by Lisa Gillis
“Momma? Can you sleep with me? Just for tonight?”
Automatically, her eyes went to Jack’s face, then skittered away embarrassed that her first thought was the fun she would miss out on.
“I don’t know if we can both fit in that bed,” she hedged. “What if I leave the door open from my room to yours?” Here she went to the adjoining bathroom to demonstrate.
“You fit in my bed at home...”
She had slept with him a few times when he was sick or scared from a bad dream, so this logic could not be refuted.
“Let me go get my pillow. Okay?” When he nodded with relief, she realized that even though this was exciting to him, he must feel out of his element as much as she did. A strong surge of maternal protectiveness coursed through her.
Jack’s face looked as disappointed as she felt but his expression was also paternal and understanding. She went through the bathroom to get her pillow expecting him to follow, but Tristan had another foiling request.
“Can you read me a book, daddy?”
“Sure T.J. One sec.”
Jack halted her return to Tristan’s room with a mind-bending kiss. When they drew apart for air, his eyes sank into hers. “Had to have a kiss goodnight, at least.”
“He’s just out of his element...”
“You don’t have to explain...”
Their lips crushed together again, and this time when they pulled apart, Jack was in no shape to read a story. Ruefully, he backed completely off, and his hand brushed her cheek when he whispered, “Night Mariss.”
CHAPTER 4
SHE MADE AN EXCUSE FOR JACK, read two stories, and slept fully dressed on top of Tristan’s comforter. She intended to sneak off to Jack’s room for a half hour, or so, once their son drifted off, but it seemed hours later when she woke.
Feeling grimy from travel and from sleeping in her clothing, she stripped into a shower and relaxed into the scent of suds and the warmth of the water. The bathroom windows were still dark, and remembering again that they had not unloaded their bags she wrapped in a towel.
The dresser beckoned, and she pulled a drawer open finding a couple of stretchy women’s tees. Had Jack picked up a few items for her as well as Tristan? The next random drawer contained silky thongs, and she grinned imagining him at a check out register with these items. She picked up a bra and subsequently dropped the lingerie, as if it were poison.
She was a full C, but there was no way she could be mistaken for a D. Not by a man like Jack, who had bras thrown at him every night when he was on stage. One who had, no doubt, entertained countless women and this dresser seemed proof of the entertaining. It was possibly a catchall for everything left behind.
Feeling bereft, she padded through the bathroom still wearing a towel and pulled open the door to Tristan’s room. Although it would be comforting to climb back into his bed and cozy up to him, the sleeping arrangement had become cramped after a while. In addition, she had no clean clothing unless she raided the dresser. The idea of wearing the intimate apparel of strange women, who had likely slept with Jack, was unappealing.
An unbearable thirst came on, and tucking the long towel more securely, she descended the steps. The wood was cool beneath her feet, but nothing compared to the tiles of the hall, and she shivered for a second in the air conditioning while crossing to the kitchen. Thankfully, Rusty was nowhere about to bark at her, and she assumed him to be with Jack.
Chugging bottled water from the fridge, she noticed the flicker of light in the adjoining den. Further investigation revealed that she was not the only one cold due to the electronic climate of this house on a sultry night. A blanket covered sleeper lay on the sofa in front of the television.
Standing for a moment, she eyed the unfamiliar den before bringing her focus back to the couch.
Even Jack’s head was beneath the Navajo throw. After one last sip of her water, she set the near empty bottle on the sofa table as she watched the blanket’s slight rise and fall with each breath.
Pulling at the edge near his covered feet, she eased it off him as she eased herself on him. Her knees sank into the cushions while her hands glided up the sweat pants. Hooking her fingers into the waist, she was about to draw them down when her lips froze just over the hump they had been about to touch. Even through the sweatpants, something seemed different.
The legs mingling with hers were not as long, not as muscular, and the scent permeating her senses not right to her.
Worse yet, the sleeper awakened, his startled head popping from beneath the blanket. And, he was not Jack.
Dax’s groggy, but startled eyes focused on her face as she stumbled in her haste to put distance between them.
“Uhh. Umm.” A stutter was all she could manage when inwardly her mind raged in shocked curses.
Oh holy shit, she had almost put her lips to his–
Without another utterance, she pulled the towel tighter to her torso and nearly tripped on the step up to the kitchen. Turning the corner, she sagged against the large paneled fridge. Her eyes slid up the long staircase knowing it was visible to Dax from the couch, and she hesitated to climb it.
The cue could not have been better even if this were some crazy sitcom. Jack’s legs, which of course now she recognized immediately, came into view. Then, the black boxer briefs. Normally, these sights would have her heart pounding for a completely different reason then the fibrillation of these past moments. At this moment though, his bare chest, bright muscled arms, and dark stubbly face barely registered on her libido Richter.
An intimate smile curved his lips as he took in her appearance. As he crossed the kitchen she softly complained, “My clothes are still in the car...”
“Yeah,” he rumbled. “I didn’t think you would be needing them until tomorrow...”
Knowing they had an auditory audience, her face flamed at his sexy comeback. With the lightning speed of earlier on the guitar, his hand moved intending to pull apart her towel, but she caught the cover.
“Stop!” While holding the towel to her, she didn’t have enough hands to stop his roaming ones from seeking what they wanted. “Jack, stop!”
His fingers chastely dropped to her waist as his lips dropped to hers, and he mumbled, “Really? Stop?” Bewildered brown eyes stared longingly into hers.
“Why didn’t you tell me Dax lives here?”
“What?” Dark and dilated with desire, his eyes squinted, sliding over her face searching for some reason in her accusatory words.
“I didn’t know Dax was here in the house. You could have said something.”
“Okay. I’m sorry, Mariss...” Honing in on her distress, the apology came easily from his heart, turning hers to mush. Seeing, yet again, that her mood could have such an effect on him was calming. As she basked in this assurance of his love, his temper flared. The gentle probe of his gaze turned suspicious. “Why? Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened.” Dax popped up from the couch, his gaze never leaving Jack’s face, as he balled up the blanket. “She didn’t know I was on the couch, and it freaked her out.” Respectfully keeping his eyes from her, Dax apologized, “Sorry, Marissa, for the scare.”
Dax passed under the arch into the hall, and the close of a door echoed.
“So that’s it? That’s what happened?” Jealousy lit Jack’s eyes, but his tone was light.
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Dax has a bedroom down here. Next to the studio. It’s just easier. You will see. There is no eight to five in the music business, and it is better to have him close.” Jack sounded as if he were trying to convince her, as if she could veto the matter and cause a huge inconvenience.
Could she? Did she have that power as his future wife? To say what went on in this house–beginning now?
“I don’t care if he lives here. I just didn’t know, and it was embarrassing...”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it.” Jack was moving in close again, and her stomach fluttered, w
hen his head dipped. Instead of going for her lips, his kiss seared the sensitive skin of her neck. “You want your clothes now or later?” Fingers trailed up the ultra-erogenous skin of her thigh foraging under the towel as his tongue teased her neck.
At this rate, she was never going to get her luggage.
Her hands were splayed on his chest to steady herself although situated as she was, between him and the pantry, with one of his knees riding high between hers, she was in no danger of becoming physically unbalanced.
The unbalancing was all mental.
Her focus, or lack of it, was on the vaulted beams of the ceiling as his lips moved from her neck to collarbone. In an effort to gain some type of control, she weakly let her hands slide to the one article of clothing covering him and evened the playing field by dipping her caress beneath the elastic band.
Following his groan, things seemed to happen in a time lapse.
CHAPTER 5
SHE WAS SOON HORIZONTALLY GAZING about Jack’s room. After kissing most of the way upstairs, then down the hall into his room, a devilish grin had lit his lips as he had pushed her on the bed. Now those lips kissed skin unveiled by the towel that he had peeled off as excitedly as wrapping paper on presents at Christmas time.
The soft glow of two lamps, sitting at each end of a high headboard, revealed dark, heavy furniture. Rusty was eying them from a matching dog crate next to the dresser.
“Your dog is perving...”
Pulling back, Jack dragged a blanket from the foot of his bed and loped across the room to toss it over the crate. “Not anymore...”
The mattress again dipped with his weight, and as her fervor quickened with every well-placed kiss, she resumed her survey of his room.
A guitar stood in a stand near one side of the massive bed. An arched doorway, in keeping with the architecture of the house, sported double doors, both half-open, but she could not see beyond.
Like in the kitchen, this ceiling was vaulted, and in a blissful haze, her eyes trailed the beams as he teased and kissed her very core in that way that made her crazy.
An achy inferno stoked hotter with each swipe of his tongue, and she allowed it to rage, biting the inside of her lip lest anything louder than a whimper escape. The stubble on his face randomly making friction against super sensitive skin was an added aphrodisiac. The burn intensified to a white-hot heat, and she swallowed a scream, somehow articulating it into a one syllable word...
“Stop...” The demand was a gasp, and her hand clenched in his thick hair. “Jack...” The muscles in her throat reflexively convulsed, as were other muscles in other places. Focusing, she made a serious attempt to pull at him. “You have to...stop...”
Her head twisted, eyes landing on the large mirror over the dresser, and she was unprepared for the visual sex–the dark hair spilling across her pale skin, one of his inked arms wrapped casually around her leg, his head...there. Shutting her eyes, she closed the image out, but the feelings intensified and she pleaded, “...before I scream...”
His silent answer, another lash of his tongue, had her summoning every ounce of self-control to twist away from this intense embrace.
The quickest way to divert his attention in these situations was to turn the tables. It was something she had learned in the past week, along with a hundred other intimate things about him.
He had no qualms about letting her have her way but soon maneuvered so that he was staring into her eyes as one knee staked possessively between her legs.
Then, he was against her. His against hers.
It was in the first few seconds of this luscious tease that he cursed softly. A curse that she did not realize was annoyed until the mattress eased up when his weight left.
After pulling open a drawer in his dresser, he quickly returned, dropping right back into position. Never had any man looked so sexy tearing into a condom. Entranced, she stared, trailing her fingers across his abs and down as he pulled the packet from his teeth and then let it fall by the wayside once he had what he needed.
Her hands curved into his hips as they ultimately came together.
Over a dozen times by now, they had been together like this. Enough times that she had lost count, but still so few that each time was unique. She was learning the expressions on his face and a slight rhythm, all his, in his moves.
Her heart began to pound quickening to the tempo. His hands held her hips, and his eyes locked onto her face.
The dark heated pools stared deep into her soul, and then the smile spread his lips, the intimate one that at this pace she had familiarly come to know. Responding with one of her own, she slipped her hand down, caressing, squeezing, while she waited for the smile to fall away. When it did, his eyes closed with the intensity of what he was feeling, and she let her lashes flutter shut as well.
He was murmuring in that husky rumble that tickled her eardrums, and she moaned herself as the rhythm picked up.
When she pulled one of her legs from his waist, his eyes opened. Automatically, he dipped a shoulder to accommodate, and as always, he turned his head for a brief brush of his lips against her ankle.
Their next move together brought a simultaneous gasp as this new position allowed them to become even closer—if that were possible. She watched knowing by now that there was a good chance she would see a brief smile and wasn’t disappointed. His lips soon parted slightly as they moved together again and again.
Her eyes traversed every expanse of him. The pleasing planes of his face, and the way the tips of his hair fell over his shoulders. The ink designing his arms, and the way it stopped just short of meeting between his collarbones. The ripple of muscles on his torso, and...
Remembering the mirror, she twisted her head hoping their angle would give her a view of his bare ass, eye candy that had elusively remained hidden inside denim all day.
What she found was so much more. She admired the contrast between the two of them, his dark complexion, and her lighter skin. The scales brought a scowl each time she stepped on them, but tonight she looked slender enough sprawled before him. The enthrallment on his face seemed indication that he found her perfect.
Perfect?
As she pondered, one of his hands pushed back his hair, then came to rest, distinctly tan against skin that had only seen the sun once—when Olivia had talked her into sunbathing topless. Mesmerized, she continued her watch as his hand trailed down, below the next slight tan lines and then moaned in delight when it reached its destination.
They were beautiful together.
The feeling of complimenting every last part of him was more arousing than the sweet place he caressed from the outside, and from within...hit over and over until they both cried out.
CHAPTER 6
SHE RETURNED FROM a quick rinse in the shower to find the lamp still on and Jack still wide-awake with his hands clasped behind his head. His eyes were in a vacant stare toward the high ceiling. Immediately, she hugged up against him. Viewing the digits on his docked phone, she mentally calculated the latest logical time to move from his room to avoid Tristan finding them together.
“Mariss?” Her name rolled off of his tongue into her hair.
“Mmh?” Her lips went to his shoulder, an automatic response to hearing his version of her name.
“Why don’t you ever let go? Completely?”
The question was so unexpected and ambiguous that she raised her head, and when she did, he propped on an elbow to better see her face.
“Let go of what?” She returned while her brain spun in search of any possibility.
“The first time. In the bus. Never has it been that real, never that real with anyone else. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. There is something different now and I wish I could fix it for you.”
Her breath hitched for two opposite reasons. First, her heart, dry for so long, soaked up any of his sweet words. Yet, did he just allude that the present sex between them had not been as good for him when compared to the past?
> “What do you mean?” Not able to look him in the eye, she studied chocolate brown sheets the shade of his eyes.
His thumb brushed at her bottom lip and in that way she was becoming accustomed to, he brushed his lips to hers, kissing away whatever hurt he might have seen in her eyes. Or maybe he just wanted a kiss; maybe she was making too much of why he did things.
“I just mean you always seem to be stopping things before you have any real fun...”
Her mind contemplated these words as they floated on the surface of her confused soul. The self-translation wasn’t long in coming.
She always stopped anything he was doing before she could really ‘get off.’ Sure, she ‘got off’. It was impossible not to with him. However, he was right. The crazy out of control mind losing orgasms could be counted on one hand, and that was counting the time in the tour bus.
“You know why,” she protested while envisioning their son always down the hall.
Jack had no trouble understanding. “I know there were always little ears on the other side of the walls. But not now. And you still pushed me away...”
“How can you say ‘not now’? Two rooms away is not much different, Jack–I—you have to understand.”
“The bedrooms in this house are soundproof.” The argument was made as he played in her hair, sifting it between his fingers. “I know I mentioned that...”
“Yes. But how soundproof can a room actually be?”
“You can scream as loud as you want and no one would hear.”
As much as that answer quivered the depths of her stomach, she couldn’t stop her laugh, and his dark brows drew inquiringly together.
“That’s not really something you should tell a girl the first time she is in your room.”
“Why? Is it scary?” A laugh was just beneath the surface of his words, and he carried on the charade, “You could scream for days and days and no one would ever hear you.”
When he began to quote a famous line from a psychotic thriller, her hand went to his mouth. Even though she was giggling uncontrollably, she didn’t want to be creeped out, even with Jack by the end of that sentence.