by Jillian Neal
“Fuck, Jack,” came out in a desperate mewl. “What are you doing to me?” She was sitting on her knees now and grinding against her own heels.
“Giving you what you want. There’s nothing wrong with begging when you know I’m the only one selfish enough to satisfy you because that is the only thing I want. Lie back, honey, let me taste what I do to you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The few seconds it took Meridian to untangle her legs and lie back on the cool sheets were more than her patience was willing to give. She was soaked. Her nipples were drawn to stiff, aching peaks. Her hips swayed involuntarily, and she just couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Now,” whimpered from her mouth.
A low, conquering growl groaned from him. He gripped her ankles and brushed teasing kisses on her inner thighs. Instead of him heading right where she so desperately needed his attention, he ascended her body, spinning his tongue between her hip bones, teasing at her navel, licking the underswells of her breasts. Making circular worship patterns around her nipples before he finally sucked one and then the other.
“Perfect mouthful,” he complimented.
Her restless hips attempted to lure him back to the lips of her pussy.
“You’re going to have to be still,” he informed her with enough bravado that she immediately challenged him.
“And if I don’t?”
The darkness that he fought and she craved shadowed his eyes again. “Be careful, sweetheart.” His throaty warning only made her press him harder.
“You don’t scare me.”
“I should.” He brushed kisses at the corners of her thighs and pussy. His eyes closed in what appeared to be pure ecstasy as he spun his tongue there and inhaled deep like she was a bottle of priceless reserve somehow made specifically for him.
“Why?” She clawed at the sheets under her, desperate for his affections just a little lower.
“I’m not a nice guy. I’ll punish you.” He spoke that particular warning at the top of her slit as he feathered more kisses there. “And you’ll like it.”
Her heart pounded out a beat she didn’t even recognize as her own. Her hips moved in rhythm both because she’d been told not to move and because remaining still was beyond her ability.
In response, she was punished. He dipped two fingers in her deep and fast. He was only partially wrong. She didn’t just like it, she loved it. She craved it. “Yes,” she urged.
Proving his prowess, he continued to fuck her hard and filthy with his hand while lazily brushing kisses around her clit. No other man had ever seemed to understand the juxtaposing sides of Meridian. That she wanted to be owned while simultaneously being cared for. His tongue teased at her clit now, never making direct contact. Clit-adjacent attention had always, always been her undoing, and this was the first time a man had gifted her with her most coveted of desires. All others saw the bundle of nerves as a means to an end. Press button, activate orgasm, then get to the part they wanted. Only Jack seemed to understand that the reward was there hidden in plain sight, and he was willing to work for it.
She soaked his chin as almost inhuman mewls of thanks poured from her mouth.
He lifted his head and met her eyes as she stared down at him. “Do you want to come on my mouth, princess?”
Losing all sense of herself in the pounding thrum of his fingers, she did something she’d sworn she would never do. “Please, please,” groaned from her, loud and desperate.
“That’s it. Let me hear you beg.”
He returned his mouth to her clit and increased the pressure of his tongue but still held back from making direct contact. She bucked in his face. He pounded his fingers harder and faster.
The sensations overwhelmed her. Her hands abandoned the anchor of the sheets. She needed something stronger, something steadier, something more certain to cling to. Her fingers threaded through his hair, and her thighs tightened against his chin.
Her breaths disintegrated into frantic gasps, like porcelain thrown against stone. The pressure he built forced sobbed pleas from her. The world turned to a dizzying fray where nothing made sense, nothing but the way he played her like an instrument only he understood.
“Jack,” shuddered from her.
“Let it come for me, baby. I’ve got you.” With that, he fastened his suckling lips to her clit, and she fell apart in a riptide of ecstasy on his tongue.
Chapter Twenty-Five
With every drop of Meridian that he devoured, Jack swore she was some kind of heavenly tonic that healed the wounds stabbed brutally through his soul. She tasted like heaven spiced with a dose of hell. She was a blend far grander than any single-barrel would ever produce. She was perfection.
She seemed to come back to earth in small degrees. That was fine by him. Quickly locating his discarded trousers and fishing the condom from his wallet, he tossed it on the bed and climbed beside her. She curled up in his arms and let him revel in her and in what they’d just shared. “That was incredible,” he whispered into her mussed hair, now a wild auburn mane splayed over the white sheets.
“Yeah,” she lifted her head, “it was.” Shock whispered through the words. “How did you know…” Her head lowered again.
Cradling her face again, he brought it back up. “How did I know what?”
Determination tensed in her features for a split second. “That I would like that?”
“You have dominated my attention since the moment we met. I have been so fascinated by you I’m surprised I’ve accomplished anything at all. I’ve paid attention to your every reaction. Having you in my arms only heightened my awareness. Every moan, every breath, every quiver of your beautiful body, I pay attention. I always will.” Sinking his lips back to hers, he took more. He wanted her to taste herself on his lips, to taste how good they were together.
If he was going to ultimately end up losing everything he’d worked so hard for, he wanted to own her pleasure. It was the only reward worthy of the sacrifice. Needy for her vulnerability, he climbed over her and settled the weight of his erection against the tender wet curls of her mound.
More responsive than any woman he’d ever been with, she bucked against him. A quick shiver shot through her body as he cradled her closer still. “Tell me what you want,” he urged as he slid his cock back and forth against the wet heat. His body was primed and desperate to take her deep and hard, but nothing worth having came easily. When she opened those intoxicating eyes to stare at him, he faltered. Tender vulnerability was awash in the whiskey. It wasn’t something Meridian let anyone see, and yet she was showing him. “Anything you want, just tell me.”
“Hold me down,” gasped from the tight trap of her lips, “and fuck me.”
“You read my mind,” he informed her on a low growl. Making quick work of the condom, he wove their fingers together, pressed the backs of her hands into the mattress, and let her feel his weight over her.
Slowly, relishing every centimeter of the heavenly velvet of her, he pressed himself inside. With every deliberate, rhythmic thrust, he sought to get deeper. Everything he’d ever understood about the way his world worked spun away from his mind. The only thing that mattered was more of her.
Her delectable little body drew tighter with each pass. It was a licentious paradise, the most divine torture. He groaned out her name like he’d just learned the secret prayer that would save him from the sins born into him, the ones he had no chance of outrunning.
She was the answer to his every supplication, the home he’d longed for but had never found. Near constant moans of pure need spilled from her lips.
“Look at me,” he whispered. Her eyes blinked open. “So fucking beautiful,”—he pressed in to his hilt and watched as his body teased at her clit with his grind—“I want more. I want you to be mine.”
“I am,” she vowed reverently.
That wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to say. He wanted to tell her that he’d loved her for years. He wanted to sigh it in
to her skin, to stitch an impenetrable barrier around her heart that he would guard with his life. He did have just enough sense left in him to know that professing love in the middle of sex was likely to be taken wrong, and everything about this was too good to besmirch.
He was certain he would eventually do something to mess this up, but he refused to let it be that night.
Clasping both of her hands in one of his, he took his other palm and pressed it just above where his cock was spreading her wide. “Yes,” mewled from her. “Oh, mmm, I’m gonna…mmm.”
Her warning was tangled with unintelligible moans. Sexiest, most satisfying thing he’d ever heard. His pulse hammered out an SOS. Hot cum blazed to the place where they were joined tight. Not yet. Not fucking yet. He clenched his jaw as if that would hold back the need to drill himself so deep into her she’d never be rid of him.
“Not until you beg me for it,” he informed her. He backed off with his palm, and she bucked harder searching for it again.
“Please,” she whimpered restlessly. “Please, I need you.”
Those three words shredded through him. They took him down to the very fibers of who he was and discarded every piece that had been surreptitiously implanted in him by his family. She was the only thing that mattered, and he would rebuild himself, replace the brokenness, to hold her. If he had to, he would rebuild his entire life again for her.
“I’ve got you,” he assured her as he gave himself over to the divine agony. Her body rhythmically milked his cock. Her shoulders dug back into the mattress as she reached for more of his length. He pounded harder and pressed against her with his hand.
She broke loose on a tensed groan of his name, and he followed her down the spiral of bliss from which he was beyond certain they would never be able to return unchanged.
He collapsed against her as hot spurts of cum filled the condom and blurred his vision. In the haze, he imagined what a life devoted to her might look like and how he could go about getting it.
Emotion clogged Meridian’s throat as she floated back down to reality—to Jack’s arms specifically—slowly. She hated to cry and refused to give in to the bizarre tears that threatened her eyes now. What was wrong with her? She’d just had life-altering sex with a man she’d lusted after for years. Beyond satisfied was the only allowable emotion after something like that.
She was just with it enough to realize that the answer was in the question. Cuddling closer into his arms and burying her face in the warmth of his chest, she tried to hide away from the knowledge of which parts of her life had been altered.
“I’ll be right back,” he whispered in her hair.
She didn’t want him to leave. It frightened her, and she’d prided herself since she was a little girl on never being afraid. Anger was a far more useful emotion than fear, and it was often her preference, but she could locate no fury in her body. There was only longing for him to return.
He flipped off the lights as soon as he’d disposed of the condom and cleaned up. Climbing back beside her, he folded her into his arms as she took stock of her body. She was limp and sated. She was both anxious and exhausted.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Concern thrummed in the whiskey smoke of his voice, still deep and rugged from their passion.
“I don’t think so.” The fear prevented her from lying. She needed to both acquire and provide the truth in order to assuage the overwhelming anxiety threatening to eat her alive.
“Me either,” he spoke the words that allowed her to draw a full breath. “Want to talk about why we’re not okay?”
She tried to swallow around the lump of confusion so she could speak. It only worked semi-successfully. “Everything is different. I…don’t know what to do with that.”
“Not everything, right?” he soothed. “I’ve been wildly attracted to you for years. Nothing about that has changed other than I’m even more attracted now. You won’t know what to do with me. I’ll be relentless.”
His cocky apology made her grin despite her fear. “Then why are you not okay?”
“You are still extremely dangerous to the life I’ve built, and yet I have no desire to end this in a week, or…longer even.”
She stroked her hand over the light smattering of hair on his chest. His honesty emboldened her own. “I have never given up on my goals for anyone. I’ve never even changed them. I never had to, which I know is ridiculously spoiled of me, but it’s true. Nothing ever mattered more to me than being the best at what I do. And now…”
He lifted his head to stare down at her. The moonlight shimmered in his eyes. “I don’t want you to change for me or anyone else. I’d never want you to give up on your goals. If you want to be DA…I’ll try to figure out a way to make that happen.”
Meridian slid to her side and propped up on her elbow. “That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know if I want that to happen, and…that scares me. But if we kept seeing each other back home I can’t ever be DA. Not with the way our county works. They’d prefer to elect roadkill than a woman they think slept her way into getting you to not run against me.”
He sank his lips to her forehead in a lingering kiss. “We don’t have to figure anything out tonight, but I won’t let you give up anything for our relationship. I don’t deserve that.”
Weary of hearing that from him, she went on with the truth. “You know you’re a really good guy. I still haven’t figured out why you think otherwise.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jack considered her question and chanced turning the tables. “You get frustrated and angry at yourself when you don’t know things or understand them fully. You hold yourself accountable for the things you’re certain you should know even though there’s no reason for you to know them. You rely so much on yourself that sometimes you miss the help that’s right in front of you. We all do that to some degree. Maybe that’s why I’m convinced that I don’t deserve you. I’ve always thought that if I could’ve just figured out, or somehow sensed, the backroom dealings and hidden money that flows my parents’ way that I could’ve saved them from themselves. If I’d just seen what was coming for Finn, I could’ve saved him too.”
It was so unlike Meridian not to argue, Jack was shocked when she gave him a solemn nod. “I just don’t ever want to be wrong. What if me being wrong costs someone something?”
Jack hugged her closer. “Welcome to my whole world. Me being wrong cost people everything. That’s why I’m certain I’m not a good guy, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it thrills me that you think I am.”
She lifted her head and gave him a sweet grin. “Maybe we should both be nicer to ourselves and to each other.”
“I need to make a confession before you decide you should be nicer to me.” Guilt had ridden him hard most of the day, and after what they’d just shared, he had to tell her.
Skepticism furrowed her brow. That was a look he was far more accustomed to than her solemn nods and sweet grins. “What did you do that you think is so bad?”
He went on with what might be the end of this fledgling relationship despite his best efforts to keep it going. “It was a while ago, back when we were working on the Graham case. He was being arraigned that afternoon, and we were both going to court to make certain that Judge Winton refused to set bail below the maximum. You were already downstairs, and I realized I’d left two of the written testimonies from his victims in the folder in your office, from when we were reviewing them the night before. I went back to get them off your desk before joining you.” With every word he spoke, the cringe on her face deepened, and her already enflamed cheeks went from apple to overly ripe raspberry. Curious at her reaction, he went on, determined to get this out. She had every right to know what kind of guy he was. “I saw…”
“The pictures of me,” she concluded for him.
He went on. “I should’ve told you then, and more than that, I shouldn’t have indulged my baser nature and looked at them. I really am very sorry.”
She
wrinkled her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “So, that’s your proof that you’re a jerk?”
Completely baffled at her reactions, his mind scrambled. “I’m sure there’s more I could come up with.”
That actually made her laugh. “Oh god, Jack, I’m the one that should be apologizing.”
“Why?”
“Because I had those pictures taken to try to get your attention. I did them for you. I’ll admit I forgot they were on my desk that day, but you’re not the jerk. I am. I should never have had them done. I don’t even know why I did. I told myself it was to get back at you for beating me in the election, but that wasn’t really it.”
The alleviation of guilt he’d carried for so long was dizzying even if it didn’t make sense. “If you did them for me, why didn’t you show them to me?”
Her eye roll was welcomed at this point. There was his spitfire. He was starting to miss her. “How do you propose I should’ve gone about that? Marched into your office and handed them over? ‘Here, Jack, I can’t stop thinking about what it’d be like to sleep with you, and I’m more attracted to you than I’ve ever been to anyone, so I thought I’d have these done and see what you thought. Also, I’m pissed you won the election and wanted to torture you a little, which I know makes me an epic bitch.’” She shook her head. “I’m nuts but I’m not quite that nuts.”
“None of that makes you a bitch,” he vowed readily.
“Yeah, right. If it doesn’t make me that, then it definitely doesn’t make you a jerk.”
“When we get back home, can I see them? I was too ashamed to look at them the way I wanted to.”
Her flush reddened yet again, and he loved that she was a fair-skinned redhead just for that effect. “You just saw everything and then some. You don’t need the pictures now.”
“I still want them. I’ve thought about them every single day since I first saw them. I’ve jacked off to thoughts of them more times than I can count. There’s another confession for you.”