What A Croc

13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Robert

Over the last three days, Jackson had fucked me senseless, and I had loved every single minute of it. Now, as his fingertips and lips softly mapped out every line of my body, this was different. This wasn’t fucking me to appease the fire burning in me as my heat made me out of my head with lust.

This was a gentle exploration of every curve of me. Every nook and cranny, every dip and scar and blemish.

This was making love.

His fingers skimmed over my flesh with the barest of touches, causing goosebumps to rise to the surface. His gaze held mine as he placed a kiss on the softness of my tummy, then slid over my hip. I had stopped trying to cover my jiggly belly with my hands days before and instead threaded my fingers in his soft hair as he roamed me at his leisure.

Because when Jackson looked at me, with that look in his eyes, it was magic. Pure magic. He looked at me, touched me, treated me like I was the most exquisite thing he had ever seen.

His ministrations made me feel beautiful and sexy, wanton. Jackson was a sensual hedonist, I had discovered in my haze of heat mingled with moments of lucidity. He loved to touch. To caress. To kiss. Even if it was just his hand resting lightly on some part of me, he was always there. Always anchoring me. Always protecting. Always claiming me as his.

And how I adored it. Ate it up, like a starving man. Maybe I was. What was the term? Touch starved?

I was definitely that and hadn’t even realized it.

Now, as he slid his cock slowly into my body, I clung to him, fingers running over the muscles of his shoulders. Nails digging into the flesh of his back with each thrust. My legs wrapped tightly around his waist, pulling him to me, closer…closer…until there was not a single tiny millimeter between us. Until I wasn’t sure where he began, and I ended.

My heat had abated in the last hours, the infernal flames of hell no longer licking at my skin, threatening to roast me from the inside out. Still this man had woken me with soft kisses and licks across my skin. Fanning the flames of my desire with each swipe of his tongue and touch of his hand.

It was all too much, and I felt silent tears escape the corners of my eyes, as Jackson moved inside of me. Making me arch and gasp in pleasure in his arms, making me feel way too many things at once.

He gently brushed my tears away, softly kissing first one corner of my eye then the other. A kiss across my cheekbone, my forehead, the top of my messy, sweaty head. One hand grasped mine in his tightly, winding our fingers together above my head.

“Shh, don’t cry,” he rasped in my ear, and I thrashed my head on the pillow.

“Too much,” I whimpered, trying to make him see, to understand.

“Not enough,” he groaned, his hips pistoning against mine, his cock stretching me further, as he nailed my prostate dead center. “Never enough.”

His cock swelled, his knot making me gasp for air, and then I shattered in his arms, into a million brilliant pieces.

For a minute, I was whole. I was perfect. We were perfection together.

For that brief minute in time, I had everything I had ever wanted, even though I knew it couldn’t last.

Rolling us gently to the side, his arms and legs kept me close, big spoon to my little. Soft kisses fell across my shoulders, and his fingers traced lazy patterns in the skin of my arm.

“Thank you,” I whispered, closing my eyes.

“For what?” He sounded bewildered by my words.

Waving a limp hand, I gestured to the wrinkled bedding. “This. My heat. Taking care of me.”

Jackson raised his head just enough to peer down at me. “Robert, it has truly been my pleasure.”

As alphas went, I couldn’t have asked for a more attentive one. In between my heats, Jackson had carried me to the shower, cleaned me, changed the bedding, made sure I was hydrated, fed me bites of protein to keep my strength up.

“You’re the first person I’ve spent my heats with in years,” I confessed, not turning to look at him. Even so, I could almost feel the frown on his face. I didn’t know why I was confessing this to him. Maybe because he had shared about Levi with me. Maybe because I had never felt safer than I did in his arms.

“Jane?”

Shaking my head, I swallowed against the rawness of my throat from all my panting and shouting. “Jane spent my first heat with me after we were married, obviously. That was when we got pregnant with the baby we lost. It took a few months before my hormones evened out and on my next heat, we were lucky and we got pregnant with Wyatt. After that she said I was…” gulping loudly, I blinked against the emotion just saying the words out loud caused. “She said I was too loud, too messy, too needy, and we had one child, which was plenty. No need to risk another pregnancy.”

Jackson went rigid behind me, before he let out a breath and relaxed his muscles, though his arms tightened a fraction around me. “Robert, how…how did you handle your heats?”

It was a personal question, too personal for the short amount of time we had known each other, but after the last three days we had gotten to know each other real well.

“I would check into a heat hotel,” I told him, “I’m sure you’ve heard of them.”

He brushed his lips against my shoulder blade, kissing softly. “I have.”

“I’d go there for the duration of my heats, but she wouldn’t allow…she wouldn’t allow another alpha to…service me.” I had never talked about this with another person. Not even my closest friends, who would discuss their heats and their alphas. I always remained quiet, a pleasant smile plastered on my face.

“Then…what did you do without an alpha?” After three nights together, I could tell the control Jackson was keeping on himself.

“They have a plethora of toys,” I explained. “Only the best for the prices they charge. ”

“Toys can’t…” Instead of finishing the sentence, Jackson growled.

“It was fine,” I whispered, thinking that pretty much described my life the last twenty plus years. Perfectly fine. Pleasantly fine. Fine, fine, fine. Until it wasn’t.

“Robert,” Jackson’s voice hummed against my skin, his thigh rubbing between mine. “Can I ask what happened between you and Jane? What ended the marriage?”

I was quiet so long, Jackson tried to pull the question back. “Forget I asked. It’s not my business.”

Looking at him awkwardly over my shoulder, I gave him a sad little smile. “It’s okay. And you shared about Levi with me, which was very personal. And, if we are going to see if this thing between us is going to work, you have a right to know.”

“And are we?” he asked quietly. “Going to see if we’ll work? Because I don’t really think it’s even a question at this point, but I understand your trepidations.”

“I’m open to the possibility,” I told him coyly. “Jane and me…I’m not sure it was any one thing to be honest. It was years and years of a lot of little things, piled up so high I couldn’t see over them. But really it boiled down to Julianna. And Wyatt. We caused our son a world of hurt, that I’m trying very hard to get past with him. But that’s a story for another time.”

Jackson was quiet, before he asked, “What happened with Julianna? ”

Smiling against his arm, thinking about my granddaughter, I let out a loud sigh. “We weren’t happy when Wyatt told us he was pregnant. Well, I was, I was just worried about him being a single father. He and Becks weren’t together at that time. I was thrilled when he let us know he had the baby, and wanted to fly to Sweet Alps that day. But Jane…wouldn’t allow it.”

“You use the word allow a lot when talking about Jane,” Jackson murmured, “I don’t like it.”

“It wasn’t all Jane,” I admitted. “I was very complacent in my marriage. I didn’t speak up. I was very in the background. We had a super traditional marriage, where the alpha was in charge. I should have spoken up. I wish I had spoken up. Anyway when we finally came to see Wyatt and Julianna, he and Becks were back together. Jane hated everything about Becks. Hated that he was older than us,” Jackson snorted at that and I shushed him. “Hated that he is a wolf. She has always felt wolves were beneath her giraffe for some odd reason I never understood. Hated that Julianna is a wolf, hated that she looks like Becks. Hated that Becks has creole blood in him.”

“She sounds like a very unhappy person,” Jackson observed quietly.

Nodding my agreement, I continued. “The final straw was when we had planned to come see Wyatt around the fourth of July holiday. At least I thought we had it planned. I was so excited. We had only seen Julianna once. Despite the issues in our relationship, Wyatt was good about sending us pictures of her, and she was just growing so fast. I wanted to be an involved grandparent. I wasn’t an involved parent, but I wanted to change that. Imagine my surprise, when I get all packed and Jane asked what on earth I think we are doing. When I said aren’t we going to see the baby, she looked at me and said Robert, what on earth are you going on about? What baby? And when I said Julianna, our grandchild, she made some weird noise of dismissal and said, oh that mongrel. I’ve forgotten all about her. We have plans with…Goddess, you know I honestly don’t remember who she said we had plans with. I just sort of heard white noise. Or maybe that was my rage. I couldn’t tell you.”

“Fucking hell, I do not like her,” Jackson growled again.

“Same. I don’t even know what came over me, but I was just done,” I gave a little shrug. “I remember I went into my bedroom and sat down on the end of the bed, and just stared at my suitcases. She had told me we should surprise Wyatt and not tell him we were even coming, and I realized she never had any intention of us coming to see him. She just wanted to shut me up. Like she’d done so many times over the years, and I let her, I did. Then this calmness came over me, and I wheeled my suitcases out and told her I was leaving, and I wasn’t coming back. And I didn’t. ”

Jackson raised up on an elbow, pushing a lock of my dank, sweaty hair off my forehead, because we both needed another shower. While I’d been talking, his knot had subsided, but instead of pulling out he stayed inside of me. “Wow. That’s…I’m sorry that happened.”

“Don’t be,” I smiled, “It was the best thing I’ve ever done. I showed up at the daycare, suitcases in hand, and declared to Wyatt I had left his mother. I didn’t know if he’d help me, but I had money if he didn’t. We were very wealthy and not all of it was Jane’s money, but a lot of it was tied up in investments and real estate. She cut off my credit cards while I was driving across the country, but I had one she didn’t know about.”

“Robert Cooper,” Jackson grinned, “devious.”

“Just prepared,” I told him. “I had some cash too. But Wyatt was actually really wonderful. My cabin was Beck’s. He moved in with Wyatt and the baby, while they built their house. They had just made plans to do that, and were going to keep the cabin for us to use when we visited. Not that I thought for a minute Jane would stay there, but it was a lovely gesture on their parts. Anyway, the divorce was relatively low key. Jane tried to fight my settlement, but she forgot we had a prenup. Plus, we had been married a long time. I walked away with a very nice settlement from her. I wish I had chosen my own happiness years ago, but I don’t even know if I realized how unhappy I was. Really it was her behavior towards Julianna that did it. I knew Jane could be cold, snobbish, rather shrewish. I just couldn’t–wouldn’t–tolerate it any longer.”

“I really hope I never come face to face with her,” Jackson’s voice was low. “I don’t think I have it in me to be nice to her. Not knowing how she has treated you. I don’t think I could keep my mouth shut. I won’t tolerate anyone hurting you.”

“I’ve never had anyone be my hero before,” I whispered, loving the feeling that washed over me at his fierce protective words.

Jackson turned my head and captured my lips in a soft, sweet kiss. “I’ll protect you. Always. If you’ll let me.”

Would I let him?

I was beginning to think I just might.