When he thrust a final time, Eve pulled him to her as he nearly growled and hugged her tighter.
He locked his arms around her, still lodged deep. “Squeeze me tight.”
The timbre of his voice caressed her neck. Eve leaned close, pushed her pelvis against his, and contracted her muscles, her body clutching at him. She’d never enjoyed this part of sex before. It was just messy and a hassle, but not with him. Given a choice, she would have him come inside of her every time, because she craved the intimacy that came with being this close to him.
He moved his lips to her ear. “That’s what home feels like.”
Eve framed his cheeks and leaned back. “You are home to me, Jake.”
“Mmm.” He kissed her forehead, pushed his hands under her ass and lifted her up without pulling out.
“What are you doing?” She smiled into his shoulder.
“Bed. No need to mess up the kitchen. I knew that dress would be useful for something other than looking amazing on you.” He knelt on the bed and fell forward with her.
“Jake!”
They both laughed as her back hit the mattress with him on top of her.
Pulling back, he stared down at her before kissing her forehead and slowly pulling out. “Stay here. I’ll get you a towel.” Stark ass naked, he walked to the bathroom.
A smile pushed at her lips as he came back with her towel and his boxers on.
With a longing look at the table full of food, Jake groaned as he walked past it to her.
“You’re hungry.” She fought back a laugh.
Looking amused, he dropped to the bed beside her and gently cleaned her up. Jake was like a grumpy bear when he was hungry.
“I’m fucking starving. I gotta eat something other than you.”
He stood up, grabbed her ankles and pulled her to him by the side of the bed. Then handed her one of his T-shirts.
“Go clean up. I’ll heat it up. We’ll eat then...what? Movie?”
She wrapped the towel around her and sat on the side of the bed. “A movie’s fine.”
Before she could reach the bathroom, Jake’s voice stopped her. “Baby....”
She turned to him. “Yeah?”
“You know I won’t make it through a movie with you…”
Sadness washed over her, because there wasn’t enough time.
“I know.” Never enough time.
His vivacious laugh rang through the small room. “Just so we’re clear. This right here—” He waved his hand over the food. “—Is about refueling. Don’t plan on sleeping too much.”
“I’ll be right out.” She walked into the bathroom, leaving him to heat up dinner. Eve’s body ached and her heart broke. Tomorrow…today would be on a long list of yesterdays—days she could never get back. While it would be one of the best in her thirty-six years, it would bleed into yet another painful memory with little hope of healing.
7.5 hours
2
A life that could have been…
Jake tilted Eve’s chair back to him and kissed her upside down. He took his time exploring her mouth from the different angle. The lingering taste of pineapple on her tongue had him deepening the kiss before reluctantly pulling away.
“Are you going to eat anything other than fruit?”
Smiling up at him, she leaned her head back farther and kissed just under his chin.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Might want to rethink that, hon.” He teased and took note that the smile she gave him didn’t quite reach her eyes as he set her chair legs back onto the floor. “I got this. Go take a hot shower.”
Packing up the leftovers, Jake walked back into the kitchen, but kept his eyes on her. When he entered the dining area, she rose from her chair and he smacked her ass. “Go.” He nodded his head towards the little hallway.
Grabbing something from her bag, she walked towards the bathroom.
“Hey, Eve...”
She stopped, but didn’t turn around to him.
“Don’t lock the door.”
“Jake—I can’t.”
“You can,” he insisted.
Her shoulders slouched and her head dropped a little. “I’d prefer you didn’t. Just let me rinse off. I’ll be right out.”
Jake cautiously approached her. She reminded him of a hummingbird about to bolt. He’d been trying to get her to shower with him the last few times he saw her and she always adamantly refused. “No. You’d prefer to shower with me, but you won’t let yourself.”
Her head dropped farther. “That is the more accurate statement, yes.”
“Why do you say no, when I know you want this too?” He smoothed his fingers down along her face.
“Because it’s easier for me.” She clenched the small bag to her chest until her knuckles turned white.
“One night. Let everything outside of us go.” Pushing her was wrong, but he wanted this for them both. Wanted every experience he could get with her, before tomorrow.
Eve deserved a chance at a life—a life free of worry, free of waiting. A life he couldn’t give her right now. Tonight would have to last them for—shit, he had no idea how long. He also didn’t know how he was going to find the will to let her go. But he would, for her own good.
She stared up at him with big, blue, tear-filled eyes.
“Tonight has already been beyond anything I could have ever hoped to experience with you. This will haunt me. Does that mean anything to you?”
“You know it does.” He hated when she questioned his feelings for her.
“Does it?” Eve’s eyes moved over his, studying his face. “Does it bother you that I’ll have to miss this? Miss you when I’m gone? When you’re here and I’m on a separate coast? You go back to your life, Jake—your girls and your job. You transition between that and what it is we have much better than I do.”
“You think this is easy for me? Going months without seeing you? You have no idea how much I need you, but I have people who depend on me.”
“I understand that. You know I do, but I’ve come to depend on you too. And the simple fact is, I can’t. We both know it.”
“Memories, baby. These are memories that will have to last us a while.” Wiping away a tear running down her cheek with this thumb, he bent to kiss her cheek.
“A while...” Her shoulders straightened and a little glimmer lit behind her eyes.
Jake instantly realized his mistake. He’d just given her the suggestion of something not temporary—he’d just given her an eventually. An eventually he couldn’t guarantee.
While he would love nothing more than to give that to her—to them—he realized a lot could change in two years.
Before he could say another word, Eve grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Okay. Give me a few minutes, please.”
“Eve...” When she glanced at him, he took her face in his hands. “If you really don’t want this, say it now.”
“It’s fine.” She nodded once, turned, walked to the bathroom and quietly shut the door.
He never heard the lock click into place. Pushing her wasn’t fair to either of them, but he was being selfish tonight. He wanted to give them every experience they’d missed. All of it. Even if it would haunt them both. There was a tangible desperation riding him, as if he needed all he could get of her, because it would have to last him.
Eve took him back to when they were younger, all the living they missed together. With what he knew waited for him at home, the memories of his time with her would lighten the pain. His heart broke when he thought about Maddelyn, his youngest daughter. Jake shook his head to clear it and drew the shades together before heading to the bathroom.
* * *
Steam from the hot water quickly fogged up the large mirror of the oversized bathroom. Eve slowly ran a finger down the center of the
glass, leaving tiny rings of condensation in its wake. Breathing became difficult, but it wasn’t from the murky haze filling the room.
Jake would be in soon.
Resting both hands on either side of the sink, she let her head drop. Escalation. Another moment of allowing herself to be vulnerable—letting him in further, letting him deeper inside her. Giving yet another part of herself to him. She wanted to give him everything—all of her, but that wasn’t an option. At least not in their present situation. In which case, no matter how much she trusted Jake—as a man, as a lover, as her friend—self-preservation demanded she not trust him with all of her. Not yet. This was all they had.
Moments.
For her, they were beautiful disasters of life-altering and heartbreaking moments. This was about to be another.
A gust of cold air from the outer room preceded Jake’s entrance. She’d wrapped the towel around her tighter. Hesitation. The irony being he’d seen her with nothing on many times before. This man had seen her in ways and done things to her body that no other man ever had before or ever would after him. But it was always the inevitable that made her hesitate. The inevitable moment after their moment. His absence. Separate lives. A never-ending abyss she hid from everyone around her, even him—especially him. But the dark emptiness, the loneliness was there. Always there. Waiting for the second he left her alone and went back to his life.
Jake’s hands covered her bare shoulders and ran down her forearms. He entwined his fingers with hers and her breath caught. Slowly he stroked his thumbs along the outside of her hands, his goatee prickling the sensitive part of her neck.
Eve’s mouth fell open slightly and she leaned her head back on his shoulder giving him more access. She closed her eyes, letting everything outside of him fall away. His touch alone took her there, where the world stopped. Where what could’ve been was temporarily allowed to live, to thrive.
“You’re still dressed.”
The timbre of his seductive voice moved over her skin. The tiny hairs on her arms stood on end and her nipples instantly hardened. Hurt. She ached for his touch as if he’d conditioned her body to react to the sound of his voice alone.
“It’s just a towel,” she whispered.
He wrapped her hair around his fist and tilted her head forward, kissing the back of her neck, right on top of the deep red, purple and black bleeding heart tattoo she’d had done a few weeks ago. One of her best friends, an exceptional artist, had designed it specifically for her. It wasn’t in the shape of a typical heart; it was a mosaic, fragmented human heart.
He ran a finger over it. “I hate this. It’s beautiful, but I hate it on your body. What it represents.”
Eve remained silent, not wanting to create any tension, any distance between them. He didn’t really know what it represented to her. It was a symbol of a life that could’ve been and the pain she lived with every day without him. She’d had it done on the back of her neck, because it was exclusively hers...and his. Nobody would see it. It was her dark ode to him, lyrical in its disturbing and broken beauty. An outward representation of knowing whom she should have always belonged to and possibly never would.
As if Jake knew the dark place her mind had drifted to, he slid his hands down her back and over the towel. Grabbing her waist, he turned her around, fisting the material of the towel on either side of her hips.
“Relax, baby. It’s just a shower.” He smiled at her.
It was so much more than just a shower to her and he could never seem to comprehend that.
Taking her hand in his, Jake led her over to the large stall. Opening the door, he reached inside and turned the knob for the cold water.
The hot water had been on so long, she could barely make him out through the steam.
While he waited for the water to get to a decent temperature, Jake grabbed the end of the towel and pulled, so it unwrapped and fell to the floor, leaving her naked.
Eve wrapped her arms around her chest and looked down.
“Better,” he said lifting her chin with a finger. He glanced down at his boxers and tank. “Take ‘em off,” he instructed. “But look at me.”
Eve slid her fingers down over his ribs, inside the waistband of his boxers and around his back. Keeping her eyes locked to his, she pushed the material over his ass and slid them the rest of the way off. As she stood, he stepped out and kicked them away. Bunching the bottom of his tank in her hands, she slowly began to lift it up.
When she got just under his chest, his hands grabbed her wrists stopping her. “Baby…look at me.”
It was only the second time she would see Jake without a shirt or an undershirt. He always kept one on when he was with her, sparing her the visual reminder that while he owned her heart, someone else had originally held his. She couldn’t compete with that history. No matter how much he claimed to care about her, facts were facts. He’d fallen in love with someone else when he’d returned from his second tour as a SEAL. Not her.
The mist in the bathroom was tangible and masked her tears. With a deep breath, Eve lifted his shirt up and over his head, once he removed his hands from hers. She tried not to look at his chest, but it was like trying not to play with a cracked tooth with your tongue. You just couldn’t resist touching it, although doing so would cause an unbearable and excruciating pain.
The second he was free of the tank, he didn’t give her time to think. Pulling her against him, he kissed her hard. His tongue swept into her mouth, penetrating her.
Pressing her bare chest against his, she wrapped her arms around his neck—needing the contact of his skin, the strength of his arms. Their open mouths collided, devoured. Eve licked into his mouth, sucking on his lips, his tongue, savoring the taste of him, as if unable to get close enough. His breath became hers and she gave hers back to him.
While his mouth never broke contact, Jake slapped the outside of her thigh, signaling her to move into the shower.
She stepped backwards onto the wet, marble floor and pulled him along with her, holding him tight, so he wouldn’t slip.
Shutting the door behind him, Jake pushed her up against the opposite wall in one smooth fluid motion.
The cool tile on Eve’s back had her arching toward him more.
Jake shackled his hands around her wrists, stretching them far above her head, locking her in place as he drove a knee between her legs and up against her hot, aching core.
Eve moaned into his mouth and Jake’s grip tightened. Every throbbing, hungry inch of her missed him—missed his strength, the ever present demand that seemed to hum just under his skin when he touched her. Even though she was sore beyond belief, the sweet pain of his thigh up against her too sensitive clit fueled her need of him even more.
Trailing his mouth down her neck, Jake slowly slid her hands down the wall as his mouth covered a nipple. He sucked hard and Eve pushed against him. Running his teeth to the end of her swollen peak, he gently bit down, giving her the sharp bite of pain she’d come to crave from him.
It was a strange thing about the pain Jake delivered. He always gave her just enough to stay present, just enough so she wouldn’t fall prey to the dark place that waited for her.
When he let go of her hands, she fisted them both through his hair.
Wrapping his hands around her ass, he pulled her to him and swung her around underneath the water.
To avoid the hot jets, Eve shoved against him and he laughed seductively against her neck.
“Come on, you can take it. It’s not that hot.” Jake lifted his head and kissed her cheek. Locking a hand around her nape, he held her face to his chest. His other hand rubbed her back, her hip and her ass.
The combination of hot sprays beating on her back and his warm, wet fingers on her skin were a paradox of sensuality. Hard and soothing. Exciting and relaxing. Both stimulating, both erotic.
He massaged he
r scalp and tilted her head back. Running his hands through her hair, he got it wet, before he pulled her face back to him. Teasing her lips with his, Jake took her bottom lip and sucked it into his warm mouth. “Give me your tongue.”
With no hesitation, Eve kissed him deep. She wrapped one arm around his shoulders and pushed her free hand through his hair.
The cap on her shower gel popped open behind her. Soapy hands moved over her shoulders, down her back and over her ass cheeks, kneading, caressing and grabbing. Turning his mouth to her ear, he bit her earlobe while he continued to play with her. “Does that feel good?” His fingers never stopped moving.
“You know it does. I love your hands on me,” she whispered.
“Mmm. Do you?” He ran one finger ran down the center of her ass cheeks.
Eve tensed, pushing against his chest.
“Relax, baby.” His finger softly played with the outside of her body, rubbing in small, slow circles, never penetrating, just arousing. “I’ve touched you here before,” he whispered in her ear.
“Barely...” She countered. “You know I’m uncomfortable with it. I don’t like it.”
Jake lifted his head but kept teasing her. His eyes locked to hers. “You’re uncomfortable with it, Eve, but I wouldn’t say you don’t like it. Uncomfortable we can work with. Dislike is something different, which is it?” His mouth was centimeters from hers.
She just wanted him to kiss her. She didn’t want to talk. “It’s just....” Staring at his mouth, she moved to kiss him.
He pulled back. “Just what?”
“It’s—it’s a lot.” True, but a copout.
“I want to give you a lot.”
“Truth?” Eve leaned away from him.
He kissed the top of her nose. “Always.”
“It makes it harder afterwards. You show me this new, intensely passionate world—and then you leave me. I understand it. We can’t change it, but it hurts. But that’s not what you want to hear, Jake. You want to hear that I can handle all of this, everything and be okay—experience all these new things and be just fine without you.”
Twenty-Four Hours (Shattered Boundaries Book 1) Page 7