye to be a porno.
“We need to talk.” Her attempt at sounding bold and in control had been a massive failure. Her words had come out sounding timid and unsure. Still, she had been able to string four words together, and she wasn’t sure how many other women in her position (standing half naked in front of a recently naked, now only-towel-clad Zach) would have even been able to pull that off. So bravo her.
“Now’s not a good time,” Zach spoke through gritted teeth.
“Yes, it is.” Jessie wasn’t trying to be intentionally disagreeable, but now was the perfect time.
Zach’s jaw ticked, and Jessie couldn’t quite read if it was from desire or irritation. So, to be able to properly classify it, her eyes took a quick trip down south and she saw that Zach’s impressive shaft was straining against the white bath towel that covered it.
“You want to talk?” he rasped.
Jessie’s eyes lifted to Zach’s and she saw that the black circles of his pupils had dilated more in the last few seconds. His green irises looked starkly vivid against the rounded black they surrounded beneath his heavy eyelids, framed in long, thick lashes.
“Yes,” she breathed.
He moved forward, closing the distance between them so that there was only a small gap of space separating them. She stared directly at his muscular chest, which was mere inches from her face. His nearness made her senses spin and caused a swooping pull between her legs.
For some reason, the same shyness that had overtaken her the first morning they’d met in the basement had decided to come back for a visit. Her mind was telling her to take control of this situation. Spell out exactly what she wanted to happen, enjoy the encounter, and walk away a satisfied woman.
Look up, her inner voice screamed. It would be a little difficult to get this party started if she couldn’t even make eye contact with Zach.
She felt fingers gently cup her chin as Zach tilted her head up so that she had no choice but to look into his eyes. When she did, she saw a hunger there that made her core clench with need.
“Do you know what I want do?” Zach’s voice sounded like he was on the razor’s edge.
“No,” Jessie spoke in a barely audible whisper.
Zach slowly brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. “I want to lick every inch of you until you come so hard that you can’t remember your own name. Then I want to spread your legs and watch your body stretch as I slide into you, filling you up until you take all of me. Then I want to fuck you until I feel your thighs trembling and your body shaking as you come apart in my arms, calling my name.”
Jessie felt like her entire body was one raw, exposed erotic nerve that Zach’s words had just caressed. Her heart jolted and her pulse pounded with excitement. She wanted to do everything Zach had just mapped out. They just needed to get some ground rules in p
lace first.
“That’s what I wanted to talk about.”
There was no way she could know what Zach had expected her to say, but she didn’t think that was it because he looked truly stunned by her admission.
Always one to seize the moment, Jessie took advantage of this momentary shift of power to forge ahead. “I think we should do this. Just get it out of our systems.”
With each word she spoke, she felt bolder and more empowered. This was happening on her terms. Jessie wasn’t just going to be an overwhelmed damsel. She was going to actively participate.
“My attraction to you has been affecting my job, and that’s unacceptable. So I propose that we have sex. Tonight. Then tomorrow, everything goes back to normal. I think we should have a one-night stand, if you will, to alleviate the unbearable sexual tension that has built up between us.”
Zach’s eyes were searching hers. She couldn’t tell if he thought she was crazy or onto something. Only one way to find out.
“What do you think?”
She swallowed tightly as the clothes he held in his hands dropped to the floor in a thud. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. Adrenaline mixed with arousal coursed through her, and it was a heady combination. She could feel her legs shaking beneath her, and she knew that Zach wouldn’t have to lick her all over her body to achieve his objective. Jessie was almost certain that the second his tongue touched her flesh it would shoot her into the orgasmic hemisphere.
“I think we’re on the same page. My version just sounded sexier.” The arrogance in his tone should have irritated her, but it didn’t. He was right. His version sounded a whole lot sexier.
She was going to concede his point when she felt his large hands slide against her cheeks and frame the sides of her face. A delicious shudder infused her body. Needing to steady herself, she reached out, and as she placed her hands on his lean hips, his muscles jumped beneath her touch.
Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (The Crossroads Series) Page 17