Chapter Eighteen Derek
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Derek
I woke up feeling amazing. After Jasmine and I confessed our feelings for each other, discussed our pasts and our possible futures, I felt like I was invincible.
Since the rift between our families, I’d always felt like something in my life was missing.
Occasionally, I wondered if it was her, but I’d always managed to push those feelings aside.
Spending all this time with her in Miller’s Cove confirmed it.
Initially, the idea of having to work with Jasmine Morgan pissed me off, but maybe it took us being forced back together to realize that we should have never been apart.
Part of the magic of this feeling was being in Miller’s Cove.
It was a secluded, idyllic paradise far away from the stress of our careers and families, completely unburdened by the weight of our pasts.
Here, we were just Derek and Jasmine Boyce, two newlyweds who were playing the part too well.
Jasmine was right about our situation being complicated, but I was serious about not wanting this feeling to end.
I was going to enjoy every carefree moment with Jasmine I could steal until we had to return to our lives.
Another large part of why I woke up feeling so great was because Jasmine had her small, soft hand wrapped around my dick, and she was stroking it gently. Her body was pressed against mine, and her head was resting on my chest.
If I’d made a list of a thousand things I’d thought could possibly happen on this trip, waking up to a hand job from Jasmine Morgan would have been one thousand and one.
“What do you think you’re doing, ma’am?”
“Well”—she picked up her head to look at me, wearing a wicked grin—“I thought it would be obvious, but if you haven’t had the birds and bees talk yet, I’d be happy to explain it to you.
” She tightened her grip on my dick and deepened her stroke, making me suck in a sudden intake of breath through clenched teeth.
“What you did to me last night was so”—she inched forward and planted a kiss on my lips—“incredibly amazing”—another kiss before she began to slither down my body while maintaining eye contact—“that I thought it would be rude if I didn’t return the favor.
” She grinned at me before planting a kiss on the skin just below my belly button.
“Sir.” Her use of the word sir made my dick jerk and stiffen in her grasp. She felt it, and her smile widened.
“Is good home training the only reason you want to return the favor?” I couldn’t remember wanting anything as much as I wanted Jasmine’s sweet mouth wrapped around my dick, but I needed her to want it just as much as I did.
She bit her bottom lip with a sexy smirk and slowly shook her head a moment before disappearing under the duvet.
The sensations that followed were indescribable. Jasmine began by teasing the head with gentle licks and kisses while continuing to stroke me. Her tongue swirled around my opening before lavishing my shaft with long, slow licks.
I pulled the duvet back so I could watch it slowly disappear and reappear between her lips.
“Yes, kitten.” I sighed and slid her bonnet off so I could stroke her curls before clutching a handful of them in my fist. “That’s such a good kitten.
” Jasmine moaned in response to my clutching her hair, and her movements became more frenzied.
Her fingernails lightly grazed my balls, and I felt the head of my cock being squeezed into the tight space at the back of her throat…
and beyond. Jasmine made a swallowing motion, and I almost lost it.
“Fuck, Jasmine. Fuck,” I hissed, clutching at the bed linens trying to keep myself from exploding like a teenager at the slightest bit of attention, but it was no use.
My dick pulsed, shooting thick ropes of cum into Jasmine’s mouth, which she swallowed, somehow making her more sexy.
My heart was threatening to break my ribs in an attempt to escape my chest as I continued to watch her lazily clean me with her tongue like a cat, occasionally grazing my still-sensitive tip, making me twitch.
I struggled to catch my breath as the realization of my situation washed over me.
Losing control wasn’t the norm for me. I craved it. It’s how I survived. Something about Jasmine Morgan made control harder and harder to grasp. It wasn’t just because the things she was currently doing with her mouth were making my brain short-circuit.
It was how it always was with Jasmine, even when I only saw her as the bossy little girl who would follow me around our parents’ office or the moody teenager who forced me to watch reruns of Sex and the City and Gossip Girl.
Now she was a very grown-up woman who was just as brilliant as she was beautiful, but who even after all of our time apart managed to still hold that place in my heart and soul.
I’d thought that part had disappeared, but it was always there.
For thirteen years, there had been a piece of me missing, and I hadn’t realized what it was until Jasmine passed out in my arms. Maybe I knew long before that.
I thought back to dinner with the Pikes, the coin toss, seeing Tora react to her on the jet…
Hell, maybe it started the moment I saw her again in the waiting room at Westwood.
Maybe my heart had always held a space for Jasmine Morgan, just waiting for the moment when we would find each other again.
Jasmine tucked a finger between her lips and pulled it out slowly, ending with a soft popping sound. She looked up at me from between my legs and hit me with a smile that was equal parts proud, shy, and mind-blowingly sexy.
That was the moment I realized that I was in love with her.
If you asked my brother, he’d tell you that I’d been in love with her since we were teenagers.
Admitting CJ was right about anything wasn’t something I readily accepted, but this time I didn’t mind.
Falling for Jasmine was the only thing that felt right.
I pulled her into my arms and pressed our lips together.
She was surprised at first, but she softened in my embrace with a sweet moan and wrapped one of her legs around my waist, and we deepened our kiss.
I rolled my body on top of hers and began planting kisses on her cheek, then chin.
I pressed my lips into the curve of her neck before leaning up to look into her eyes.
“Are you ready for this, Jasmine?” Her eyes were heavy-lidded and soft. Her supple lips were slightly swollen with a rosy hue. Her hair was a halo of tangled curls. She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth but didn’t respond to my question. “Once we cross this line, there’s no going back.”
“I’d never want to go back,” she whispered and painted my lips with a featherlight kiss. “So, to answer your question, yes, Derek Carter, I’m ready.” Her sentence was punctuated by a paw scratching at the bedroom door and a muffled whine. “But I don’t think Tora is ready.” She giggled.
“He’s ready for his morning walk.” I sighed and rolled off her.
“We could be quick,” she offered with a raised eyebrow.
“Not an option, kitten.” I kissed her nose before I climbed out of bed. “When Tora wants something, he won’t stop until he gets it.”
“Reminds me of someone I know.” She chuckled and climbed out of bed.
I’d forgotten that she was still naked from the waist down.
The sight of the lower curves of her ass peeking out from the bottom of her T-shirt was nearly enough to make me forget about Tora’s walk and yank her back into that bed.
“You’re right, though.” She sighed. “We better not keep the boss waiting.” She felt around the floor for her panties before stepping into them.
“And besides”—I pulled her into me and curved my palms around her cheeks, grabbing two handfuls and squeezing, making her squeal—“the first time I make love to you, I’m gonna take my time.”
I’d been looking forward to spending time with David all week, but of course that was before things with Jasmine and me took a turn for the better.
After walking Tora, we had breakfast in bed, where Jasmine ultimately became breakfast in bed.
Then I took an extra-long cold shower in order to prepare to tear myself away from the living embodiment of a dream come true.
She pushed me away after our fifth kiss goodbye, warning me not to keep David waiting, and I left her on the couch, her laptop open on her lap and Tora curled up next to her, snoring. It was an image I’d give anything to freeze in time and keep forever.
After spending three hours in David’s backyard, I was fully convinced that he’d forgotten more about grilling and smoking meat than I could ever learn in two lifetimes.
His passionate pursuit of the perfect combination of flavor and tenderness intermingled with the application of his many degrees in physics and engineering and his knowledge of chemistry made for one of my most interesting afternoons in recent memory.
It succeeded in making me forget the real reason I was in this town and almost made me forget that Jasmine and Tora were waiting for me back at the apartment… almost.
“I know that look.” David laughed as he handed me a beer from his customized beer cooler, another one of his innovations.
“When Eleanor and I first got together, I could barely put one foot in front of the other most days. And when we got married? Whoo, buddy! If that woman hadn’t shoved me out of the front door every morning, we would have starved to death.
” He’d obviously caught me during a Jasmine-induced flashback, and I couldn’t even defend myself.
“In the beginning”—I snapped the cap off my beer and clinked bottles with David—“with Eleanor, how did you know she was the one, that it was going to last?”
“You having buyer’s remorse, Chief?” He gave me a skeptical look and took a swig of his beer.