Chapter 24 Conquer #3
He released her wrist and pulled away, putting distance between them as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
The silence stretched until her need to understand him became too much to bear. “Do you ever let other people touch you, Jack?”
His shoulders went rigid.
For a long moment, he sat there, body tense, hands noticeably fisting at his sides. Then he moved off the bed.
She regretted her words, but couldn’t help her curiosity. “I’m just trying to understand you.”
“Don’t,” he said, pacing the littered carpet. “You’ll only find ugliness inside.”
Shadows moved in the darkness as a ghost from his past seemed to slip between them. Flames cast his tormented face in an amber glow as his hands opened and closed at his sides. His breath came fast and shallow.
Daisy stayed silent as she waited, unsure what would happen next. She feared any words would only drive him further away.
He continued to pace, the cavernous room shrinking around him like a wild animal caged. Window. Fire. Window. His footsteps barely audible on the thick carpet. His reflection flickered in the dark glass, but other than that, he wouldn’t look at her.
Suddenly, he ripped open the balcony doors and stepped outside, as if trying to escape the claustrophobic space.
Daisy flinched at the sudden abandonment. Voices and music carried from below, reminding her exactly where they were and shattering the illusion of closeness she’d foolishly woven like some protective shield.
He returned as suddenly as he left, the look in his eye enough to startle her into stillness.
Not desire, though he looked as though he wanted to devour her. Restraint. Anger. Raw desperation.
“Jack?” When she said his name, his eyes closed as if suffering in pain that somehow accompanied the most pleasant ecstasy.
He looked at her then, with renewed determination. “I want more of you.”
Daisy swallowed. Her hand drifted to her own throat, seeking the comfort of her locket that wasn’t there and finding only her rabbit-quick pulse. “How much more?”
“Everything. As much as…” He seemed to struggle with his own greed. “All of you.” He paused, then asked, “Scared?”
The weight of his question after such a confession made her response both terrifying and exhilarating. She let the truth settle between them, considering everything he could possibly be asking.
“Daisy,” he asked again, softer this time. “Are you scared?”
“Curious,” she finally said.
The breath left him as if he’d been punched. He moved fast—his hands wrapping around her ankles and pulling her flat to the center of the bed.
He climbed over her, blocking the firelight, hiding his face in shadow.
His hands found her wrists. Pressed them into the pillows above her head, grey eyes burning in silent command.
Stay.
Then his mouth descended, not with the unhinged haste he’d kissed her before, but with purpose and an urgency that couldn’t be ignored.
Her knee lifted, resting against his hip, welcoming his weight as it settled over her. He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, his tongue stroking hers with a rhythm that made her toes curl. But he didn’t linger.
His lips traced a path down her throat, as if on a mission now. His mouth moved lower. Into the hollow between her collarbones. Across the swell of her breast, pausing to draw her still-sensitive nipple into his mouth briefly—making her gasp at the memory as much as the reignited pleasure.
She kept her arms where he’d placed them, fingers curling into the pillows, nails biting into silk, silently obeying his command as his mouth lay claim to her body as no one else ever had.
He continued his descent to the ladder of her ribs. Then the soft plane of her belly, where her muscles jumped and fluttered. He licked the dip of her navel, tongue swirling slowly before moving on.
Lower and lower, until his broad shoulders pushed between her thighs, spreading her wide to accommodate his frame. His breath washed hot across her swollen flesh, and Daisy realized with sudden, acute awareness just how wet she was.
Slick evidence of her arousal coated her folds, the sweet musk of her desire making her cheeks burn. He waited for an excruciating eternity, looking at her with devastating proximity.
The ache at her core spread to her lungs as he stared into her with those darkening grey eyes, and she tried to breathe.
His cool breath teased her dewy curls.
“Jack, please,” she begged, mortified.
“Please, what?”
“Touch me—” She broke off, beyond coherent speech, her hips lifting in silent supplication, as his hungry mouth closed over her sex, licking deeply.
A single stroke from entrance to clit, his tongue flat and warm, he gathered the wetness that pooled at her opening and groaned, the sound a deep, masculine rumble that vibrated against her sensitive flesh.
“God,” he breathed. “You taste like...”
He didn’t finish. Couldn’t finish as he feasted on her like a starved man.
Daisy gripped the pillows and arched against the bed. His tongue parted her folds with deliberate precision, tracing the seam of her until he found the pearl of her clitoris. He circled it slowly, then drew it between his lips and sucked.
She cried out. Her thighs tried to close around his head, but he gripped her legs, holding her open, holding her still, so he could worship her with single-minded devotion.
He laved through her folds in long, luxurious strokes, moaning against her flesh like she was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted. Sacred. Reverent. Insatiable.
Hungry, desperate sounds rumbled from his chest and throat as her gasping cries melded into moans. He lapped at her like nectar, like she was sustenance he needed to survive.
Her body clenched, trying to draw him in, but he pulled back. Tormenting her to a higher peak of wanting. His tongue traced her entrance, teasing at the tender opening. Returned to her clit and flicked rapidly, making her sob with pleasure, before diving back down to drink from her core.
“Jack…” She couldn’t stop saying his name. “Jack, oh, God, Jack!”
He hummed against her sex, the vibration ricocheting through her nervous system like lightning. His tongue lashed her clit in tight circles, then his lips sealed around the swollen bud, sucking in a pulsing rhythm.
One hand left her thigh, as his finger traced her entrance, circling the slick opening without breaching, teasing her with the promise of fullness.
Her hips rolled against his mouth, desperately seeking more. She was climbing toward something vast and terrifying, her body wound so tight she thought she might shatter.
“Please—please—I need—”
His finger slid inside her—just one, just the first knuckle—while his mouth sucked hard at her clit. The dual sensation sent her spiraling.
Pleasure crashed through her in violent waves. Her back arched off the mattress. Her hands finally released the pillows to tangle in his hair, holding him against her pulsing sex. His name tore from her throat, blending into wordless sounds of pleasure.
He kept licking, kept lapping as honey poured from her. He was relentless in his attack, never letting her come down, eagerly consuming every drop as if her pleasure were a gift he refused to waste.
When she finally lay boneless against the sheets, chest heaving, thighs trembling, tremors chasing through her body like nightingales shooting through the night, he pressed a kiss to her inner thigh.
Her body throbbed with a warm, satisfied pulse.
He pressed a kiss to her other thigh. Her hip. Her belly.
“You taste like heaven,” he murmured against her skin. “Biblical. Like the forbidden fruit of Eden.” Another kiss. “Like something only gods are meant to have.”
Daisy’s heart cracked open.
She glanced down at him, still between her spread thighs, and teased, “Maybe you are a god.”
He grinned, the sight so rare and brief, it took her breath away. Then he pressed his lips to her thigh, hiding his face from view.
Expression blank again, he turned to rest his cheek on her.
His hair was disheveled, his lips swollen and glistening with her arousal.
He appeared so peacefully satisfied, but something still glowed in his grey eyes—a hunger that hadn’t been sated.
The bulge between his legs strained against the fabric, so rigid it had to be painful.
He’d given her everything, but taken nothing for himself.
Not fully understanding his boundaries, she shifted and slowly crawled toward him.
“What are you—”
She silenced him with her mouth.
The kiss landed tentatively at first, then he tumbled her to her back, taking over, fierce and demanding. She could taste herself on his tongue, and the intimacy of it made her moan.
His control snapped, and he hauled her against his chest, rolling until she was on top of him, then beneath him again without ever breaking the seal of their mouths.
His erection ground against her, and she rolled her hips, dragging her wet sex along the hard ridge straining relentlessly beneath the fabric. His answering thrusts were almost violent as her arousal marked his pristine clothes.
She needed to touch him.
Her fingers found his shirt. Fumbled with buttons. One came free, then another, and her palm pressed flat against his textured chest.
Hot skin over hard muscle. A collision of raised scars and a scattering of hair that tapered downward. The wild thunder of his heartbeat pounded wildly under her palm—too fast, too hard, the rhythm of a man coming apart.
She kissed him harder, kept rolling her hips against his straining erection, kept pushing them both toward the edge of reason.
He pinned her with his weight. His hips drove against hers in grinding thrusts that made her moan, his clothed cock dragging through her slick folds, so close to where she needed him.
She needed more.
Her hand dropped between their bodies. Found the sleek buckle of his belt. Her fingers worked the latch free, slid down the zipper, pushed past the barrier of his briefs, and closed around his thick, throbbing length only to still when he made a sound like a dying man.
His hand clamped around her wrist in an unbreakable grip. Crushing. Forgetting about her burn as he tore his mouth from hers.
Her breath caught as his whole body went rigid. Every muscle in his body locked as he choked, “Timber.”