by Kane, Jessa
I roll down beside Maisy, wrapping her in my arms and dropping kisses onto her hairline, promising to make her happy. Only to remember by second day is almost over and while I’ve managed to win her trust, I still don’t have her promise of forever.
I don’t have guarantees—and I need to get them fast.
11
Maisy
I feel like I’m floating through the next few hours.
We return to Jack’s estate and we’re greeted at the door with a glass of champagne for me, a beer for Jack. After we shower and change, he takes me on an actual tour of his house—without getting sidetracked by a Nerf war this time—including the backyard, indoor/outdoor pool, gardens rioting with flowers and a view of the sweeping green valley beyond.
His hands are always on me. Touching my neck, brushing against the small of my back, the pads of his fingers strumming my bottom lip like a guitar string. Every once in a while, we stop talking, stop moving, and I just stand in his arms, letting him sway me and it feels like…magic. We met under circumstances that were kind of scary and less than romantic, but part of me wonders if we were fated to meet that way. Despite Jack breaking his promise that night, the experience bonded us and obviously taught me a lot about myself.
I don’t feel like the same person I was on Friday night.
I’ve lost my virginity. Publicly.
Found out there’s something inside of me that responds to voyeurism. Very positively.
I’ve been betrayed by my mother.
I’ve fallen for a man.
There are so many choices to be made when it comes to moving forward with my life. This thing with Jack is moving so fast while I’m in the middle of so much upheaval. But I can’t imagine being anywhere else than at his side, the way I am right now. He makes me feel safe and protected—and none of it is an illusion. He’s real, he’s raw…and the intensely affectionate way he looks at me makes my worry dissipate into nothing.
When I came here, my goal was to find the real Jack. To find out if he was the kind of man who breaks promises and manipulates me with money. Or the man who rescued me on Friday night, put me at such ease. And so far I’ve found him to be generous, cocky on the outside, insecure about his true character on the inside. He’s blisteringly sexual, commanding, blunt and complicated. A man who has been betrayed. A man who has been ruthless—perhaps because revenge is something he understands.
Unlike the love for one’s mother, which he does not.
Mainly what I’ve learned since coming here…is that I want to know more.
I want to know all.
We’re walking a slow circle around the outdoor portion of the pool now. There’s a light breeze rippling the water, but it’s not cool enough to warrant a sweater. Still, Jack pulls me into his side and kisses my temple, a maid happening by to replace my empty champagne glass without breaking stride. The sun is streaked with oranges and pinks and my lips are tingling from the champagne bubbles. And God, Jack smells so good. All beer and man and the cherry notes of the cigar sticking out of his shirt pocket.
He draws me down onto a wide, overstuffed lounger at the edge of the pool and we sit for a while in the quiet, Jack’s fingers stroking up and down my bare arm.
“Did you have fun today?”
I answer honestly, my fingers toying with the buttons of his shirt. “Today was…one of the best days of my life. Thank you.”
He laughs quietly. “I can’t believe you’re thanking me.” He seems to be searching for the right words. “Every second with you is an honor, Maisy.”
“I feel the same way about spending time with you, Jack.” His scoff makes me frown and I lift my head. “How is that you’re arrogant in so many ways, while being completely insecure in others?”
“I’m arrogant in my abilities. Making deals, surprising you, taking you places, giving you pleasure.” He hesitates. “It’s the moments in between where I don’t know what, if anything, I have to offer. While you, angel…you’re like this beautiful balm over a scar, erasing the possibility of anything ugly in the world. Grace and honesty and optimism and forgiveness.”
A metal iron is weighing down on my chest. “That’s a beautiful thing to say,” I whisper.
“You can smile while scrubbing a floor. I know, I’ve seen the pictures.” He tilts his head to look down at me, his knuckles making a downward sweep of my jawline. “Meanwhile, I can make a multi-million-dollar trade and…nothing. I feel nothing. Only this…urgency for more.”
“Who do you want more for? You? Or are you trying to prove something?”
He sighs, shifting my hair. “Maybe.”
I study his face closely, noticing the shadows dancing in his blue eyes. “To who?”
The pulse at the base of his neck starts to move faster. “I don’t know.”
I’m trying not to push too hard. If I sensed he wanted to change the subject, I would. No one should have to talk about painful parts of their past until they’re ready. But he does want to share. The way he pulls me close, as if seeking strength, tells me so. “Could it be your parents?” I ask gently. “You said you didn’t have a mother. What about a father?”
His jaw flexes. “I don’t know. I was left as a newborn at a fire station. I’m guessing my mother was young and scared. Or in a dangerous situation.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” I whisper, my heart fracturing. “But I’m glad she took you somewhere safe. That was brave of her.”
“Yeah. I know that in my head. That she did something brave. But I’m, uh…” He closes his eyes. “This is how I know I’m not a good man, Maisy.”
“How?”
“I’m angry at her. At the father, too.” He looks down at me, as if uneasy about my reaction. “It’s not fair. I don’t even know the circumstances. But everything that followed, all those years in the system…I don’t know how to stop blaming them.” His voice drops when he adds, “Even hating them sometimes. It’s why I acted the way I did with your mother. I just saw her leaving you, like they left me.”
This is the real Jack. He’s more than a gorgeous man crackling with intelligence. More than his trademark blatant cockiness and intense energy. He is those things, but he’s vulnerable, too. Lonely. “You were never put in foster care?”
“Once. But I don’t remember it. I was an infant. The couple couldn’t get pregnant…until I showed up. After that, they wanted to focus on their own flesh and blood.”
Oh no, Jack. Essentially leaving him abandoned twice. Even if he doesn’t remember, the second incident could be imprinted on his psyche, quiet but malevolent.
“After that, some time passed. I was older and I think it was harder to place me—and I made it clear I wouldn’t play nice anywhere.”
“Of course you didn’t want to try again. I understand.” I lean up and kiss his chin, his mouth, lingering there with soft presses and sips of his lips. “This is why you reacted so badly to your business partner selling those shares. You had all that anger left over, ready to dish out. But anger doesn’t make you a bad person, especially when it had so long to grow, no love to keep it from snowballing. It’s your personal damage, Jack. Everyone has it. Some have it worse than others, but it’s always important. You’re important.”
He starts to say something but can’t seem to find the words, stroking my hair with an unsteady hand instead. “Maisy,” he breathes. “I don’t want to be successful out of spite anymore. It’s exhausting.”
Those words seem to drain him, all on their own and again, my heart protests his pain. “You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You just have to be Jack. You’re the success, not the million-dollar trades or the social status,” I whisper, moisture pressing against the backs of my eyes. “You must have felt very alone for a long time. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t you dare be sorry.” Jack pulls me closer, our kiss deepening. “I’m not alone right now,” he says gruffly, nuzzling my nose. “I have everything I need.”
You need love.
I come very close to saying it out loud. I’m not sure what holds me back except for the fact that everything is happening so fast. Can this breathless feeling inside of me really be love? My chest is packed tight, heart racing. Lying here in the waning sun with this man, I’ve never felt more secure. More anchored. And part of that comes from knowing I anchor him, too.
An intense urge to soothe Jack’s pain, reward him for opening up, be vulnerable for him, has me sliding off the side of the lounge chair onto my knees. His brow furrows, as if confused about why we’re not kissing anymore, but when I reach for the zipper of his pants, understanding dawns and he groans, the bulge behind his fly doubling in size.
“Ah Jesus, baby, I’ve dreamed of this. Day and night.” He helps me draw down his zipper and hands me his rigid inches in a shaking first. “All it needs is a little kiss and I’m going to lose it, Maisy, Maisy, please. Kiss it.”
“I’m going to do more than kiss it,” I whisper, pumping him in my grip.
“No.” The fingers of his left hand dig into the chair cushion, his right hand settling on the back of my head, his thighs jerking open in what seems like an involuntary spasm. “No.”
“Mmmhmm,” I hum, slowly drawing my tongue up the side of his thick stalk, then back down, watching his abdomen heave and shudder in response.
“Shit,” he hisses. I give the same slow treatment to the other side, performing on instinct, somehow knowing to saw the tip of my tongue back and forth in the slit at the top, my confidence building when Jack’s hips lift off the chair, his fingers tangling in my hair. “Fuck. Give that cock a home now, little girl. Bury it in that sexy mouth. Make me come.”
Urged on by his guttural speech, I swirl my tongue around the smooth head and carefully slide his stiffness into my mouth, watching for his reaction, wanting to make sure I’m doing it right. And I quickly learn there is no wrong way to do this. I knew a man’s sex was sensitive, but my tongue seems to heighten that sensitivity to another level, a mere flicker of my tongue making Jack suck in a breath or jerk his lower body. He’s salty and huge and male, the ridges of his arousal passing my lips faster and faster, eventually meeting my throat—and that’s when his enjoyment really skyrockets.
As a result, so does mine.
Settling into my power, I fist him at the base, right above his thick thatch of black hair, and glide my hand up and down that ruddy column, stroking him upward until my hand meets my mouth, then I travel back down, up, down, letting him brush the back of my throat repeatedly, until he’s urging my face toward his lap with a desperate hand. “You like sucking Daddy’s dick, baby? Sure feels like it.” He breaks off on a growl, his hips starting to tick up, up, up. “Sure goddamn feels like you can’t get enough.”
I moan around his stiffness, the involuntary sound causing my throat to open and in pushes Jack, his shout of triumph loud in the backyard. The intrusion makes me choke and cough, my eyes tearing, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m instantly addicted to Jack’s loss of control. And letting him into my throat is how I achieve it, so I do it again, relaxing my muscles and allowing his pulsing erection to curve down my throat, linger, linger, before jerking back and gasping, reveling in Jack’s painfully blissful expression every time.
“You’re amazing,” he grits out, thrusting his hips up and down, rifling his shaft in and out of my mouth. God, I’m so wet just from watching him. His peeled back lips, his muscular arms and chest flexing as he guides my head down, down, hips pumping up, up. “Amazing. Amazing. One more time, baby. Be a good girl and let Daddy put his cock down your pretty throat.”
My own hips are canting back and forth, riding the air as if I’m straddling Jack, and I look up at him, watch him ogle the undulations of my body, his eyes going glassy, his breath turning short. So short. And then I press down, pushing my lips as far down his huge appendage as they’ll go, his pubic hair tickling my lips. His fingers twist in my hair, his entire body going stock still, before something breaks. Snaps.
“Maisy. Oh fuck!”
Thick, salty liquid rains down the back of my throat and I have the urge to pull away, but I battle it, entranced by the pleasure taking place above me. His earlier turmoil forgotten completely, he pants my name over and over again, his sex jerking and spurting within me. Finally, after what feels like forever, Jack pops free of my lips with a long, satisfied grunt, still ripe and semi-hard in front of my face. But I’m only given a split second to marvel at him.
Using his grip in my hair, he forces me to stand, guiding me closer until I’m straddling him on the chair. And still he urges me higher, until my knees are buried in the cushion on either side of his head. He shoves my skirt up around my waist and, realizing what’s coming, I cry out, falling forward onto my hands and knees.
Jack rips my panties off in a quick twist of his wrist, raining a stinging slap down on my buttocks, which are completely exposed to the pool, the backyard beyond.
“Go on, baby. Rub that hot cunt all over my fucking tongue.” Another two quick swats of his palm make me whimper. “Do it. Little girls who suck good cock like that get rewards. Don’t you want a reward from your Daddy? Don’t you need it, with that dripping wet pussy?”
“Yes!” I cry out, trembling, lowering my sex to his mouth. I intend to go slow, to feel my way through this new act, but the suction from Jack’s lips pulls me in, blows a fuse in my brain and my thighs spread wider, hips working desperately to embrace the delicious pain and escape it at the same time. “Jack, oh Jack, oh Jack.”
His grip is tight on the flesh of my bottom, urging me to ride faster, faster, and I do, because his tongue is stiff on my clit and I’m already so incredibly turned on from watching him burn toward a climax. My orgasm is already knocking on the door, asking to come through, and I fumble for the knob, digging my fingernails into the cushion and bearing down, grinding that swollen bud on his upper lip, tongue, anywhere I can find friction, and finally the bliss clouds my thoughts, pleasure lifting my body high and rattling me. There’s no shame, no hesitation, just me raking my sex up and back over Jack’s groaning mouth, his finger tucking into my virgin back entrance and shocking me into climaxing harder, louder, eruptions in my lower body tightening my muscles everywhere, everywhere, locking me in a state of animal lust, until my body finally gives out and I go limp.
A few minutes later, as Jack carries me toward the house cradled against his chest, he says, “Starting tonight, you’re sleeping in my bed. End of story.”
I don’t argue.
In fact, I’m pretty sure tonight is only going to be the first time. The first time of many. And I want that. I want to call this man mine. My heart already does. But there is still a tiny voice in my head telling me to hold back. Jack placed conditions on my financial freedom. After what he confessed to me about his parents, I know he probably did that because of a deep-seated fear of abandonment. I sympathize with that. Still, if I allow him to control me from the beginning, will it become a pattern? I need a little more time before I surrender myself completely to this love glowing inside of me.
Unfortunately, time isn’t always a given…
12
Jack
Just after sunset, we eat pasta for dinner on the balcony attached to my bedroom, which I’m already mentally referring to as our bedroom. Even if Maisy isn’t ready to do so yet. There is still something holding her back and I know what that something is, though I don’t want to acknowledge it. Do I have a choice, however?
I owe her two million dollars. In order to keep her in my life, I told her she could have it in portions, spaced out over twenty months. One hundred thousand monthly. My way of guaranteeing she couldn’t leave me.
Selfishly, I want her to forget the debt entirely and just be mine. If she did that, she would have access to billions.
Everything I own would be hers.
Ours.
When she came here, she wanted to know the real me. I didn’t know how to show her that. Or whether the real
me was a bastard…or a decent soul. But being around her goodness has made me hunger to be a better man. It’s made me realize he’s been inside me all along, subdued without her light. Now I realize the right thing to do, the way to prove to Maisy I’m worthy, is to hand over the two million. All of it. There’s no way of knowing Maisy really wants me unless she chooses me, even with a tricked out bank account. Even with the freedom to do whatever she wants.
What if she doesn’t choose me though?
That possibility…it fucking terrifies me. Riddles me with grapefruit-sized holes.
I’ve survived my share of abandonments, but I won’t survive hers. No way.
Ironically, I think if I don’t hand over the money, I’ll lose her, too.
Both ways, I could lose her—and I can’t breathe for that lack of control.
I lose count of how many times I make love to her that night. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m making love. I fucking love her. An out-of-my-mind, starved-even-when-I’m-devouring-her love that is endless and deep and uncontainable.
I lick her pussy until she screams. That pink little asshole, too.
I bury my teeth in her shoulder and rail her from behind.
I throw her up on my cock and watch her tight ass writhe up and back as she rides me in a reverse cowgirl position—and then I whirl her around, throw her down onto her back, fold her in half and pound her like a madman. At some point, I carry her to the shower and soap my come from her body, rinsing her down. As soon as the water turns off, we immediately start in on each other again. We don’t even make it to the bed, Maisy kneeling on the floor to give me head, followed by me drilling her roughly against the wall, shouting for God in her neck.