Chapter Twenty-Three
She was researching loopholes in supernatural pacts when he said it.
Right after she’d told him that it didn’t seem as if it would be possible to change the wording from I love you to something a little less serious.
“Not that I think she couldn’t love you.
But you know, time is starting to run out.
You’ve got a month to go to her, ask her out, and then win her over; it’s not a lot of time.
It would have been ideal if we could change it,” she said.
Then he just came out with it.
“If I’ve not got a lot of time left, maybe we should spend it doing things that couples who live together do.
You know. Just to finish rounding out my education,” he said, in so strangely sad a manner that she looked up from the book she was busy highlighting.
She pushed her glasses up her nose. She assessed him.
But his expression was as neutral as she’d ever seen it.
He didn’t even take an agitated drag of his cigarette. It was clamped between two of his fingers, and said fingers were folded over his other hand. As she watched, smoke coiled in front of his face. It veiled him for a moment.
For some reason, she thought of the scene in a movie when the private detective knows more than the killer but is kind of pretending otherwise.
Columbo , she remembered the show being called.
And that made her a little uneasy, even if it made a lot of sense.
That is kind of what he’s spent his existence doing , she thought.
Being one step ahead of serial killers and monsters and things that go bump in the night .
Just because he doesn’t understand how to human doesn’t mean he’s not smart.
It doesn’t mean he’s not more amazing than you could ever possibly fathom .
Then suddenly all she wanted to do was ask.
She wanted to say, If I show you my world, maybe you can show me yours.
But of course, he hated his world. He wanted to escape it.
Who wouldn’t have wanted to, considering the harrowing nightmares he’d had to deal with over the aeons?
So she focused on what he’d asked for. “Well, we’ve covered dates.
And breakfasts. And making out. And watching things together.
And sex. And sleeping together. And getting along with each other’s pets,” she said, while eyeing Popcorn, who was currently sitting in Jack’s lap.
His fury at having to listen to their shenanigans had abated pretty quickly, once he realized he could get more petting and plenty of food from her defiler.
Plus, she felt pretty sure that Steve was starting to warm to her.
He had honked his horn when she’d gone out onto the front porch.
Then a second later she’d clocked the hellhound, lurking in the bushes, waiting for her to step over the boundary of the house. So what did that leave?
“There must be other things you’ve always wanted,” he prompted.
But all she could think was someone like you, I just wanted someone like you .
It took her a second to swallow it down and think of something else.
Something simple that wouldn’t stir her up too much.
Maybe multiple somethings that she could make a list of, and check them all off, methodically.
That always helped, when her mind tried to betray her.
It had helped after the bad place, when she’d kept wanting to fall back on magic.
She’d kept wanting to write bizarre and fantastical things, and hadn’t been able to.
Instead, she’d shrunk herself down to the simple sentences, then words, then finally nothing at all.
In time she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten what it all meant to her.
“Let me jot some things down,” she said. And he nodded, satisfied.
T HEY SPENT TWO weeks going through her checklist before she realized.
It just came to her as they hung up Christmas decorations together.
She was trying to reach high up on the tree she’d woken up to that morning in the corner of the living room.
And he just scooped her up and sat her on one of his shoulders.
Unthinking, it seemed to her.
But boy, did it do something to her. She let out a little breathless gasp, her heart suddenly beating hard. Body thrilling at the sensation of being swooped off the ground so easily, of being grabbed by those big hands, of ending up so high but feeling so safe at the same time.
He stabilized her with one grip on her thigh, and one on her waist.
And when she lashed out and grabbed his wrist, it felt so good . So thick.
God, he’s so sexy , she found herself thinking, and of course as soon as she did, there it was in her head. This was the most he’d touched her in days. In weeks. In fact, she suspected this was the closest they’d come to sexual contact since that night when she’d written on his body.
It just hadn’t seemed it because of all the stuff they had done.
She’d suggested going to the farmers market together, and he’d walked around it with his hand so close to hers she knew he wanted to take it, before he said, I mean, that’s what I see other people doing . Then she had called him a goof, and done just that. And god, the look he’d given her for it.
It had almost felt as good as being fucked.
In fact, if they hadn’t been interrupted by a creature so weird and ancient that the bleeping-out thing happened to his voice every time he tried to say what it was, she thought maybe they would have.
And maybe they would have after the movies, too, when some flying thing had descended in the alley on their way back to the truck.
Which made her wonder if that was the explanation. Constant interruption by supernatural threats , she thought. Though even as she did, she knew it couldn’t cover everything. It was as obvious as anything she could imagine.
He was pulling back. He was cooling things down. Getting ready to leave her, most likely. And that idea was so compelling, and so raw, and so real, that she had to swallow around a lump as she tried to hang a felt carrot with a Santa hat on it.
She had to tell him to put her down before she could manage to do it.
Though it didn’t help. He spun her and slid her down facing him. Their bodies practically kissed. And even after she was on the ground, staring up into his big, handsome, half-laughing face, he kept a hand on her waist. “Don’t like heights, huh,” he said, while she answered in her head:
I don’t like this.
I don’t like wanting what I can’t have.
I don’t like making myself weak in front of you.
Because of course that was what she did. She felt that intense eye contact and that gentle touch and saw him almost look like he was leaning, and couldn’t stop herself. She went up on tiptoe. Then even more humiliating—she got hold of his shirt, and tugged just a little.
Most of her sure he was going to turn her down.
But the rest so afraid of missing her last chances that she didn’t care.
For once in her life, going for something she wanted mattered more than the fear of being too greedy and grasping.
Of being too much. As if she was that cheery high school girl she’d once been, unburned, ready to go up to anyone and be their friend. To be herself, even if it sounded mad.
And apparently herself was enough.
Because he didn’t reject her at all.
He kissed her like he’d been dying to for years.
Like all the little cheek pecks goodnight he’d been giving her—as if they were a couple in a fifties sitcom—had been like a starvation diet, and now he wanted real food.
He even let out a low groan when he felt her lips part.
When she made it immediately messy and hot and good, because messy and hot and good were what she couldn’t wait for, either.
I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care , she told herself, then kissed him like her life depended on it.
She got her arm around his shoulder, and practically hauled herself into his arms. She climbed him like a tree.
And he didn’t say no . He didn’t say stop .
Instead, he murmured breathlessly against her mouth.
“Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything you want.”
And a million things went through her head when he did.
More soft things, that turned him inside out. Like the other night when she rubbed his shoulders, and he about died. Or when his mouth was on her again, between her legs—yeah, god yeah, that had been nice.
But in the end she had to go for broke.
“Just fuck me,” she told him.
Truthfully, though, she didn’t think he would.
She imagined him balking immediately. Stepping back, holding up his hands.
Whoa, whoa , she could almost hear him saying.
Instead of what she got: “Go get on the bed,” he said, all low and deep.
Like the words had been dragged from somewhere low down inside him, somewhere filthy and good and oh so hot.
Because it was, oh god, it was.
And even more so when he didn’t wait for her to do as he’d asked. He was on her before she’d even managed to kick off her jeans. He did it for her as he climbed over her body. One hand over her head, the other shoving them down. Ripping them down, really, because she heard material tear.
It would have scared her.
If it hadn’t been him. If he hadn’t been kissing her as he did it, desperately, frantically, like he could hardly get enough.
It almost made her think she’d been wrong about him pulling away.
Though, of course, she knew this was just sex.
It was just sex, when he fisted a hand in her hair.
Just sex when he let out a sound like a sob, as he found her wet and ready.
Just sex when he said:
“Tell me to stop if it’s not okay.”
He had to know, however, that she was never going to now.
It felt too good to—to get his hand between her legs, stroking and stroking.
And even sweeter when he couldn’t seem to wait.
Jack, who was patient and steady and careful, suddenly spreading her legs.
One hand unbuckling his belt, unbuttoning his jeans.
Then finally, finally—the press of him, right there.
Barely holding back, barely waiting to see if she could take him.
Then sinking all the way in when he felt her give.
So easy , his shocked gaze seemed to say as she took him.
But it almost made her laugh. It almost made her say, Of course it is with you.
Of course it is with someone I want, someone who cares .
But of course the problem was: it was impossible to.
Sensation had stolen all her words.
She got the long, slow slide of that gloriously thick cock in her cunt. And all she could do was let out a far too heavy sort of groan. It sounded like someone dying. Like someone drowning. She almost blushed to hear it come out.
But she needn’t have.
It made him do the same.
He let out this guttural sound as she took him to the hilt.
Gaze stunned, completely undone. Everything still in that one moment as he drank the sensation in.
As he searched her face, for who knew what.
Permission that had already been given, praise for giving him this, some sort of sorry, that this was goodbye.
She didn’t know.
And whatever words hovered then, on his lips, he clearly decided not to say.
Instead, he spoke with his body. He moved against her, slow, slow. Eyes rolling closed as he did so. Though that couldn’t last. She knew it couldn’t, because it couldn’t for her, either. She got that first spark of pleasure, and bucked against him. Told him just how amazing he made her feel.
“Thank you for everything you’ve given me,” she somehow said.
And the second she did, he let out a broken sound. He stopped.
Then he told her: “Turn around.” Roughly, she thought. But god, it didn’t feel rough when she did as he asked. She got on her hands and knees, and he almost eased her back, and down. One hand rubbing over her as he did. The other between her legs, to help guide himself in.
And even when he gave into—even when he filled her, and fucked her, it didn’t feel like fucking at all.
It felt like bliss, to have him taking his pleasure.
To have him holding her hips so he could drive in.
To have him pounding her, relentlessly, until she could hardly do anything but say his name.
“Jack,” she said, as he got a fistful of her hair.
Like in Lord of Scoundrels , she thought mindlessly.
Then he hauled her up, her back to his front—just like in that book, too.
Like he knew what she wanted, and wanted to give it to her.
Even as he gave to himself, too. He cupped her breast, as if he just longed to feel it.
Held her hip tighter, so he could go at the relentless speed he seemed to need.
Though it was only when she cried out, in shock and joy—when the pleasure started to overflow, and she knew she was there—that he truly let himself go. He waited, hovering on the brink, as she rocked in his arms and wrung out every last drop of this bliss.
And only then did he do it.
He followed her down, into the sweet embrace of oblivion.