Chapter Seventeen #2
His unsteady hands settled on her hips. “Here now, Anna Grace.”
She tilted her head and leaned into him. The friction between their bodies held her against him stronger than the zipper had sealed her dress shut.
His eyes flicked over her face, his gaze searching for something. “You sure?”
She brushed her lips over his. His fingers tightened into her hips, his eyes slipped shut, and then he was kissing her back, slow and steady, soft and smooth. His lips tasted like skin and cake. His stubbled jaw was the right bit of scratchy.
She slid all the way into the kiss. The day, her head, everything but Jackson faded away behind the way their mouths fit together.
His hand, so courteous and respectful moments ago, slid into the opening in her dress.
The other wrapped around her neck, his fingers magically easing away her tension and replacing it with a primal excitement so long forgotten, her body felt as if it were coming to life for the first time.
But her thighs remembered this tune. Between his skilled mouth and capable hands, soon her breasts were humming along as well.
She deepened the kiss, pressed closer to him, and scraped her fingers down his back.
She felt a bulge against her pelvis, and another zing of excitement surged over her skin.
He didn’t owe her anything. No obligation, no responsibility, no commitment.
His tongue flicked over her lower lip. The heat that erupted in her veins had to be against the laws of thermodynamics.
She wanted to feel his skin, and she wanted another peek at that tattoo, but she couldn’t bear the thought of his hands not on her skin for a single second.
Especially not when he had his fingers splayed across her back, slowly, slowly, slowly sinking lower, lower, lower until his fingertips brushed the silk of her panties.
And stopped.
She whimpered.
He threaded his other hand through her hair, her scalp tingling beneath his fingers, and let his tongue leisurely explore her mouth. She rocked her body harder against his, felt his erection jerk against her, while his other hand stayed firmly planted on the border between that’s good and ohmigod.
She pushed up on her tiptoes.
He shifted with her.
Her whimpers turned into a groan. She snaked her hand down his arm to his hand, and pushed it down.
Right onto her ass.
He pulled out of the kiss, his voice the smoke to the fire in his eyes. “Anna Grace, quit being so bossy.”
“I—”
He silenced her with his mouth, slipped a finger beneath her panties, and all rational thought fled her mind. Another finger caressed her hidden skin. Then a third.
She wrapped her leg around his waist, pressing his erection as intimately close as she could while they were both still clothed.
She tugged at his shirt. He broke the kiss again, this time with a chuckle.
He dropped his hands long enough to pull his shirt off, then stepped onto the landing with her, dislodging her leg. “You going somewhere tonight?”
To the top of Mount Orgasm if he’d stop dawdling in the foothills. “N-no.”
He crinkled her dress in his fists, pulling it up with his signature slowness. He backed her up another step and brushed his jaw against hers on his way to nibbling at her collarbone. “Feeling better?”
Her words slipped out on a satisfyingly frustrated sigh. “Oh, yeah.”
Something furry brushed her calf. They had an audience.
Jackson’s fists lifted past her hips. Cool air rushed between her thighs. “Radish,” he said into her shoulder. “Get.”
The dog huffed. She left the stairs, tags jingling. Jackson’s hands grazed Anna’s waist. More cool air swirled around her skin. Everywhere his hands went, though, she felt branded by fire.
“Bedroom?” she said on a gasp.
He chuckled.
His fists inched higher. And higher. Until the backs of his fingers brushed the sides of her breasts. She lifted her arms. He pulled the fabric over her head and tossed it up the stairs, then gazed down at her. “Better?”
“Getting there.” She pushed up on her toes, claimed his mouth, let her hands roam free over his solid body.
He traced the lace of her bra, dipped his fingers under her panties again, and backed her against the wall.
She waved a hand toward the walls between the stairwell and his bedroom. “Should we—”
“You just enjoy yourself, Anna Grace.”
She was definitely enjoying herself. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d ever had quite this much ecstasy out of being nearly naked. It had to have happened sometime, but his body, his movements, his mannerisms, they were all uniquely Jackson. All perfect, all thrilling.
For tonight, they were all hers.
She tugged at the waistband of his sweatpants, and felt his smile against her lips. “You sure you wanna do that?”
“Not planning on waiting for you to get to it.”
He pulled a foil packet out of his pocket, making her thank God he was optimistic. Then he nuzzled her neck beneath her ear. “All right then.” He pressed a trail of kisses along her jawbone while she pushed his pants down, slowly, but not as slowly as he would’ve.
Just slowly enough to listen to his breathing accelerate when her fingers came into contact with the skin on his hips.
Just slowly enough to feel his heart pound faster against her chest.
Just slowly enough to realize he wasn’t wearing anything beneath.
“Oh,” she breathed. Her thighs clenched. Her fingers wavered.
She suddenly felt overdressed. And they really needed to get to the bedroom.
“Taking your sweet time, darlin’?”
Her bra released with a flick of his fingers. She gave his sweatpants one more tug, and they fell to the floor. Her hands roamed over his hot skin. Her hips thrust against his. Her body remembered the rhythms, but this tune was different.
In a good way.
She slipped out of her bra, and Jackson’s eyes went darker, ringed by blue fire.
Her unhurried, savoring lover slipped away in a tangle of hot, eager kisses.
Slow perusals became heated, impatient strokes until Anna found herself seated on the stairs, legs spread wide sans panties, while Jackson showed her exactly how much he liked her girly parts.
With his tongue.
And after he’d helped her to the top of Mount O once, he eased her down to the landing, where she rolled on top of him.
She hovered with her hips above his. She wanted him to feel as right as she did, but she suddenly felt shy. Inexperienced. Almost virginal.
He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “Okay, Anna Grace?”
Oh, yes. Very okay. Except—
“I don’t know what you like,” she whispered.
She caught a hint of a dimple. His warm hand left a trail of hypersensitive, happy-tingly skin down her back.
“You,” he said, and he didn’t need to say more.
The affection in his gaze, the timbre of his voice, the feel of his body beneath her, foreign and familiar at the same time, the rightness of it all swirled around her insecurities and swept them away.
She lowered herself onto him, taking his solid length into her already swollen, satisfied body…
all the way in…feeling him, enjoying him, watching his eyelashes flutter as she pleasured him, pleasured herself.
And nothing else mattered, because they were right.
Maybe not forever, but for now, they were oh, so right.
So right, and so easy to make love to him, to come with him again, until she collapsed against him, the two of them a pile of rubbery limbs, satisfied down to their bones.
At least, she assumed he was satisfied. She snuggled onto his chest, feeling the rise and fall even out while his fingers tangled in her hair. His lips pressed into her ear.
He didn’t say it, but she heard it all the same. Real good progress there, Anna Grace.
Real good, indeed. He was a perfect new first.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“My pleasure, Anna Grace.”
“Let’s not wait so long to do it again.”
His answering chuckle sent a happy after-shiver through her. “Yes, ma’am.”
And because he was the obliging kind of gentleman, they didn’t.