by Jillian Neal
Thrilled with that confession, Meridian laid her head on his shoulder and pretended to be confused. “What effect is that?”
Jack’s hand slipped farther down her back and gripped her ass. “You don’t just make me hard, honey. You keep me hard. You make me ache.”
“I could take care of that for you,” she whispered.
“You’re going to, but first you’re going to dance for me.”
At the bottom of the staircase, they slipped into drowning darkness. They blinked in an effort to adjust to the lack of light. Heavy percussive beats shook the floor that was flooded with red and blue neon lights that concealed far more than they revealed. It was like stepping into an entirely different world, all black iron beams and strobe lights.
That feeling of being submerged in something altogether unfamiliar was something she was oddly growing accustomed to here in Kentucky. But this time was different. Jack’s arm was slung protectively around her, and somehow nothing about their new setting felt disconcerting.
His arms were a strong, steady foundation, almost like…home.
Two guys were cutting up the center of the dance floor, but around them couples were pressed together dancing close. The bar down here was positioned near the long back wall, and unlike upstairs, people had to shout their orders for the bartenders to be able to hear.
Jack led her to the dance floor. They blended into one of the external amoeba-like crowds. The song bled to one with a slower, heavier beat and breathy lyrics—sex through speakers.
The wildfire blazed fiercely in Jack’s backlit gaze. It burned away Meridian’s weak excuses that she’d clung to with him. Her fear that she’d never be DA if she fell for him lost its voice, and yet her hands shook from all she’d held back. Every sacrifice she’d watched him make for his family transformed something in her. She never wanted him to sacrifice for her. The knowledge that he would was enough.
He was right there, poised against her, staring at her like he wanted to devour her, and she wanted nothing more than to be devoured. She swayed against him, letting the music move through her. He moved in rhythm with her body.
His capable hands gripped her hips as she thrust against him to the beat. With her arms up, her tits swayed in his face. Not seeming to mind that they were in a crowded room, he managed to lean and spin his tongue at the hollow above her collarbone.
Her moan blended in with the music, but she knew he’d heard it when his eyes closed in desperate agony. The secret moment in a room with hundreds of other people surged heated desire through her veins.
Jack’s fingers threaded through her hair as he brought her lips to his own. Whiskey heat and need blended on their tongues as they got drunk off each other. Meridian wasn’t certain how he kept them swaying other than the fact that the beat of the music matched their animalistic hunger.
Keeping one hand in her hair, he brushed her thigh with the other, teasing at the hem of her dress, pushing it higher. She groaned urgently, a plea for him to follow through with his threat.
She’d suspected that Jack had a voyeur streak about him with his office-sex confession that everyone would hear them and then again when he demanded that she say his name when they were out on his parents’ porch. She had no idea how much she would like the idea of people watching what only he could make her do. It was heady and forbidden. It tapped into the well of wild housed so deep in her soul. The cowgirl in her needed to ride wild. He somehow held the keys to every locked door of her—her heart, her laughter, her mind, her sin.
“Dance for me, cowgirl,” he demanded.
Stepping back slightly, he watched no one but her. The intensity of his focus heated her skin. It burned through her, scorching every inhibition she’d ever even pretended to hold dear.
Never before in her entire life had she been so completely in control of who she was, what she wanted. Him. There were a thousand lies about them spinning around Kentucky, but this was a single truth—she wanted him in every possible way she could have a relationship with him. No one had ever made her feel so sexy, so seen.
She didn’t have to live up to the expectations of every cattle rancher, every voter, every Holder. No, she only had to dance for him. Every role anyone had ever cast her in fell away. Here, she was herself giving this to him, and no one else would ever matter.
She let the music pour through her as she began to move just for him. She dragged her hands up her own thighs, lifting the dress ever so slightly. She imagined his hands on her body and moved to the strum of his fingers. She lost all those things she’d never really wanted to be and became fully herself.
Her eyes blinked open to find his gaze, dark and almost angry with yearning. He returned to her side in two quick steps. “You’re attracting quite the audience, and I do not share.” She’d never heard him sound so possessive. Why was that so utterly appealing? Adrenaline spiked her blood, and urgent desire ruined her panties.
She fell into his arms. If he wanted her to make a declaration to her male and female admirers, she was more than happy to do so. “I need you.” She sang his song. She knew the lyrics he needed to hear.
He guided her off of the dance floor. “What do you need, cowgirl? Tell me.” His breaths were quick and his tone like gravel.
She turned back and grinned at the people applauding her dancing before she stared him down. “You inside me. Now.”
“Done.”
He took her hand and half guided and half dragged her toward the bar. She thought maybe they were going outside, but he took a hard left and led her up a darkened staircase. At the top, he pushed a door open and guided her out into the cool night air. Trying to get her bearings, she stepped out onto the brick flooring and was surrounded by wrought iron tables with closed umbrellas and stacks of matching chairs. “What is this?” she asked.
“They open the rooftop in the summer, but tonight it’s just for us.” Her heartbeat broke out into a fierce gallop.
“Have you ever…done this before?” She wasn’t certain why she required that information, but it was suddenly very important.
He spun back to stare at her. “Been up here? Yes. Had sex up here? Never.” Keeping a firm hold of her hand, he led her to a corner created by the tall brick fireplace along the north wall.
His lips crashed down on hers in a messy, almost clumsy kiss born from desperation. He ran his hands under her dress and trailed his kisses down her neck, allowing her breath.
“Jack,” she panted. “What are we doing?”
“If you want me to stop, say so now,” he demanded.
His urgency amped the electricity surging between them. “I never want you to stop. Not here. Not back in Oklahoma. Never.”
He lifted his head and stared her down. “What does that mean, honey?”
“I don’t want us to end.”
“Thank god.” He dove back in for another kiss. Their tongues tangled, and his deep groan spilled into her mouth. She wanted to feel every single one of his sounds. “I don’t know how I’d ever let you go,” he admitted before he nipped her bottom lip.
“Thank god.” She laughed in relief.
He drank her laughter like a smooth shot of whiskey. Her hands made quick work of his belt and jeans. She needed to feel him, hot and heavy.
His hands moved up her thighs, clasped her panties, and yanked them downwards.
The elastic straps of the G-string tangled on her heels. He held her steady and untangled her. The panties went deep into the pocket of his jeans. She suspected she’d never get them back. That worked just fine for her.
His expert fingers were tracing over the wet auburn curls covering her mound. The cool night air taunted, and the warmth of his hand soothed. The effect was dizzying and delicious.
“You’re drenched, princess,” he whispered.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Meridian’s fingers wrapped mercifully around his cock as she managed to open his jeans enough to fully reveal him. Rewarding her efforts, he pressed his fi
ngers between her swollen lips, teasing at her entrance. A choked moan shook from her.
“So fucking wet,” he growled out again. “Is it being up here, baby? Do you like knowing someone could walk up here and see what you let me do to you?” Her responding gasp of his name spoke volumes. “Or did you like thinking about me fucking you filthy while you were dancing for me?”
“Yes,” hissed from her. “Please, Jack. I need….”
“I know. I know what you need. Let me fuck that needy little ache away.”
“It doesn’t,” she whimpered and pressed his cock to her pussy lips. “It never goes away.” Precum leaked from his head as she dragged him back and forth against her clit. It mixed so readily with her juices. He shuddered from the delectable sight. “I always want more.”
Thrilled at that admission, her broken pleas still shattered him. She was playing with fire, and he suspected she knew. “Baby, let me get a condom on.” The last vestiges of the man he’d fought so hard to become urged him to never do her wrong. He reached back in his loosened jeans and managed to retrieve his wallet. He tossed it on a nearby table as soon as he’d located the condom.
He allowed her one more stroke along her slit. “I’m gonna come all over your hand if you keep that up.”
A delighted though devious grin formed on her kiss-swollen lips. “Hurry,” she urged.
“I love when you get impatient for me.” He rolled the condom on in a fluid movement, then lifted her right leg and hooked her heel around his thigh. Aligning his cock at her entrance, he made his demand, “Take it.” He thrust hard parting her and pressing deeper. The answer to his every prayer was deep inside of her, and he wouldn’t survive without her absolution. “Take it all.”
The thin night air filled with the scent of her arousal. Her hands dug into his hair as she held on. The brick and iron surrounding them juxtaposed with her soft heat and tender curves. Filtered sounds from the bar below mixed with a hint of the music pulsing under them. A few drunk patrons out on the street had no hopes of seeing them, but served to remind them that every hard, fast thrust was a formal declaration to all of Louisville. He was not the man he’d been born to be, nor was he who he’d fought to become. He was nothing more and nothing less than hers. His lost, confused identity was locked into the indentation he’d made in her.
All of the years of desperate silence and ultimate patience about how badly he wanted her found their worth on that rooftop in his hometown. His entire world reduced to the place where he filled her full. From there, he would reshape, reform, rebuild himself into whatever she needed him to be.
His thrusts grew faster and harder, more frantic and less rhythmic. The heated air between them filled with her breathy mewls of pleasure and his low groans of urgency. Her body tensed around him. Her head dropped to his shoulder and her lips swept over his neck and punished his skin. The pain only amplified his pleasure.
The divine agony overtook him as she cinched tight around him. He buried himself in her and wrapped her up protectively in his arms as he filled the condom with four years’ worth of equal parts hunger and satisfaction.
He brushed tender kisses on her shoulders and eased away from her when they’d caught their breath. Eventually, they found their way to one of the loungers. He stretched out and guided her into his arms, her back to his chest. “That was incredible,” he informed her.
She grinned up at him. “We are very good at that.”
“I think we’re very good at us.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. Are you mad I was too stubborn to tell you that I liked you a long time ago?”
Jack shook his head and stroked his fingers over her cheek. “No, honey. I wasn’t ready, and I will never be angry at you for being who you are. I love your stubborn side.”
“Should we go back downstairs?” She didn’t sound any more thrilled about that than he felt.
“Eventually.”
“I like it up here better.” Her confession held tender vulnerability.
“I like it anywhere you are.” He wouldn’t allow her to exist in that vulnerability alone.
She turned and buried her face against his shirt. “Me too.” She let him nurture her and kiss her soft skin everywhere he could get his lips for several long minutes. “Do we keep us a secret back home?”
“If that’s what you want,” he whispered.
“I don’t know what I want outside of you.”
“Then why don’t we figure it out when we get back home.”
She nodded against him. “Okay. I hate that we figured this out because of a bunch of lies we told. That seems like a bad way to start a relationship.”
Loving this insight into her mind, he tipped her chin up so he could stare into those whiskey-laden eyes. “Other than our exaggeration about being engaged, I’m not certain we’ve really lied.”
He laid it all out on the line. Were they really in love? He wasn’t certain, but if this wasn’t love he couldn’t fathom what that must be like.
She nodded and tucked back under his chin. He refused to press it further. Patience had gotten him right where he wanted to be, so he’d keep playing the cards that were winning.
They stayed on that lounger another half hour, and then he helped her up and they tried to put themselves back together in a way that wouldn’t let everyone in Watershed know what they’d been up to. It proved largely impossible without mirrors, or perhaps it was that something inside each of them had taken root and they could no longer hide it externally.
He guided her back down the darkened staircase, and they found the rest of the Bastards close to where they’d left them. Sloan laughed at Jack outright. “I don’t even need to ask what you two were doing.”
Greer looked concerned to the point of admonishment, but he kept his mouth shut, a smart move on his part.
Drew rejoined their party after he walked Farrah to her Mercedes.
“How did that go?” Jack asked him.
“She’s a Fitzgerald. At some point attractive turns into vapid.”
Finn’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t have been chatting her up for hours if she only had the emotional depth of her big sister.”
Drew waved him off. “Whatever, man. She’s in a rough place. Her parents are getting divorced, and you know all of Bourbon Country is going to feel that fallout.”
“Indeed.” Jack sighed. “Are you going to see her again?” He smirked. “You know…to help her through the rough patch.”
Drew’s chuckle sounded remarkably like all of the Denton brothers. “So what if I am?”
“I just think it’s…an interesting choice.”
“Getting laid is not an interesting choice, big brother. It’s just fun.” He gestured to Jack. “As you well know.”
Meridian’s cheeks flushed the color of her hair. Jack shared a conspiratorial grin with her, and laughter eventually erupted from them both.
Sloan shook his head at them. “Part of me wants to know where the hell you two were, but then I think I’d rather just not know.”
“You’d rather not know,” Sophie assured him. Lila nodded her agreement.
Jack smirked at his cousin. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Oh, really?” Sloan jerked the collar of his shirt to the side.
“What?” Jack couldn’t see his own neck.
Meridian whispered in his ear, “So, there might be a very slight hickey on your neck.”
He yanked the collar of his shirt back and refused to answer any of them. He loved wearing her mark. He was fairly certain if someone could remove a portion of his skin, they’d see the Holder brand firmly burned into his soul.
Greer was the first to head out that night, followed soon after by Drew, Lila, Sloan, and Sophie. Jack and Meridian settled back into the booth with Finn.
“Do you need anything?” Jack quietly asked his brother.
Finn shook his head. “Believe it or not, I do have a well-paying job, a great apartment, and I even
remember to feed myself,” he harassed. “You don’t have to worry about me so much anymore.”
“That’s easier said than done,” Jack admitted as he pressed the corners of a cocktail napkin against the table to avoid looking directly at his brother. Deep emotion wasn’t generally the way of Denton men.
“Let’s talk about you two instead then.” Finn turned the tables rather suddenly. “When exactly did you figure out you were in love with her?”
Jack and Meridian both stared at him with their mouths agape. “What?” Jack finally stammered.
Finn looked like he was having way too much fun at Jack’s expense. “For years now, every time I call you, all you talk about is Meridian does this and Meridian thinks that. I figured you’d either fuck her or marry her eventually. So, when did that happen? I feel left out.”
Never wanting his brother to feel left out of anything after what his family had already put him through, Jack was at a loss as to how to answer.
Meridian saved him again. “I think we’re still in the process of figuring that out.”
“So, you aren’t really engaged then,” Finn summed.
“We’re not sure about that either,” Jack informed him.
His brother leaned on his forearms across the table. “Then let me give you some advice this time instead of the other way around, which is how it used to always go. Figure out what you are sure of and go from there. Make the foundation the truth no matter how long it takes you to build whatever it is you’re going to have.”
Meridian nodded. “That’s really good advice.”
Finn winked at her. “I have a really good big brother.”
“Yeah, you definitely do,” she agreed.
More than ready to duck out of the spotlight, Jack changed the subject. “I wish I knew what Greer’s long game was. Why the hell did he show up here tonight?”
Finn nodded. “That’s the fifty-million-dollar bourbon money question, now isn’t it.”
“Do you think it’s possible he really is trying to apologize for his silence?” Meridian asked.