Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Laurel hissed in a breath through clenched teeth when the ice pack touched her hand.
“Sorry.” Jake looked up, clear blue eyes luminous in the muted glow from the one good lightbulb in a two-bulb light fixture above the table where she sat. “I promise it’ll help.”
“Speaking from experience?” she asked.
“I plead the fifth.”
Laurel watched in amazement as the big, tough fireman tended to her bruised knuckles as carefully as if she was a three-day-old kitten. He’d brought her to his house after they’d left the fundraiser. The entire way home, Jake kept asking about her hand. She’d told him it didn’t hurt, and it hadn’t… until the adrenaline had worn off. Now, it hurt like—well, like she’d punched a guy in the face.
A giddy feeling skipped through her body.
I punched Ethan in the face!
She wasn’t one to condone violence, but hitting that cheating jerk again? Bruised knuckles were worth it.
“What’re you smiling about?” With Jake squatting on the floor before her, they were eye level with each other.
She bit the corner of her lip and raised her brows. That looked innocent, right?
“Felt good, huh?” Jake asked.
“Sooo good!”
He laughed. “Well, from what I hear, he deserved it.”
The euphoric bubble she’d been floating in burst. “What did you hear?”
She hadn’t discussed Ethan with Jake. Well, not in so many words. She’d told him she’d had a bad break-up in the past, but never mentioned she’d been engaged. It hadn’t been a calculated omission due to having feelings for the jerk. Ugh, nothing could be further from the truth. No, it’d been more of a cowardly really-hadn’t-wanted-to-talk-about-her-biggest-humiliation omission.
Jake brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. “Just that he cheated on you.”
“The night before our wedding.” The words spilled out in a rush.
“Yeah,” he confirmed softly.
“I’m not in love with him,” she blurted. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything. I just…”
“Didn’t want to tell me.”
“Jake…” Fudge, she’d messed everything up. Tears pricked her eyelids because she knew now he’d be questioning everything she said, wondering if she was giving him the whole story.
“It would be too embarrassing,” he said. It wasn’t a question. In fact, the way he said it almost sounded like he was speaking from experience.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Nothing to be sorry for, Princess. I get it.” He rested his hands on her thighs. The thin scarlet silk of her dress did nothing to protect her from the heat of his touch.
“I asked a girl to marry me once,” he confessed.
He did?
“You did?”
“I was a royal fuck-up in college. Not because I got bad grades. I didn’t.” He started brushing a thumb back and forth on her leg.
Laurel had to force herself to concentrate on his words, and not the feelings his touch invoked.
“I told you my dad died when Jess and I were little?”
She met his gaze and gave a small nod.
“Well, we lost Grandpa Gus when we were in high school.”
“Oh, Jake.” Her heart was breaking for him. The pain in his eyes revealed how important his grandfather had been to him.
“I didn’t really give a crap about anything after that,” he explained. “So, I dropped out of college after a couple semesters and moved to California. The beach and bikinis sounded way better than wasting time on classes I didn’t give a shit about.”
It wasn’t hard to picture Jake on the beach. He was made for it. Blond hair and a body built for shirtless days on the sand.
“That’s where I met Ashley.” He didn’t spit out the name in hate. It was more like he didn’t care enough for it to bother him. “I met her at a beach kegger. She drank too much, threw up, and I drove her home.” He shook his head. “Yeah, that’s the stuff fairytales are made of. There should’ve been a sign: ‘Run the fuck the other direction’.” Lost in thought, he slid his hands down Laurel’s thighs to her knees, then back up and squeezed.
The move shouldn’t have been erotic—especially not while he was talking about his ex-girlfriend—but it was. Anytime Jake touched her, she felt it deep in her core. And with his hands where they were right now, his thumbs inches away from where she needed them…
Laurel bit down on the inside of her lip, just hard enough for the pain to center her. She owed him her full attention, even though he inadvertently was the cause of her mind wandering.
“I was young and stupid and fell hard.”
“You were young,” she emphasized that fact. If he’d graduated at say, eighteen, then did a year of college, that would make him… “Twenty?”
“And a half,” he added. “Still old enough to know better.”
“What happened?”
“We’d been going out maybe three months, at most, and I’d decided I was in love with her. Looking back…” He lifted a hand to rub the base of his neck and laughed. It was a humorless, hollow sound. “I have no fucking idea why.”
Laurel put the ice pack on the table and took his hand with her uninjured one. “You needed someone.”
“Maybe.” He closed his fingers around hers and lifted her hand to his lips.
She didn’t say anything further. It was his choice whether or not to continue.
“Long story short,” he said, “I asked her to marry me. Practiced what I was going to say, got down on one knee… the whole nine yards. I don’t know if she thought I was kidding or what, but she looked at me and said, ‘Jakey’—Fuck, I hate ‘Jakey.’ Don’t ever call me ‘Jakey’.”
There was a twinkle in his eye, so Laurel allowed herself a little smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good.” He kissed her hand again. “She said, ‘Jakey, I’m not gonna marry you. You’re hot and everything, but you’re not the type of guy girls marry’.”
Laurel gasped and covered her mouth in shock before dropping it back down to ask, “ What? Are you kidding me?” She’d never met the girl, but suddenly she wanted to hunt her down and slap her into Sunday.
“Hey, at least she said I was hot.” He smirked when he added, “She must’ve forgotten to add the great in bed part.”
Laurel knew he was trying to make light of it, but if he still remembered exactly what she’d said all these years later, it had to have really hurt him.
“Why?” The woman had to have been crazy not to marry him. “Did she say why?”
“‘Not husband material’,” he quoted.
“ ‘Not husband material?’ What the hell does that mean?” She was fuming. “I can’t believe she wouldn’t marry you!”
Jake’s mouth pulled up on one side.
“Not that I’m not happy you’re not married, but what the hell does that even mean?”
“Laurel.” He was smiling now.
“Of course, you’re husband material!”
“Laurel.”
She was livid. If this Ashley chick was here, she’d deck her—sore hand or not. “Who says something like that?”
Jake grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her. All the anger and irritation she’d felt at the thought of some stupid woman—some stupid, immature girl —saying that to Jake blurred into the background when she opened for him and he swept his tongue inside. He kissed her until she melted against him… until nothing else mattered except his lips on hers. The only reason she let him end the kiss when he did was because she was starting to feel light-headed from lack of oxygen. Or maybe it was just because she was kissing Jake.
“You swore,” he said.
“What?”
He kissed her again, muddling her thoughts. “You swore.”
What’s he talking about?
She started racking her brain, trying to remember what she’d said, but all she could think about was how some heartless, horrible person had hurt her man.
“I did?”
He nodded. “You said, ‘What the hell does that mean?’”
Did I?
“You said ‘hell,’ Princess.” His gaze was so tender, it may as well have been a caress. “For me.” He traced her lower lip with his tongue and whispered, “Twice,” before kissing her again.
Within a few heartbeats, his kiss turned from tender to searing. He speared his fingers into her hair and held her in place as his mouth mastered hers, demanding submission. Heat coiled in her belly as she gave herself over, letting him take everything she had. She was his. Whether he knew it or not, Jake Lockwood controlled her heart.
“You’re spending the night,” he growled. It wasn’t a question.
After that kiss? He could’ve told her they were going to clean toilets, and she would’ve agreed. “Okay.”
He kissed her once more and… heck, she’d do laundry too.
When Jake moved to stand, he grimaced and fell back. Laurel had been leaning so far into the kiss, that when he went down, she tumbled too. She landed on top of him with an oomph.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded. The pained look on his face made her heart stop. “Are you okay?”
Gradually, his pinched features loosened, and before she knew what was happening, he started grunt-laughing.
Grunt-laughing? Is that a thing?
“Ow.”
“Jake?”
“My feet are asleep.”
“Your feet?”
Wrapped in his arms, Laurel found herself riding the waves of his laughter.
“The way I was squatting… it must’ve cut off the circulation.” He tentatively straightened a leg. “Ow-oh-ow, that hurts,” he tossed out between chuckles.
Relieved he wasn’t injured, Laurel giggled. “Pins and needles, huh?”
“More like knives and swords.”
She kissed his nose. “Aww, poor baby.” Using his chest as leverage, she pushed up into a sitting position, legs straddling his hips. Sitting on him like she was, there was no mistaking he was already hard. The thought of his thick erection nestled against her heat sent a landslide of shivers tumbling down her back. The skirt of her dress had bunched up at her hips, and she was suddenly hyper-aware of the fact her satin underwear and his slacks were the only barriers between them.
Jake went completely still beneath her, and his pupils dilated.
She wasn’t sure what to do next. Jump off him? Drop down and kiss him? Continue to sit there like a guppy floundering in a puddle? In the end, she opted to gracefully dismount.
Ugh. ‘Dismount?’ Really? That sounds horrible!
When she started to slowly maneuver to the side?—
‘Maneuver?’ Note to self: buy a thesaurus!
—Jake sucked in a quick breath through his nose and held it.
She froze in place. That reaction? She’d caused it.
Hmm, could I…?
Laurel watched him as she deliberately settled back down. She shimmied a little when she did so, and the blue of his eyes darkened. She tried rocking her hips and was rewarded with a low growl she swore she felt as well as heard.
This is fun.
She rolled her hips once more and received another growl, the low scrape of sound making her core clench.
The heady rush that arrowed through her was palpable. She’d never initiated in the bedroom and had never been the dominant one, but something about being on top of Jake looking down, watching him respond to what she did made her want to take control.
She leaned over and feathered her lips across his, pulling back when he tried to draw her closer. With a tilt of his head, he looked at her sideways through narrowed eyes, a silent what’re you doing?
What am I doing?
Reaching up, Laurel pulled the pins from her hair and let it swirl down to skim her shoulders. That’s what femme fatales did in movies, right? Her hair billowed around her face as she moved to capture his bottom lip with her teeth, like he’d done to her so many times. She raked her teeth across it while pushing her hips against his rigid length.
His eyes heated. “Laurel, what’re you doing?” He asked the question aloud this time.
She began moving her hips in a sensual rhythm, rubbing herself against him, wiggling around until every move she made hit her sensitive area just right.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” The sultriness of her own voice surprised her.
“It looks like you’re trying to get yourself off,” he rasped, glancing down to watch her shamelessly rub herself against him. He licked his lips and reached for her.
When she grabbed his wrist and pushed it down to the floor, his pupils practically blew wide open.
“Stay,” she ordered.
Stay?
Where did that come from? She wasn’t training a dog. You didn’t tell men to “stay.”
Oh, fudge.
Did she just make a tactical error and ruin everything? She should’ve known better than to try to seduce him. She was the furthest thing from a femme fatale there could be. She was a femme fa-failure. Wait. That sounded stupid. Failure fatale? Ugh, no! Of course, she’d botched it up. She couldn’t even insult herself without doing it wrong.
“Did you just tell me to ‘stay’?” he asked incredulously.
“Umm.” Instead of risking saying something else that would star in her humiliation hall of fame, she nodded.
“Shit, Princess.” The combustible heat in Jake’s eyes practically burned her alive. “That’s fucking hot.”
It is? Oh, thank goodness!
Maybe she didn’t totally suck at this seduction stuff after all.
Jake smirked, and tried to reach for her again.
This time, she pinned both of his hands to the floor on either side of his head. “I said, stay.”
His eyes sparked, but he dutifully left his hands where they were.
The fact he’d listened to her made her feel powerful. She liked it.
Okay, think. What else does Jake do that I love? Oh, I know…
“Good boy,” she praised.
His hands curled into fists as his throat bobbed on a swallow. “When I call you ‘good girl’,” he asked in a gravelly voice, “does it do it for you like that just did for me?”
Yes, yes, double yes!
Yeah, that answer wouldn’t be femme fatale-y.
She lowered her lashes and purred, “Maybe.”
He hummed low in his chest. “Vixen.”
Moving her hips to live up to that title, she felt him grow harder.
Man, I’m getting good at this!
It was a little nerve-racking with him cataloging her every movement, but then she remembered she was “in charge,” and Jake was at her mercy. She sure wasn’t going to waste this opportunity because she’d probably never be able to work up the guts to try this again.
Do it!
Heartbeat thrumming through her veins, she went up on her knees and carefully touched his belt. A quick glance up revealed Jake’s focus lasered in on her hands. She could tell his teeth were clenched by the persistent twitch in his jaw, and the way his nostrils flared when he inhaled. Heat permeated her core.
His cock pulsed beneath her touch as she fumbled with the belt. When she moved to undo the button of his slacks, she ventured another peek.
Yep, still watching.
Extremely impressed with her accomplishments thus far, she released the button and dragged the zipper all the way down.
Jake bit back a groan, but didn’t move.
Remembering what he’d said to her the first night they’d made love, she took another chance and instructed, “Up.”
“So fucking hot,” he growled, dutifully lifting his hips.
Reassured by that comment, she drew his slacks down to his knees and focused on the thick bulge straining against the material of his black boxer briefs. She trailed her nails along the hardened length of him.
Jake cursed under his breath.
She’d never really thought much about a guy’s cock before. When she’d had sex in the past, it’d always been just that... sex. The guy took what he’d wanted, and if she happened to somehow have an orgasm along the way, good on her. Her pleasure had never been a priority with the men she’d slept with. Not until Jake. He was a surprisingly unselfish lover and made everything about her. Now, she wanted to make it about him.
Before she lost her nerve, she took hold of the waistband and looked at him.
Without a word, Jake arched up again so she could pull down the briefs. His cock sprang free, and she was once again struck by the size of him. An overwhelming need to taste him pushed away any lingering caution.
She kissed the tip of his cock, and he growled—literally growled. His hands remained where she’d left them, knuckles turning white, and his eyes went feral.
“Princess,” he ground out. “You don’t have to?—”
“Shhh,” she whispered, “I want to.” Saltiness met her tongue when she licked around the mushroom head.
“Jesus!” He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched his brows together.
Buoyed by his response, she closed her lips around his thickness and drew it into her mouth.
“Fuck, Laurel.”
The way his voice sounded—like he was on the verge of pain or pleasure or both—made her feel powerful. She’d never realized how hot it could be when she was the one in control. She’d never been in that position before or even thought about it. But with Jake? She wanted to be the one to make him come undone.
Wrapping a hand around the base of his cock, she lowered herself to take him deeper. He let out a guttural groan and placed a hand on her head. His fingers tangled in her hair, but he didn’t direct her, letting her remain in control. Regardless, the dominant move made a flood of arousal drench her panties. She moaned and sucked him deeper as she started stroking her hand up and down his length in tandem with her mouth.
“Shit, Princess.” He tightened his grip in her hair. “That feels so good.” Jake thrust upward, hitting the back of her throat before tensing up. “Didn’t mean to do that.”
“It’s okay.” She ran her tongue from the base of his cock to the top, then circled around. “I want you to do what feels good,” she told him, before taking him into her mouth again.
He groaned, but the sound was stilted with restraint.
Well, she was having none of that. She didn’t want him holding back.
She started bobbing, taking him a little deeper each time.
“Laurel,” Jake warned. “Oh, fuck,” he ground out through clenched teeth, moving his hips again. It was like he had no control over it, and that thrilled her more than anything. “Laurel, you need to stop.”
Yeah, not happening.
She picked up the pace and squeezed her hand tighter around his girth. He’d given up control, and she wasn’t giving it back. She wasn’t going to stop until he lost his mind. That’s what he did to her every time they made love. He blew her mind and made her feel so much more than she ever thought possible. She wanted to do the same for him. She needed to.
“Lau—”
Ignoring him, she hollowed out her cheeks.
“Shit!” His fist tightened in her hair. “I’m gonna— aww, fuck! Laurel…”
Was it possible to come strictly by getting someone else off? She’d never thought it would be, but with Jake chanting a string of curses, fighting the release she was determined to give him—a fight he was losing, by the way—she wasn’t so sure.
“Laurel…” He gripped her shoulder as if to push her away, even though his other hand remained anchored in her hair. “Stop, or I’m gonna come!”
Yes, you are.
She took him as deep as she could and cupped his balls while sucking hard.
“Fuck!”