22. Natalie
TWENTY-TWO
natalie
If I thought there was any hope of my escaping this weekend without residual feelings for the man that was currently stripping off his pants to reveal two perfectly thick, muscled thighs, I had another thing coming.
Speaking of coming...dear lord. If there was anything more magical than Jax’s fingers, it was his tongue. I guess Army Rangers really were elite, although I highly doubted he learned that in training. At least, I hoped not.
“What’s the secret smile for?” Jaxon asked as he removed his boxer briefs.
“Uh.” I’d planned on answering him until all breath was sucked from my lungs. I’d never thought a guy’s junk was particularly pretty. More utilitarian than anything. But for some reason, Jax was unique in this way too. I’d felt his size between my hands, and definitely in my mouth—taking all of him had been pretty much impossible. But completely nude like that?
“You’re perfect,” I blurted.
As he stalked back to me on all fours, to say I felt like his prey was an understatement. For a second, I thought he’d go right in for the coup de grace. He was certainly hard enough, and I’d been primed pretty much since he whispered to me in the piazza. No, since the restaurant. Or maybe since I turned on that beach and first saw him in Sicily.
“If anyone in this room is perfect,” he said between my legs, his lips starting with my inner thigh and kissing a trail upward, “it’s not me.”
I’d have loved to argue that point, but I couldn’t speak.
He kissed me, everywhere. Sometimes his tongue flicked out to join the party. Other times, like when he moved from my waist to the front of my hip and finally, my breasts, he blew gently. As if my nipples weren’t already peaked, he continued to tease.
“Jax, I can’t take it anymore,” I said, trying to pull him on top of me. “And I’m on the pill by the way. Happy to use a condom too if you want.”
He stilled. Looked at me. “Do we need one?”
“Like I said, I’m on the pill.” We’d had the ex talk and knew exactly when we’d been with other people, unless Jax was sneaking around Kitchi Falls with someone I didn’t know about. The thought was more than a little unsettling.
The man was so stealthy, I didn’t even notice his hand snake down between us.
“You are actually checking to see if I’m wet?” I nearly laughed. “Seriously?”
“Mmm, you really are primed for me, aren’t you, sunshine?”
“Jax,” I warned. He was just teasing me now.
“You want something more than this?” he asked, his fingers circling as if he knew exactly—and I mean exactly—what I liked.
“I want you,” I said, not mincing words.
“Convenient,” he said, pulling his fingers from me. “Because I want you too.”
At first, he moved slowly, guiding himself into me. I reached between us to help, but Jax didn’t need my assistance. He filled me, little by little, seemingly aware that at his size, such a thing was necessary.
He looked into my eyes, and I didn’t dare turn away. We watched each other as Jax filled me completely. The muscles of his chest and shoulders rippled as he held himself above me. I couldn’t touch enough places at once.
“Perfect,” he said, pulling out just slightly. “Fucking perfect.”
It was like we didn’t want to ruin the moment by moving, like the feel of finally being joined after so much buildup was something to memorize. Except, he did start to move. And if I though his fingers and tongue were magical, well, they had nothing on his dick.
Unlike most guys, he actually knew how to use it.
Maybe don’t say that out loud.
Pressed against me, Jax circled his hips as I pulled him down to me. He claimed my lips then, our eye contact finally breaking, and then it was no-holds-barred. The slow, leisurely pace turned wild and tempestuous. Soon, our bodies slammed against each other as eagerly as our mouths. My hips thrust upward as he somehow managed to be gentle and rough all at once.
As Jax’s tongue mimicked his movements down below, I tried to hold on. Usually I needed a finger, or something, for stimulation to climax like this, but he was pressed against me just the right way. Plus it was Jax, for god’s sake, and he was inside me.
And it felt so damn good.
I was close. My nails dug into his back. My ass cheeks clenched. He’d already delivered two magnificent orgasms tonight and this was about to be a third. I pulled my mouth from his.
“I’m gonna come,” I told him, and Jax stared down at me as if I’d done something fantastic. When really, it was him doing all the work. “Oh my god.”
“Call my name.”
I loved that he asked me that. No idea why.
“Jax,” I said, wondering when I’d started calling him that. So much for his prize if he won the bet.
He continued to thrust. To circle. To look at me with that deadly but sexy stare.
“Jax,” I called, more loudly as the spasms began. “Jax,” I pretty much screamed as my world exploded. Clenched. Jax made a sound so guttural that somehow it made me come even harder. He pumped into me one last time and stilled.
“Natalie. Fuck.”
I held on, relishing in the wonder in Jax’s voice, as if this weren’t a regular occurrence for him. If it was, a climax that powerful, I didn’t want to know. His head dropped down to my chest as I continued to hold him, not willing to let go.
“Fuck,” he said again.
Yes, we did.
I wanted to say it aloud, make him laugh. But my voice wasn’t working yet. Maybe I’d blown it out screaming his name so loud. We were definitely getting tossed from this hotel.
When he finally lifted his head, Jax smiled.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you hungry?”
Odd question.
“Not really, why?”
It hit me just as he said, “I have dessert.”
Turned out, dessert was a cannoli.
“Who knew you liked ricotta?” I asked.
We sat on the balcony, the sea nothing but a swath of darkness before us. Since I’d completely forgotten a change of clothes for the night, having tossed only an outfit for tomorrow and some toiletries into my bag, I wore the hotel’s robe. Jax sat across from me, sipping the wine he’d purchased, as if we needed more to drink, in shorts and a tee.
We both looked as if we’d been thoroughly fucked. Because we had. The second time as hot as the first, Jax licking cannoli cream from places that probably were making me blush thinking about it. Thank goodness it was too dark out here to see well.
“What else don’t I know about you?” I asked.
“A lot, I’m sure.”
“Like? Tell me something nice,” I said.
Jax’s arched brows were his only response.
“Come on. Counterbalance the nature-hating image I have of Jaxon Hayes.”
“I don’t hate nature, sunshine.”
I sort of loved that Jax had taken to using that nickname.
“Forget I said that.” Even though he totally hated nature, I shouldn’t have brought it up. “Tell me something nice.”
“Nice,” he repeated, as if the word was so foreign to him Jax couldn’t quite wrap his brain around it. I took a sip of wine, wondering what time it was, and alternatively not caring, as I waited. The wedding was at four o’clock tomorrow with the reception immediately following, so there’d be plenty of time to sleep in and get back to the apartment.
I waited.
“When my grandmother was sick, I visited her every day. We were really close. She had a roommate with no family, which bothered me well after Gram died. So I started volunteering at the hospital, sitting with patients who had no one to visit them. Eventually I got a few other kids to come too.” He shrugged. “Basically started a little program.”
My jaw dropped. “Kids? How old were you?”
“High school.”
No. Fucking. Way. “You started a program at the hospital to bring comfort to lonely patients?”
“Sit with them. Read to them. Whatever. Yeah. It’s still running,” he said with a hint of a smile. I could tell he was proud, as he should be. “Does that qualify?”
“It more than qualifies. Wow.”
I’d so misread him when we first met. Or maybe not. That cocky grin was back.
“What?” I asked.
“You seem pretty pleased over there.”
I wasn’t going to lie. “I am pleased. Four orgasms in a night is a record for me.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nodded.
Jax stood, put his wineglass on the table between us and stood over me. Then, squatting down beside me, kind of like that day on his deck, he plucked the wineglass from my hand.
“Whatdya say we make that five?”
Leaning forward, he put my glass on the small table between our chairs.
“Jax? What are you doing?” I asked, my heart racing as he grabbed one of the legs of my wrought-iron chair and spun it around as if I weren’t sitting in it, as if I weighed absolutely nothing.
I was facing him now as Jax reached up to untie the belt of my fluffy robe. Thankfully there were walls between balconies, but even though it was private enough, I couldn’t believe he was ready again so soon. The man had stamina, that was for sure.
Again, I thought of his Ranger training, wondering exactly what they had these guys doing. Someday I’d love to learn more about that.
Someday. Better check yourself, Natalie. That’s some dangerous language there.
“Well, first, I’m opening your robe,” he said, doing exactly that. “And then I’m going to spread your legs.” He did that too. “Revealing that sweet pussy of yours.”
Oh god, please keep talking.
“And then I’m going to make you come for the fifth time tonight.”
It was a promise, and Jax meant to keep it. As his head descended between my legs, I grasped his hair, reveling in the softness of it, the only soft thing about him.
Nah, that wasn’t exactly true. I was learning that bit by bit.
When his tongue first touched me, I jolted back. The coolness of the sea air, in direct contrast with the warmth of his tongue, had me grasping him even harder. Like before, he didn’t let up once he’d started, Jax licking and swirling so perfectly that the tight coils within me had already began to loosen. To seal the deal, he brought his thumb out to play, circling my clit as his tongue licked me from bottom to top, as if he couldn’t get enough.
The sight of it.
“Jax.”
I couldn’t scream out here. It was a wonder we hadn’t been called out yet, between the stairwell and the noise I’d made in his room. Biting my lip almost bloody, I kept it together even as the tension built and built.
“Mmmm,” he moaned against me, the vibrations and that sound my undoing. That he actually seemed to be getting pleasure from my writhing beneath him set me off. Somehow, I kept from crying out as Jax unleashed pure pleasure between my legs. Throughout my entire damn body. This was the singular hottest night of my life, Jax between my thighs like this a vision that would be scalded onto my memory for life.
There’s no going back from this. I’m ruined.
A problem for another day. Looking up at me, his lips still wet, Jax licked them, smiling. My chest rose and fell as my breath began to return to normal, the sight of him like that just too fucking much.
“I need you,” I said, my hands now gripping the sides of the chair.
“You want me,” he corrected. “You don’t need anybody, Natalie.”
What a strange thing to say. But oddly freeing too. I liked it.
“I want you,” I agreed. “More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”
That, I wouldn’t take back. It was true. And though Jax didn’t refute it, he did pause for a second as if trying to decide if I was being serious. Unfortunately, I was being deadly serious. And in that moment, everything shifted.
Would he laugh? Reject me? Reject the gravity of what I’d just said to him?
“Good,” he said finally, standing. “That makes two of us.”