“Go on, answer the phone,” Piper told him with a chuckle, her hands quite busy. “Don’t let me interrupt.”
“Yes,” he answered. Naturally she took that as permission to stroke him however she liked.
“You okay?” Logan asked.
“Yes.”
Her hands moved faster.
“Well, you just hung up with—”
“I know. Can this wait, sir?”
“Are you in trouble, Jack?”
He was in so much trouble his head was spinning. “Not the kind you have to worry about.” And then she replaced her hands with her mouth.
“You’re sure?”
Piper paused long enough to say, “We have our clothes off again.”
Logan chuckled.
Jack barely bit back a groan. He was dying here. Dying and flying and about to crash and burn. “Let me call you back, okay?” And he hung up.
But he could no longer pull away. She’d gone too far and he couldn’t… He exploded in the most sensational orgasm ever.
Blood pounded through his head. And somewhere through the haze of pleasure he could see Piper frowning at him.
“Jack, you aren’t supposed to… You can’t…”
But he had. “Damn it. Why wouldn’t you listen?”
Piper groaned and dropped her face onto the blanket. “I’m sorry. You have no idea how much. I’ve been waiting twenty-five years to make love and I just blew it, didn’t I?”
“Actually, I blew it.” Gently he cradled her in his arms, her head tucked under his chin. “You know what’s the best thing about making love?”
“How would I know?”
“Practice makes perfect.”
“Okay.”
“And I wanted you so badly, I just couldn’t wait. Not with what you were doing to me,” he admitted.
She snuggled against him. “Oh, Jack.”
“We went about this all backward. Give me a few minutes to recover and—”
“And?”
He snapped his fingers. “Talk about doing things backward. I just had a most incredible idea.”
“About making love?”
“No, about solving your case.”
STILL MORTIFIED by her overzealous behavior, Piper slipped into a robe and belted it tight. Jack hadn’t bothered to don so much as his briefs.
He plugged in his computer and typed like a man on a mission. “I instructed the computer to look in the wrong area. I was assuming someone paid Vince and Leroy to lie about you. So the computer was looking for deposits into their accounts. But Vince’s mother told us he was broke and Venus told us the same thing about Leroy.”
“So?”
“So suppose someone was blackmailing them?” Jack typed as he spoke.
She couldn’t read the codes he was typing, but his words shot a slew of possibilities at her. Yet she was still having trouble thinking about the case. She couldn’t so easily put aside what had just happened between them.
Had Jack wanted her as badly as he’d claimed? Or was he using the excuse to make her feel better?
“This may be the break we needed, thanks to you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Without you, I wouldn’t have thought to see if regular payments might be coming out of both Vince’s and Leroy’s accounts.” He pointed to the screen. “Look.”
“Vince wrote a check on the first of the month to Cayman Islands National Bank.” She leaned forward as he split the screen. “Ditto for Leroy. We have our connection.”
“Right. They were both being blackmailed, but by whom?” His fingers danced on the keyboard, his movements a blur.
“Tell me you aren’t hacking into a bank in the Cayman Islands?”
“I’m asking Logan for permission to have Ryker Stevens do it. I’m good—but he’s better. For international hacks, I leave the fun to him.”
“Fun?”
“Besides, he won’t get caught. He knows how to cover his tracks better than I do.”
“So.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You have no more work to do?”
“None at the keyboard.”
She slid onto his lap. “Didn’t you say something about practice makes perfect?”
“Did I say that?” he teased.
“You also said that if I slowed down you would take the lead. Well, lead on, Jack.”
He reached inside her robe and cupped her breasts. “Nag. Nag. Nag.”
She had to fight her every natural instinct to tell him to hurry. But he wanted to explore her every curve with a thoroughness that had her clenching her teeth to keep from telling him that for a guy who liked speed, he sure was going mighty slowly.
He tweaked her nipples, and just as fire shot through her, he stood, taking her to her feet with him. “What about that shower?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Do we get to wash each other?”
“Nope.”
“Then—”
“Not unless I decide to let you.”
A shiver of yearning swept straight to her core. “But—”
“This time we do things my way.”
“Okay.”
“That means you will let me set the pace.”
“Okay.”
“And I do the touching.”
A rush of heat between her thighs told her that the night was still young. “Fine.”
“This time you will be at my mercy,” he promised.
She swallowed hard in anticipation. “I don’t get to do anything?”
“Nothing, except think about what I’m going to do to you next.”
As a cop, Piper was all too accustomed to making decisions, acting and following through. She hadn’t had experience in giving herself up to anyone, not for any reason. What Jack was asking her to do required an enormous amount of trust.
And that’s when it hit her like a runaway truck. She wouldn’t even have considered his suggestion if she didn’t already love Jack. She trusted him, loved him. And perhaps she always had.
The idea stunned her into momentary silence, but the idea of loving Jack felt so right that she knew she would do exactly as he asked. Not because he was more experienced. Not even because he’d asked it of her.
But because she loved him.
Jack laced her fingers through his, and together they entered the bathroom. He adjusted the hot water and then held out his hand to help her step over the tub’s rim. The gesture, so gallant in nature, was all Jack. So was the pleasure in his eyes as he positioned her under the spray of water.
She tilted back her head. Water cascaded over her forehead, down her cheeks and her neck to her breasts.
“Turn around. I’ll wash your hair.”
His fingers on her scalp felt great, matching the warm and fuzzy feeling inside that she was still holding so close. She was in love.
She supposed loving Jack shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. As a teenager, she’d always compared her dates to Jack. And somehow they never measured up.
He was one of a kind. What other speed demon could slow down enough to wash a woman’s hair? Or to take such pleasure in nipping the curves of her neck with his mouth, regardless of the water splashing on his face?
“Rinse.” He directed her under the water, and she closed her eyes, giving herself up to his ministrations. “Conditioner?”
“Yes, please.”
He worked in the rinse slowly, as if his fingers would never tire of playing with her hair. As if he had nothing more pressing to do than to make sure he dispersed the rinse evenly.
And for once, his phone remained silent. Thank goodness for small favors.
“Let’s see. What part of you should I wash next?” His tone was husky. She had to will herself not to lean into him, throw her arms around his neck and kiss him.
The tender newness of her feelings caused her to want to sing from the rooftop, shout her happiness to the world.
“I suppose it’s only logical to wash away the soot from the t
op down.” Jack’s statement indicated that he was merely solving a puzzle, like how to dismantle an engine or piece together his computer code—except for the edge of hunger in his tone.
He soaped her back, her breasts, her belly and her legs. He didn’t tease or spend more time on the erogenous zones. And by his doing so, she felt pampered and cherished as a whole person. Happiness cloaked her in a bubble that she wouldn’t allow to burst. She didn’t think of yesterday or tomorrow. There was only now. This perfect moment with Jack.
He switched places with her and she watched him shower. He washed his hair, using half the amount of shampoo she’d needed. From a travel pack he plucked out a razor and gel. Watching him shave seemed more intimate than being naked together.
When their eyes caught, he grinned. “You cold?”
She shook her head, fascinated how the heat in his eyes could lick down her spine and warm her from her front to her back. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man shave before. It’s rather…sexy.”
“Tonight will get better.”
“Jack. There’s something I just figured out.”
“Can it wait?”
“It’s not about the case.”
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
He looked at her. “Okay.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “That’s all you can say? Okay?”
“I may not be the most insightful guy in the world, but somehow I guessed you wouldn’t be about to make love unless you cared about me.”
“And?”
He tossed her the soap. “Wash my back?”
Wash his back? She wanted to heave the soap in his face in the same way he’d thrown her love back in her face. But she didn’t.
Just because she loved him didn’t necessarily mean he loved her. How could she have forgotten such an elementary law of nature?
Obviously Jack found her attractive. She believed that he liked her a lot. He’d proved that she mattered to him. As a friend. A good friend. Or he might have lied to her and said he loved her when he didn’t—but he hadn’t. She couldn’t fault him for his honesty.
When he turned his back, she washed him, letting her hands enjoy the hard muscles beneath his warm flesh, allowing her fingers to memorize the angles and planes of his shoulders and spine. Was he deliberately giving her time to change her mind?
Did she want to make love to a man who didn’t love her? Most of her colleagues and friends on the force would have laughed in her face at such an old-fashioned moral question. In this day and age, where kids often lost their virginity by age sixteen, she’d held on to her ideals for close to a decade longer than the average. But she hadn’t made her decision based on statistics and averages. Making love or not had never been a hard decision—until now.
Maybe she was a late bloomer, or just content with her own life—enough to wait for the right moment—but she’d never been really tempted. Until Jack.
Even knowing he didn’t reciprocate her feelings, even knowing that this night might be their only time together—for her, it was right. She couldn’t control his feelings, only her own. And she had no reason not to trust her instincts. After all, she hadn’t made a bad lovemaking decision yet. She grinned. And threw away her caution.
Right now Jack was the right man for her. He was good and honest. And she didn’t want to wait. Not another decade, not another year. Not another day.
“Jack.”
“You feel great.”
“Jack.”
“Yeah.”
“I still want you.”
“I want you, too,” he admitted.
And for now that would have to be enough.
He turned and took her into his arms and just held her against him under the water. She had never felt so safe and excited at the same time. Standing in his embrace was heaven. So why was it so hard for her to hold still?
Why did she want more? More of his mouth on hers. More than his arms wrapped around her.
She trembled, but he didn’t need to ask if she was cold. He could feel her heat against his, her heart thumping out of control, just as she could take comfort in the strong steady beat of his.
No matter what happened, she never wanted to forget this moment. Didn’t want to forget how Jack made her believe in herself. She had no idea how long they stood together under the water, but when they finally left the shower, her fingertips were puckered.
And she knew without a doubt that she would never regret being with Jack—no matter what happened between them next.
Chapter Twelve
Jack usually took his sex like his morning newspaper. He skimmed the parts of little interest like the comics and the home and garden sections and delved into news and sports. With Piper, he didn’t want to skim over chitchat, or kissing or exploring every inch of her before moving on. There was no part of making love with her that he wanted to skimp on.
Instead he intended to savor and prolong the experience. For her. And for him. But more for her.
This was her first time. And he was determined to make everything right and beautiful for her. She deserved to have that much from him.
Jack draped a towel over the commode, gestured for her to sit and rubbed her hair dry with another towel. Then he used his fingers for a comb and let the blow-dryer finish the job. He took his time, enjoying the feel of her silky hair sliding through his fingers. He liked the deep auburn color, the rich shimmer under the lights, the contact of his fingertips on her scalp.
When her hair was dry, she appeared fluffy. Jack replaced the blow-dryer in the holder on the wall, then held out his hand to her. She didn’t hesitate to take it, and rose to her feet with a grace that made his mouth water. With her cheeks pink and flushed from the heat of the dryer and her eyes dilated to the max, she had the look of some fairy sprite, all smooth ivory flesh and pink-tipped breasts.
Without a kiss or one erotic touch, his sex had reloaded and was again ready to fire. But with the edge off, he could wait. This was going to be good for her.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“How much I want you.”
She glanced down at his erection and her words floated to him on a sexy giggle. “I can see that.”
“And this time you aren’t going to touch me. Not until I’m inside you.” He led her to the bed, swept away the spread and blanket, eased her back onto the cool crisp sheets. She drew him down and he shifted his hips to lie by her side.
Like a feast laid out for him to relish, she couldn’t have pleased him more. When he did no more than look at her, her nipples hardened to ripe buds. At her response to just his glance, his hunger deepened. He fisted his hand in her hair, turned her head until he could reach her mouth. She parted her lips, but waited for him to deepen the kiss, holding up her end of their bargain.
He nibbled and nipped. And while they kissed, he cupped her jaw, traced her collarbone, circled her breasts, teasing and taunting but not quite touching until he elicited a soft moan from the back of her throat.
“Too slow,” she complained.
“There’s no hurry. We have all night.”
She stared at him, her pupils dilated, her breath ragged. “I don’t want to wait.”
“Shh.” He kissed the tip of her breast. “You don’t know what you want.”
“I want more of that,” she demanded.
And he complied, swirling his tongue over her. When she arched her back and her legs parted, he skimmed his fingers up and down her thighs, occasionally dipping to the tender flesh inside her knees.
“Jack.”
“Yeah?”
“I feel…light-headed.”
“You’re supposed to.”
“I can’t seem to catch my breath.”
“Good.”
He touched the insides of her thighs.
“I’ve got to…to…to…”
“You’ve got nothing to do except wait. Wait to see where I touch you next, remember?”
She
sighed. “How can I think when…”
He kissed her mouth, a lush mouth, pouting for him. A mouth that gave him so much pleasure. At the same time they kissed, he touched between her legs. She was damp, slick and so ready she moaned into his mouth. Parting her legs wider, she invited him to touch, to tease and to stroke and he found her openness both sexy and poignant.
Some other time he would make her wait longer, take her to the edge and back, drive her crazy with need until she was wild with wanting. But this first time he would give her all the tenderness he could. He wanted this experience to be wondrous and gentle and exciting for her more than he wanted his own pleasure. He would not overwhelm her to prove he had the skill to do so.
Jack knew the next stage would be tricky. She was bound to be tight, and he didn’t want to cause her any pain at all.
He took his time, placing one finger inside her, then two, allowing her to accustom herself to him. Every single cell in his body demanded that he take her now, delve into her heat.
He’d never known holding back could be so difficult. He had no idea how Piper made him feel both protective and hot at the same time, but she did.
Jack tore open a foil packet, rolled the condom over his sex and reminded himself that going slowly was critical. As much as his body demanded to plunge into her, he would hold back.
Gritting his teeth, he positioned himself between her legs.
“Jack?”
Of all times, leave it to Piper to question him now. “What?”
“You look like you’re in pain. Isn’t this supposed to be fun?”
Jack groaned into her neck and let the tip of his sex nestle between her thighs. That she could worry over him at a time like this shook him to his core.
“I want you…so much.” He smoothed back her hair and gazed into her eyes as slowly he moved into her heat. He’d expected resistance. There was none. He’d expected heat. There was plenty. He’d expected to feel good—but not this good.
“I’m fine, Jack. Now, quit your worrying and show a girl a good time.”
She knew exactly what to say to kick in his instincts. Still, he moved slowly, letting her body adjust to the feel of him. At the same time he reached between her thighs, giving her more sensations, more pleasure. And she responded by wrapping her arms around his neck and moving her hips.
Saving the Girl Next Door Page 15