29. Morgan
Chapter 29
Morgan
D inner was a literal feast. We were all squished onto a picnic table in Fatima’s garden, fairy lights strung overhead, having just devoured the four-course meal Phil had painstakingly created to pair with Chloe’s favourite meads. There was even a honey-flavoured birthday cake. We all sang a delightfully off-key round of “Happy Birthday”, after which we drunkenly polished off the cake in one sitting, digging straight into it with forks. It was all delicious, and Phil looked equal parts pleased and exhausted after his whirlwind effort in the kitchen. After he’d cockblocked Jack and me, of course.
It was both the best and worst thing that Jack and I were sat across from each other and not next to each other. Worst, because I was certain the secret smiles and lingering eye contact were giving us away. Best, because those same gazes had me wanting to pick right up where we left off, which wasn’t exactly dinner table appropriate.
Okay, so maybe that was the worst, too.
I’d been spending the last two weeks oscillating between feeling confused by Jack’s reaction and indignant over the fact that he couldn’t just tell me how he felt. So when he’d cornered me at the pub and handed me a laundry list of proof points that he did actually care about me, it had left me with just confused. He’d seemed finally ready for something to happen between us, only to then tell me he was okay with me leaving? Even when I hadn’t been planning to leave in the first place? I realised in the throes of that frustration that if I waited for Jack to be clear about what he wanted, I might be waiting forever, so I’d started applying, fairly indiscriminately, to the jobs he’d sent me.
So since Monday, I’d been steeling myself for tonight. All I’d been hoping for was to clear the air. I certainly hadn’t expected to see him looking like Arthur Pendragon in his Ren Faire look, or for him to do the finger-under-chin thing I’d only ever read about in books.
Everything that had happened from that point on was a blur, but I had distinct memories of his fingers running through the hair at the nape of my neck, tugging gently as he kissed me. I even wore my hair up to dinner just so I could appreciate the tingly flashback I got when the breeze caught my curls. Looking at his hair matted against his forehead from the heat, thinking about his hot breath on me, I felt almost pained at the distance between us.
But he didn’t look pained. Despite how stuffed we all were from dinner, as he kept his green eyes locked on mine, he looked somehow … hungry. I’d never seen him look anything but cheerful or brooding, and the raw desire was an exciting change of pace. Heat spread through my core every time we locked eyes, and I felt the ghost of a sensation against every part of my skin he’d touched.
It took an agonisingly long time after we’d finished dinner and then games for everyone to decide they were ready for bed, but after a couple of hours, Fatima and Jared were the first to peel off. Grey and then Phil were the next to go, and thankfully Chloe could always read a room, because despite it being her birthday, she excused herself to bed shortly after.
Finally it was just Jack and me, locking eyes across the picnic table, no spectators for whom we needed to be subtle. In fact, subtlety was so absent from the look he was giving me that I wondered how I’d ever questioned his feelings. How had it not been obvious every time we’d spoken that he wanted me just as much as I wanted him? How had I never noticed the mind-melting mix of affection and desperation in his gaze? Had I been so blinded by my own confusion that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me?
It didn’t matter, because I wasn’t blind anymore. I could see clearly what Jack wanted, and I wanted the same thing.
We didn’t say a word to each other for a full five minutes, and as intoxicating as the eye contact was, I was looking at the windows in the house, watching as they turned off one by one – first Phil and Jack’s room, then Grey’s, and then Chloe and mine. I took the briefest of moments to lament the fact that I wouldn’t be finishing the book I’d brought with me as planned, but I wasn’t mad; my plans were definitely looking up. Finally Fatima and Jared’s ground floor bedroom light went off, and it took almost no time at all for me to step around the picnic table and climb onto Jack’s lap, my dress bunching up around my thighs as I pressed my mouth to his. I wedged myself between him and the table, using the tight fit as leverage to press myself against him. I’d been watching him eye-fuck me all dinner, and now I was ready for the real thing.
And clearly Jack was, too. Almost immediately, one hand slipped up under my dress to palm my ass, whilst the other teased up my back until it found my hair, dispensing with the claw clip so my curls fell around both our faces. He bit my lower lip softly and then plunged his tongue against mine. The hand in my hair found its way down towards my shoulder, his thumb rubbing up and down my windpipe and along my collarbone, his other hand on my back, pulling me so tightly into him that I could barely breathe.
This man was starving, and frankly so was I.
He broke our kiss, and I gasped for air as he moved his mouth to my ear just like earlier, kissing along it and behind it and doing something with his tongue that was so effective I couldn’t even decipher what it was exactly, only that it was working. I moved my hips against him, and I felt him harden in response.
“I want you so badly,” he said, his voice so low and gravelly that it could only be described as a growl. The romance girlies were right – growling was fucking hot. I felt a throbbing between my legs telling me all the blood-flow was there right now. That was okay, who needed cognitive function anyway when months of slow burn were finally coming to fruition? In that moment, all that mattered was whatever the fuck Jack was doing with his other hand, which was no longer palming my ass and was instead on the bottom of my thigh, reaching up between my legs, kneading the flesh there so it spread me apart, bringing me closer into him, his fingertips brushing against the lacy underwear I’d put on after changing out of my gown. Now I was cursing the fact that I’d worn any at all, angling myself further into his touch with each breath.
“I want you, too,” I said, my own voice more growly than I would have expected. Clearly Jack found it just as hot as I did though, based on how he hardened noticeably more when I spoke. Or maybe it was what I was saying. “I’ve wanted this for so long.”
Then I cursed myself for saying anything, as Jack’s hand came away from where it was brushing against me, and his tongue stopped doing the thing. Instead he brought both hands to my cheeks to cradle my face, resting my forehead against his.
“You have no fucking idea,” he said. “I think part of me has wanted you since the moment I saw you. If you want me, I’m yours.”
Then he dropped one hand and brought it between us, this time in the front. Oh, thank god.
“Is this okay?” he asked, his hand held in midair just in front of my belly.
I nodded eagerly in response, swallowing hard, and his hand passed through the slit in my dress and underneath the lace that had been so in the way before. The heel of his hand pressed almost uncomfortably hard into my pelvis, but I didn’t even care, because his fingers were now moving slowly through my wetness, just enough pressure where I wanted it, but not too focused. Not yet.
“You walked into Fatima’s that day in January,” he said as he stroked, and I started to tip my head back in pleasure, but he stopped me with his free hand, bringing my forehead back to his, locking eyes with me. “Your cute little dungarees and your single set of dice. You had no idea what you were in for. I didn’t, either. But it only took five minutes alone with you to know that if you wanted me, I was yours.”
As he talked, he zeroed in on the spot that was now throbbing so hard I felt like he must have been able to feel my heartbeat through his fingers. And just as I felt like he was getting too close, too concentrated, he plunged two fingers inside me and pressed his palm against the spot he’d just been circling, the friction building as he stroked inside me.
“Fuck,” I said, tilting my head back again, bracing myself against the table with my hands, and he let me go that time, his free hand holding me up by the neck, a bit of light pressure around my throat. “J-jack, that f-feels s-so good,” I croaked out. “P-please…”
“Please what?” he growled again into my ear, and I felt myself right on the precipice. But I wasn’t ready to go over yet.
“D-don’t you w-want to be ins-side me? W-when I c-come?”
But Jack didn’t relent. “I’m already inside you. There’s plenty of time for that later,” he said, and the way he said “later” sent images flashing through my mind of all the times we could have been doing this – in the guest room earlier, in his car, under the stars on our very first outing… How did we go so long without this??
“Come for me, Morgan.”
That sent me toppling straight over the edge, and I clenched around him in ecstasy. He released my throat as I gasped in huge mouthfuls of air. His fingers kept their pace, drawing out my orgasm as long as possible, and I ground against his hand until I was fully sated.
I collapsed back so I was sitting on the table, and he buried his face against my chest, his hair flopping into my mouth. I clutched his head to me like I was holding onto it for dear life; I felt so weightless that part of me thought I might float away if I didn’t.
It was a long moment before either of us moved, despite the beads of sweat I could feel running down my back and between my breasts. I was sure Jack was getting the worst of it with his head buried there, though maybe it was worth it to him for a face full of tits.
After a couple of minutes, though, once my breathing had abated and his hands had moved to my back, we finally leaned apart.
“You said you had other hopes for that night two weeks ago,” he said. “Was that a bit closer to what you had in mind?”
Between the heat, the mead, and what had just happened, my throat was parched enough that I couldn’t muster any words, so I just nodded my head. Jack must have noticed the slight dehydrated smack of my lips, because he lifted his glass of water to offer me a sip. I tipped it greedily backwards.
“Better?”
I nodded. “Much better. Thank you.”
It took another minute for us to finally move apart and stand up in a way that didn’t feel jarring, and I noticed with satisfaction that he was still hard. We stacked the plates and glasses and carried them inside, not wanting to leave too much mess for the morning. Then Jack laced his fingers in mine, and something about our interlocked fingers and the casual intimacy they conveyed made me feel flutters all over again.
Jack stopped me in the hallway and pressed a kiss to my lips, backing me against the kitchen door, a reverse of our position from earlier when we’d kissed for the first time. And almost surprisingly, this one was no less urgent. Clearly we’d be working out this tension for a long time to come, but I didn’t mind that one bit.
Once we were done snogging in the hallway like a couple of school kids, we turned into the lounge at the front of the house, thinking we’d be able to be alone together, only to find Phil asleep on the sofa, a tiny woven throw wrapped around him as he rested his head on a decorative lumbar pillow. He was snoring lightly – I was surprised we hadn’t woken him up.
Jack and I shared a look, and I wondered if I looked as hopeful and excited as he did. We practically sprinted up the stairs to his room, where we found a note on Phil’s bed:
GO FOR IT YOU ABSOLUTE SLUTS xx
I smirked at Jack, fanning myself with Phil’s note, and a devious grin broke out on his face.
“I believe you mentioned ‘later’?”