35. Jack
Chapter thirty-five
Jack
I f there was ever a moment I looked to the heavens and thanked whatever higher power reigned up there, it was this one.
After what I would consider the most self-deserving panic attack in history brought Maggie to a state nearly as bad as mine, she was here with me , asking how to help me .
I had never felt more thankful for every single event that led this unfathomable woman into my life.
She was the sunshine to my every waking moment.
The beauty that went along with this insane plan to fake a marriage, come with me to Wyoming, and have our baby.
What kind of man could ever deserve her?
I sure as hell didn’t, but I would promise her over and over again to try my hardest to be the man that did.
All I wanted was to make her feel as content and safe as she made me feel.
Not once did I think I would ever want someone to make me feel safe.
Hell, I was supposed to be the man who protected her from anything that came our way.
But Maggie had a way of digging deep beneath my layers and eliciting sensitivities I never knew about, and kept them in a safe little box that she opened any time I needed it.
She was perfect.
“Tell me how to make it better,” she had said. I couldn’t think of a damn thing except for her sitting in my lap with her arms around me right now.
Except for one. I moved one hand from behind her back and softly brushed her bump. “Tell me our baby’s name.”
Her brows raised in surprise, as if this was the last thing she thought I would say. I gave a slight nod.
Eyes shifting left and right, she gave me a sympathetic look. “I thought you wanted to decide on one together. We still don’t know the gender.”
“I want what makes you happy. I don’t care about anything else. If it’s a girl, what is her name?”
She searched my eyes for any kind of hint of what I wanted. She wouldn’t find anything. “I was thinking…Anya.”
A beautiful word.
“Anya,” I repeated. I liked the way it rolled off the tongue. It was so natural. So fitting.
So perfect .
“If you don’t like it, I have a whole baby book with highlighted names. Anya was my top choice, but if you want, we can–”
I couldn’t help it. I needed her with me. Close to me. Breathing me in.
My lips descended onto hers with the need to show this woman exactly how much I loved her.
It threw me back years, to when it was only us in the backseat of my truck, craving what we had both been tiptoeing around for so long.
I distinctly remembered the first time touching my lips to hers, inhaling her warmth, tasting her.
It was a kiss I would never be able to forget.
The first moment I indulged in Maggie’s aura of perfection was the moment I knew in the back of my head that we would come back to each other.
Even if I had gone tonight. Even if that panic attack fucking killed me.
I would have come back to her. Because what else could I do?
The way she squeezed my heart and made me feel like a teenager in love and a little kid with big dreams. Fucking nothing could replace her.
Her arms tightened around my neck, fingers sliding into my hair, needing this moment as much as I did. When I panicked, my first go-to to calm myself was focusing on what was around me, what I could feel and touch. Tangibility was my rock, and Maggie was giving me exactly that.
I focused on the soft fingertips massaging my scalp, her warm body pressed against mine, her strong legs wrapping around my waist. She gasped when my hands gripped her hips and pushed them down, and I took the opportunity to slide my tongue against hers.
God, she was so warm and inviting. I couldn’t keep myself together around this woman.
“Jack,” she whispered between whimpering breaths, “I just want you here with me.”
It was all I wanted, too.
“You’ve got me, baby. Body, mind, and soul. I’m helpless with you.”
She hummed and opened her mouth wider to take mine. Her hips rotated as she pressed down into me.
“You need me, baby?”
She answered with a moan that turned into a gasp when I took her bottom lip between my teeth. The rain pounded harder on the outside of the truck, giving us our own perfect moment of privacy in the hospital parking lot.
My lips brushed across her ear and nipped at the sensitive skin below it before whispering, “I’m not going anywhere, Mags. I promise you.”
Her hands cupped my face as she stared into my eyes. I was drowning in those deep pools of green. “I know you’re not. I wouldn’t let you if you tried.”
Following her words was a mess of clothing frantically, but carefully, removed.
I didn’t need a quick fuck. I didn’t need that high I chased when I was with women back then.
I didn’t need a cure for my anxiety. I needed to prove to Maggie how in this I really was.
I needed to make love to her in the language only we knew.
Once she was bare against me, stripped of her leggings, I gave myself a moment to study her.
Pregnancy glow was real, but Maggie had always had a glowing presence.
Her skin glittered with perspiration where her chest heaved, breathless for us.
The pulse point in her neck jumped while her lips parted with each escaping breath.
I could barely withhold from showing the pure gratitude and contentment I felt while looking at her, so I hid my face in her neck, pressing my lips against the soft skin and inhaling.
Maggie’s fingers, first tangled in my hair, moved downward to brush across my biceps and gripped while I nipped her neck harder.
God, she was fucking perfect. I couldn’t stand it.
Her hands traveled south, brushing across my abs and lower stomach, and it dropped.
While it had only been a few days of distance between us, it felt far too long to be apart from each other in that way.
I decided then that I would never let us go without resolving anything.
I wouldn’t let anything hurt us. This family was my entire life.
My contribution to the world. Supporting Maggie and raising the baby I knew would already be a perfect carbon-copy of her. This was it.
“Maggie,” I growled and pulled her wrists away from my stomach. Almost instantly, she placed them over my heart.
“It’s still beating so fast.” She spoke softly.
“It’s not from that.” It was from the way she was looking at me, talking to me, holding me. It was from everything going through my head about her. Our future together.
“Promise?”
“Always.”
Her arms wrapped around my neck again, and she pulled my face to hers, not touching my lips, just hovering.
Our breath landed on each other’s lips and cheeks.
Softly tickling skin. I wanted to brand her in every way I could.
Show her no one else could do what I could for her. “Jack,” she breathed, “just take me.”
At her words, I couldn’t hold back. My body felt so weak, resisting being selfish and taking her for myself while wanting to care for her at the same time. I reached between her legs to find her already dripping for me.
“You’re soaked,” I exhaled.
Keep it together.
I couldn’t.
Not when Maggie did what she did next.
Her hand reached between us to grope my rock-hard cock and slid it through her slick heat, sending fucking needles down my spine.
Sex with Maggie was sublime every time, but we had barely gotten into anything, and I felt the familiar surge of pleasure arising all too soon.
I groaned and let my head fall into her neck.
My resistance failed me as my hips thrust into her without warning. I couldn’t have even known it was coming.
“Oh, my God, ” Maggie groaned like she couldn’t believe how it felt either.
Her nails pressed sharply against my neck, and she tightened around me.
She was so tight. I wanted nothing more than to haul her against me and give her my all in the next three seconds.
But Maggie didn’t deserve that. She deserved to be taken care of, not used as a toy for my own benefit.
“J-ack.” Her voice caught on a whimper. “I’m not going to last.”
Preaching to the choir, baby.
I wouldn’t either, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t take care of her first. And second.
I slowed my thrusts to a deliciously torturous pace, guiding her hips up and down. The frantic look in Maggie’s eyes told me she was as impatient as I was.
“ Fuck, ” I grunted. “It’s never been like this.”
She threw her head back with a moan. “I know.”
My hands gripped her harder, lifting her so she met my every movement, hitting that spot inside her I knew would make her fall apart.
“Oh God, Jack, I–” A crack of thunder came and went. I groaned and clutched her skin.
She became tighter by the second, testing my control, prickling my back, bruising behind my hips. I guided her up and slammed her back onto my cock. Showing her my love for her and fucking her into oblivion all at once.
“Come on, baby. You’re doing so well for me. Talk to me.”
“Faster,” she choked on her breath. “ Please .”
I wanted to go faster. I fucking wanted it bad.
“It’s better this way,” I whispered, my voice husky and unrecognizable.
Maggie shook her head in protest with her eyes squinted shut.
I wanted to show her how it could be with us.
Keeping hold beneath her waist with one hand, I reached with the other to where we were our bodies joined and thumbed her clit.
Her immediate gasp made me harder—if possible—and I responded with more pressure on her clit, swirling and pinching until she writhed beneath me.
She whined for it now, her words slurred and incoherent. “Please, Jack, don’t stop. It’s so good. ”
“You want it, baby?”
“God, yes. ”
Her reply finally allowed me to increase my speed and take her like the madman I was.
My grip on her hips tightened, my eyes traveled between her legs where she took me like the fucking angel she was.
Pressure built in my core like an air canister, threatening to combust at any moment.
Maggie moaned and whimpered, chanted my name, clutched my shoulders, and pressed her sharp nails into my skin.
When she finally fell apart, she was mine—body, soul, truth.
Nothing was between us now. I wasn’t just the professional polo player with my father’s potential.
I wasn’t the charming playboy everyone saw at first glance.
I wasn’t even just the father of our future baby.
I was Jack.
Maggie’s Jack.