A soft moan escaped her mouth as she eagerly opened to me. A chill ran down my spine as her fingers knotted in the hair at the base of my neck. Destiny’s body rubbed up against me as she tightened her hold around me, and I felt…complete. This was what my life had been missing.
My tongue possessively swept into her mouth. She tasted like the perfect combination of sweet from her and salty from me. Tasting me in her mouth was a heady turn-on.
I cleared the bed in one swipe before laying her down on the mattress. She fell back with a small bounce that caused her breasts to jiggle beneath her shirt, and a roaring urgency flooded me. When her bright-blue eyes locked with mine, I knew that I needed her naked. Now.
Standing over her, I lifted her right leg and pulled her boot off before dropping it beside the bed. But, as I removed the left one, I paused.
“Are these the same boots you wore to prom?”
“Yep.” She nodded.
“Damn. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about these boots.”
Smiling happily, Destiny rose up and started taking her shirt off. My hand flew to her stomach though, stopping her progress.
“No.” My tone came out harsher than I’d meant it to.
She raised her eyebrows in challenge.
“I take that off. I take it all off.” It was not up for discussion.
An independent fire flared in her eyes for a moment, but it was instantly replaced by a different kind of heat. Hot lust flashed in her gorgeous, aqua-blue eyes as she slowly lay back down.
After removing her other boot, then her jeans and T-shirt, I stood back up over her—and I was speechless. The shock of her red hair fanned out on her white sheets and her beautiful face looking up at me caused my heart to simultaneously break and fill with love.
My gaze fell downward. Her full breasts were covered only by a white lace bra that allowed me to see the dark circle of her areolas and the beaded tip of her nipples. Continuing down, my gaze roamed over the dip of her waist, the flair of her hips, the white lace that thinly covered a small patch of red hair between her legs.
How could I ever express to Destiny what she did to me when even I didn’t fully understand it? The first thing that came to my mind was a line I’d heard in a movie once that perfectly reflected how I felt.
“God was showing off when He made you,” I breathed.
Chapter 13
Destiny
“We’ve howdyed but we ain’t shook.”
~ Grandma Dixie
Oh. My. Gosh. This was really, finally, going to happen. After all of this time, after the two out-of-this-world orgasms he’d given me, which had both happened while fully dressed, we were going to have sex.
Not only was I going to have sex with JJ, but he also kept saying the most amazingly sweet stuff. Sure, it wasn’t all original. That last compliment was definitely lyrics to a song and I believe a line from the movie Keeping the Faith, but did that matter to me? No. No, it did not.
Jefferson James Briggs had said that God was showing off when he made me, and he’d looked sincere when he’d said it. That was good enough for me. However, my brain was filled with all kinds of crazy thoughts about what all of this meant and what was going to happen tomorrow when JJ was gone, causing my anxiety level to rise to an unprecedented level.
Before it reached critical mass, JJ’s voice interrupted my mild panic attack. “Stop.”
“What?”
“Stop overthinking this.” He kneeled beside the bed and pulled my legs towards him so that my calves fell off the side on either side of him.
“Okay, wait.” I sat up on my elbows. “How do you keep doing that? Can you read minds?”
It sounded crazy coming out of my mouth.
“No.” He smirked as his large hands caressed my inner thighs.
Dang, that felt so good. But I would not be sidetracked. At least not until he answered the question that had been eating me up since this afternoon.
Closing my legs—well, at least as much as I could with him between them—I asked, “How did you know I spell-cussed?”
He looked down at my legs’ sad attempt to stall him, and without saying anything, he pushed my thighs far apart. Really far. As much as I wanted to find out how he knew, the arousal that spiked inside me at lying spread-eagle before the only man I’d ever wanted to touch me was too distracting. So I fell back down and decided I could grill him later.
Shutting my eyes, I concentrated on the delicious swirl of tingles radiating from my core. His touch was sending zinging and zapping shocks of bliss throughout my entire body. As his thumbs ran up and down the band of my panties, the heat of his breath fanned along my thigh and between my legs. The sensation of his roughened thumb pads along the apex of my thighs caused my back to arch and my hips to jerk up off of the mattress.
“I knew,” he said, his deep voice rumbling before he pressed a kiss over my lace-covered mound, sending shockwaves of pleasure rolling through me.
“Oh my,” I sighed as I gripped the sheet beside me.
“Because,” he continued as he placed another kiss, lower than the first, on top of my panties. He finished explaining as he slowly pulled my underwear to the side as if he were pulling back the curtain to a buried treasure. “I heard you tell my sister and Cara the night you girls got drunk off the hard liquor.”
I told them?
That was the last coherent thought I had before I went completely mindless with pleasure. JJ slid his tongue up and down my exposed sex, licking me in openmouthed kisses until I thought I might actually burst from the overwhelming titillation. Just when I thought there was no way this could get any better, his fingertip slid inside the seam of my opening. Then my inner muscles clamped around it.
“Mmm, so tight and wet,” he murmured as he moved his mouth’s attention to the hood of my sex.
In one swift movement, he pushed his thick finger inside me and covered my swollen nub with his mouth. He sucked my clit as he pulled his finger out then pushed it back in. Like an avalanche, my orgasm tumbled wildly, explosively, over me, growing in intensity the longer it lasted. A frenzy of simultaneous explosions erupted through me, skyrocketing me to the highest levels of ecstasy I’d ever experienced. When the last wave of glorious release crested over me, I gasped in completion and opened my eyes.
JJ was softly kissing my inner thighs, his finger still intimately massaging the seam of my entrance. The contrast of his dark hair and olive skin next to my fair skin was so erotic. Actually, the fact was that he was just a gorgeous specimen. He’d have been an erotic sight in a paper bag.
Standing up, he removed my lace underwear. When they were off, I scooted back up the bed, and his impressive manhood swelled even larger when I opened my legs in a clear invitation. A thrill over the idea that I could have that much power over JJ’s body shot through me. That I could affect him like that was quite a rush.
I fully expected him to join me in bed, but instead, he started walking out of the room.
“Seriously?!” I screamed.
JJ stopped and looked over his shoulder, his brow furrowed.
“Again! You’re gonna do this to me again?!” After picking up the closest thing to me—a romance novel from my nightstand—I threw it at him.
Unfortunately, he had the reflexes of a ninja and ducked. The book flew past him and hit the wall.
“Whoa.” He put up his hands, looking far too amused for my liking. “I’m going to get a condom. I left my pants in the front room.”
“Oh,” I said, because…what else could I say?
His lips pulled up in a huge smile, revealing his perfect teeth. Then, instead of leaving, he got on the bed, climbing above me. The weight of his body pressing down on top of me was the best feeling in the world.
Kissing my nose, he said, “I told you why I did what I did. That was the past. Things are different now. Do you trust me?”
The question took me by surprise. Do I trust him?
His ey
es grew serious as he stared down at me. “If we are going to do this, you need to trust me.”
“Way to make up the rules as you go along.” I wasn’t trying to be a smart a-s-s, but that was a lot to ask. And something he should have brought up before he’d stripped me naked.
Chuckling, he kissed my mouth, and all thoughts of trust, of him leaving tomorrow, of my broken heart—of everything except the way his lips, his tongue, and his body felt—evaporated from my brain.
“How about we start with this? Do you trust me to make you feel amazing?” he whispered against my lips between kisses.
“Yes,” I automatically replied. “You always make me feel amazing.”
I wasn’t trying to make his ego any bigger than it already was, but that was the truth. With one look from JJ, my body was electrified with sensation.
“Okay. That’s enough. For now.”
He began kissing me down my neck, and I wrapped my legs and my arms around his solid, muscular frame, holding him as close to my body as possible. His mouth trailed over my collarbone, and the next thing I heard was the snap of my bra. In record time and with impressive coordination, JJ had removed it and we were both naked as the day we were born.
His hands cupped my breasts and massaged my flesh as he took his time alternating his attention from one nipple to the other. Using his tongue, he traced the darkened circle around my beaded nub before he sucked the entire thing into his mouth. He teased and seduced me using the silken warmth of his mouth with complete power and control. This man was masterfully talented, and not just on the mound at a baseball stadium.
Needing to touch more of him, I ran my hands down his strong shoulder blades. Then over his muscular back as his body twitched beneath my touch. Gripping his back, I dug my nails into his skin as I did something that never in a million years would I have thought I would do.
I begged.
“Please, JJ. I need you inside me.”
Stilling, he raised his gaze to mine. “Are you on the pill?”
“Yes. I have been since I was sixteen.”
His brow creased, and a dark cloud fell over his features.
“Relax. It was to regulate my period.” I smiled, thinking it was cute that he didn’t like the idea that the reason I was on it was for my rampant sex life. Little did he know that it was more like my nonexistent sex life—at least for the past few years.
When he didn’t move a muscle, I dropped my arms to my sides in case he thought I was holding him hostage. And I hoped I would move things along by saying, “Sooooooo…”
“I’ve never had unprotected sex,” JJ said as if that were an explanation for his sudden mannequin impression.
“Okay, so go get the condom.”
This was not rocket science. I didn’t understand what the holdup was.
“I don’t want to,” he said. “I want to feel you. All of you. With nothing between us.”
Well, dang. When he said it like that, not using a condom almost sounded poetic.
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for the green light from me, but I was fine with it. He would never do anything to put me in jeopardy or hurt me like that, at least. So I told him, “I trust you.”
“Say that again.” His eyes searched mine as if he were on a soul treasure hunt.
The air between us crackled with electricity. My heart was beating so fast that you would have thought I was declaring my undying love to him.
Swallowing over the lump that had formed in my throat, I repeated, “I trust you.”
Moving up farther over me so that his face was directly above mine, he reached between our bodies and positioned the bulging head of his erection at the moist seam of my lips. His jaw tightened as he rubbed the tip of his dick up and down my sex, spreading my arousal. His eyes never left mine, and the connection between us was more real, more raw than anything I’d ever felt with another person in my life.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he said, his voice strained.
My thighs were trembling. Scratch that—my entire body was shaking as I did as he’d instructed. There was a sharp sting as he entered me, my body protested the intrusion, and I flinched. Not pushing any farther, JJ leaned down and kissed me. It was hands down the most passionate kiss of my life. His mouth made love to mine until I didn’t know where I ended and he began.
After what could have been a minute or twenty—I had no idea—JJ eased into me, inch by incredible inch. This time, there was no pain, only sheer pleasure. In fact, instead of locking up, my body accepted his fully and pulsed around his hard length.
One of his large hands gripped my hip and squeezed it as he began thrusting in and out of me in a rhythm my body instinctively recognized and matched. When my back arched up, my hips rocked in time to his measured strokes. Lust, desire, and pleasure surged through me. Heat spread from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
When a low throbbing of pleasure began pulsing deep in my lower belly, I knew I was on the verge of another orgasm. Even though I wanted this moment to last forever, I couldn’t slow down the release of the pressure that was building with volcanic intensity.
“JJ!” I gasped as I gripped his shoulders and my body started convulsing beneath him.
His strokes picked up speed, adding to the buzzing bliss that was flooding my system. Just as I felt myself going up and over the peak of passion, JJ’s body tensed and he pushed into me in powerful thrusts—sending me skyrocketing into the orgasmic atmosphere.
I was floating. That’s what it felt like as I drifted back into awareness. JJ collapsed on top of me, his arms wrapped tight around me, cocooning me in his all-encompassing embrace. His short pants of breath fanned against my neck and ear as he nuzzled against me. I ran my fingers through his silky hair, luxuriating in the feeling of him still being inside me, the rightness of the erotic sensation that his weight on top of me and his hold around me inspired.
I might have had twenty-two years in the rearview, but somehow, I felt like that night, that moment, was the first time I’d truly lived. Somehow, it seemed like the beginning of my life. My real, authentic life.
That realization—that knowledge—combined with being wrapped in JJ’s loving and comforting hold made me totally content and overwhelmingly anxious. It was unnerving that I was filled with equal parts safety and terror, all at the same time.
This was not good. Not good at all….
Chapter 14
Destiny
“Nothin’ dries as quick as a tear.”
~ Grandma Dixie
Twenty-eight days. That was how long it had been since I’d woken up in an empty, JJ-less bed. Six hundred and, hmmm, about seventy six hours since JJ had disappeared from my life…again. A month since I’d heard his voice, felt his touch, lost myself in his eyes.
He hadn’t called. He hadn’t texted. He hadn’t e-mailed, Facebooked, Twittered, Instagrammed, or SnapChatted.
He’d just left.
The sun still rose every morning and set every night, but my world had stopped spinning. The bank had turned down my loan application, but I felt numb to it. Not a tear had been shed after Mr. Crawford had given me the bad news. My lack of emotions went both ways, too. Bud had finally put air conditioning in at the Spoon, and I’d barely even smiled.
Over the last week or so, I’d started thinking that the night I’d spent with JJ was just a figment of my imagination. That I’d fallen asleep before I’d gone to the fireworks and woken up the next morning naked and sore because my dreams had been that realistic. It sounded crazy, but that honestly made more sense than the possibility that, after the night we’d shared, JJ had been able to walk away and not look back.
If he were the old JJ—the person who, up until he’d shown up at the Spoon a month ago, I’d believed him to be—then yes, sure, he could have done that. Heck, I would have expected him to. But not the JJ I’d gotten to know over the Fourth. Not the JJ who had dedicated songs to me. Not the JJ who had told me (with a borrow
ed line) that God had been showing off when He’d made me. Not the JJ who had whispered how much he loved my body, how good I felt, how good it felt to make love to me. And it hadn’t just been words. He’d spent the entire night proving it to me again and again.
Five times. That’s how many times we’d had sex. Or “made love,” as JJ had clarified when I’d referred to the act as anything else. Three times in bed, once in the hallway, and once in the shower. Each time had been better than the last. So, why? How could he have just gone back to his life and not even given me, given us, a second thought?
The stone beneath my tennis shoes was slippery as I walked up the steps to the wishing well in the middle of the town square. My soles squeaked loudly with each step I took, in sync with my chest rising and falling, as I attempted to catch my breath after my morning jog.
I was here to do my Monday morning wish ritual that had started on my way to school in first grade. I hadn’t studied for the spelling test, so my very first wishing well wish had been that I’d get a good grade, anyway. Which, shockingly, had happened—but not the way I’d expected.
When I’d gotten to school that day, our teacher had been out sick and the test had been postponed, so his absence had afforded me the time I’d needed to study.
For years, I’d carried around a guilt that felt like a backpack filled with bricks because I’d been convinced that I’d caused Mr. Hedges to get sick. That load had gotten a lot lighter, in high school, when I discovered that Mr. Hedges had quite a tendency to tie one on over the weekends and was notorious for taking sick days on Mondays.
Over the years, I had only wished for things that benefited myself a handful of times. Mainly, I used my wishes on the people I knew and loved. For five solid years in middle school and high school, every quarter that had splashed into the well had been for Cara—when she was first diagnosed, and then when she was fighting for her life.
But now she was officially in remission. Harmony was good. And Gram was doing great. So, today, I was going to selfishly use my wish for me.
Teasing Destiny (Wishing Well, Texas #1) Page 8