CHAPTER 33 JACKSON #2
I reach out and curl my fingers around her ankle, tugging until her foot is pressed against my thigh. I trace the jut of her ankle bone, then squeeze. “We haven’t had much time together since we got back.”
“It’s all right.”
Frustration plucks at me. She’s so good at minimizing her own reactions, I sometimes don’t know what she’s really thinking underneath everything else.
“Do you forgive me?” I ask.
Her smile is half-hearted, her eyes meeting mine for the briefest of seconds before floating away again. “Of course I do.” She tucks her chin to her shoulder and looks toward the kitchen. “Do you want some lo—”
“Don’t do that,” I interrupt.
Her lips quirk. “No? I’ve got egg rolls too.”
“I’m not talking about the egg rolls.” I turn so I’m facing her fully, draping one of her legs over my lap, the other trapped between the side of the couch and my hip.
My arm stretches out over the back of the couch, fingers reaching.
“I want you to tell me the truth. Tell me what you want. I want—I want you to demand more,” I say.
She stares up at me, her brown eyes cautious. “I don’t understand.”
I shift again, closer, the inside of her thigh pressed to my rib cage. I pinch the hem of her ridiculous shirt and rub the material between thumb and forefinger. Affection tangles with desire, so sharp and warm I have to swallow around it.
“Don’t smile when you’re not happy and don’t forgive me if I’m not forgiven. Talk it through with me when I’ve hurt your feelings.” I let go of her shirt. “Ask me to do better. Tell me what you need.”
The smile she’s holding on to like her life depends on it slips, inch by inch, until there’s only Delilah left. More solemn than I’ve ever seen her.
“I don’t know where we stand now that we’re home,” she confesses quietly. “I don’t want to lose all the things we let ourselves have in the mountains just because we’re here.”
I nod to myself, settling my palms on her thighs. I ease them up her legs until my fingers are braced around her hips, thumbs digging into that dip that drives me insane. The material of her shirt bunches at my wrists. I hold myself perfectly still.
“I don’t want to lose that either,” I tell her.
She nods, her attention caught somewhere between my eyes and my mouth. “Okay.”
I shake my head.
“No, Delilah,” I say softly. “You’re taking it too easy on me. Do you want to be friends, or do you want to be something else?”
Her eyes are wide as she gazes up at me. Almost afraid. “I want to be your best friend,” she whispers.
My throat tightens. I turn and press up on my knees, hovering over her before planting one hand by her head, the other at her hip.
She’s a perfect fit for me, all her softest parts fitting against my hardest edges.
I lean forward and brush my nose against her cheek, my lips ghosting over the corner of her mouth.
“Demand more from me,” I rasp. “I promise I’ll give it to you.”
Relief eases across her face as her eyes search mine.
She’s starting to understand now. Her hands find the front of my sweater and she pulls my body down to hers.
Her chin tips up and she catches my mouth with hers.
She does exactly as I requested; harsh, demanding kisses that punish.
I grunt and match her frenzy, working my mouth against hers, sucking in a sharp breath when her teeth clamp down against my bottom lip.
I missed this.
“Shit,” I mutter.
She soothes the pinch with a swipe of her tongue. Her hands haven’t moved from the front of my sweater, like she’s afraid I’m going to change my mind and pull away. I sink more of my weight against her, urging her thighs wider with mine to make room for myself.
“Sorry,” she mutters.
“Stop apologizing to me.”
I cup her jaw and press my thumb against her chin, urging her mouth open, kissing her deeper with another dark sound that punches out of my chest. I hold nothing back, working my apology into her with my tongue and my teeth, hoping she understands how fucking desperate I am for her.
“You feel like—” She arches back into the couch, neck exposed. “You feel like you’re trying to prove a point,” she laughs.
“Good. You’re finally getting it.”
All the things I’m feeling, all the words I haven’t been able to say.
I drag my mouth down the line of her throat and work a mark against her pulse point.
I hope she has to wear extra makeup tomorrow.
That she has to pick something with a high collar when she goes on the air.
I hope every time the material chafes against her skin she thinks of this.
Me, pressing her down into the couch. Her knees inching higher against my sides.
“There’s nothing to prove, Jackson,” she whispers against my forehead, her hands finally releasing their grip on my sweater. She smooths them over my shoulders, up the back of my head. “Do you want me?”
I have to swallow before I can answer. “So much,” I whisper.
She cups my face, forcing my head up, her thumbs tracing over the sides of my glasses hooked over my ears.
“Even the messy parts? The ones that need a little bit of work?” She presses her lips together. “What about the parts that disappoint you? Because I don’t know if I—”
I rub my thumb over her bottom lip, quieting her. We’ve slipped from desperate to achingly still. “Trust me,” I whisper.
“I do.” She laughs. A short puff of warm air against the hollow of my throat. “That’s the problem. I let you in so fast, Jackson.”
When I was a kid, I never had the luxury of being greedy. I had to learn how to stretch out the things I wanted; break them into pieces just to make them last.
But with Delilah, I don’t want to be patient. I want everything, all at once.
I slip my hand around her back and press my palm to the base of her spine, gathering her close, treating her like the precious thing she is. I was careless before. But I can fix it now. I can show her.
She’s made her demands. I’m going to fulfill them.
I reach for the bottom of her shirt. “Can I?”
She nods, lifting her arms above her head. I pull the soft, threadbare material over her, grunting when I see nothing but smooth skin and bare breasts.
“You’re not wearing a bra.”
“Surprise.”
She doesn’t hide, doesn’t look away. She hooks her thumbs in her pants and slips them down too.
“All of it,” she breathes, and I nod, my hands covering hers, taking over, pulling the soft material from her smooth legs and letting it drop by the side of the couch.
She stretches out beneath me, completely bare.
Heavy curves and creamy skin. She asked me once what colors I saw when I looked at her, and right now it’s pinks and golds. Amber eyes that burn hot.
I set my hands on her knees, my thumbs tracing a half circle. I haven’t taken off a single thing, but this isn’t about me. It’s about Delilah and giving her everything she deserves. Reassuring her.
“From that very first kiss,” I tell her, “I knew I wanted more from you. I think I tried to convince myself I didn’t, but I’ve always been a bad liar.”
I sink down over her, ducking my head to her chest, catching one rosy nipple in my mouth. I lick and I suck and I drag my teeth against her until she’s tugging at my hair. Pushing me down. Trying to pull me back up. She’s indecisive and bossy, and I love every second of it.
“I want to be your best friend too,” I whisper, right above her heart.
“I want to keep you safe. I want to hold you steady. I want to—” I drag my mouth back and forth against her skin and laugh.
“Fuck,” I whisper. “I want to go sledding with you in a stupid doughnut. I want to be right here with you.”
“Jackson,” she gasps, back arched. I press another careful kiss to the curve of her breast, then slip down her body until I’m between her legs, hands caged around her hips, angling her the way I need until—perfect, she’s perfect—one thigh is tossed over my shoulder and my chin is just beneath her belly button.
“Will you let me take care of you, Delilah?”
I drag my mouth back and forth, teasing, savoring every shaky breath in and out. The way her lungs expand and fill beneath me. The way she trembles when I sink lower.
I press my mouth against her in a slow, thorough kiss, gripping the curve of her thigh when she wiggles and whines. I hold her still as I learn what she likes best, then let her go as she leans into it. Her thighs press against my ears. Her hands crawl into my hair.
I reach up and pull off my glasses, tossing them toward the coffee table. They hit the floor with a metallic sound but I’m already working my mouth against her again. Wet and slow and deep, my eyes closed, thumbs rubbing where I’m holding her open for me.
I reach down and frantically yank at my jeans, curling my hand against my hard cock as soon as I can, fingers wet with her, riding the edge of pleasure and pain. It’s so good with Delilah it hurts. I’m reduced to sensation and action.
When she comes, it’s with the bitten-out sound of my name.
I have to hold her firmly down while she works through it, her voice whispering my name over and over, a curse and then a praise, her body softening as my mouth lightens.
The last time she says it, it twists up at the end, caught around the start of her laugh.
I grin into the soft skin of her thigh then wipe my mouth there, crawling back on top of her.
I wrap my arms around her and lift until I’m sitting with my back against the couch, Delilah draped over my lap.
I want to memorize the feel of her when she’s like this, boneless and satisfied, smiling so wide her kiss is messy.
“Do you understand now?” I whisper against her bottom lip. I flex my hands against the curve of her ass. “Do you see?”
All the things I haven’t been able to tell her. I’m shit with words when it matters, but I can be good at this.
She laughs, breathless and winded. “Yeah. I get it.”
“Do you?”
She nods, nose against my cheek.