Chapter Twenty-Seven JACKIE
Chapter Twenty-Seven
JACKIE
With every kiss, we fall deeper into each other. Our hands explore, caressing, roaming, grasping at every inch of skin.
He backs me into the windowsill, the glass cold against my back.
My fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel him. Warm lips brand my neck, palms sliding down my sides. He touches me like he’s forgotten he ever hated me. Does this mean he’s accepted my apology? That he’s moved past everything?
Maybe this isn’t forgiveness. Maybe it’s just muscle memory. But my body doesn’t know the difference, and right now, neither do I.
I pull back for a second to catch my breath before I get too lost in this rush.
We’re both panting, Adam’s gaze burning, skin flushed.
While I compose myself, my gaze catches on the bathroom in the corner of the room.
“What’s with the huge bathtub? I don’t have one!”
It’s a stupid thing to say. I don’t know why I latched onto it now, of all times.
He says simply, “Try it.”
“What?” A furious blush scorches my cheeks.
My blood runs hot.
Holding my hands, he leads me into the marble-covered bathroom.
He sits on the ledge of the claw-foot tub and flicks the tap on.
“Take off your clothes.” The command in his voice nestles low and deep.
I arch one eyebrow. “Is that an order?”
He doesn’t say anything at first, and I’m left waiting for his answer, holding my breath. Adam calmly swirls his fingers through the rising water.
“You can boss me around all you want outside these walls. But here…” He reaches for the hem of my dress and tugs gently. “Here I’m in control.”
My mouth is dry, and I swallow hard. When it’s just the two of us, letting him lead comes so easily. With very slow movements, I hook my finger under one of the dress’s straps and let it fall down my shoulder. Then the other.
I reach for the side zipper, sliding it down while he stays locked on my every movement.
When the dress pools at my feet, I’m left only in my lace panties, heart in my throat. He watches me in silence as I roll them down, his chest heaving. The way his gaze devours me sets me ablaze, without even laying a finger on me.
Adam rolls up his sleeves and holds out his hand. “Step in.”
Holding on to him, I do as he says and lower myself into the warm water.
“Lie back.” He nods to the length of the tub.
Every second stretches. He unseals the sponge, squirts some gel from the small bottles on the rack, and leans down, wrapping his hand around my ankle. He starts brushing the sponge up and down on my leg. Then the other.
The scent of citrus and something sweet, like honey, swells up around me with each electric brush of the natural sponge.
I’m already close to coming apart.
He gets on his knees and slides his palm under mine, slowly using the sea wool from my shoulder to the tips of my fingers. Then repeats the process with the other hand.
I almost stop breathing when he turns his attention to my chest, swiping gently under my breasts and then trailing down, down.
Oh, fuck.
The feeling of the sponge between my legs, against the sensitive skin, already pulsing with need, rips a strangled groan out of me.
If this is his way of working through what I did to him, I’ll take it. I’ll take all of it.
“It would be more fun if you joined me.”
“Shh. Be patient,” he whispers gruffly.
Then he drains the water and fills it back up halfway. While he waits, he lathers his hands in lavender oil and starts massaging my legs. The same meticulous pacing. The same order and I whimper.
After he’s done massaging my chest, he sits back, surveying his work.
There’s something electric in this power play. How he makes me wait. Follow his commands.
“Touch yourself.”
My throat dries, pulse picking up speed. But I can’t deny him.
My hands tremble as I slowly lift them off the rim of the tub and brush over my hardened nipples.
He presses his fingers into my thighs, tracing slow, maddening circles. Every time he comes close to where I want him the most, he starts higher again.
The bathroom echoes with the sound of the water sloshing against porcelain and my rapid breaths as I squirm.
“I am a hopeless idiot who still wants you. But you already know that.” He sounds so sad. Like it brings him pain. Like he doesn’t want it.
I have no idea what goes on inside his head. My heart stutters. I want to tell him it doesn’t have to be like that, but the ache is too loud. I’m tired of pretending I don’t need him.
I’m selfish, I want him. All I can do now is beg for his touch.
“Please,” I moan, incoherent. I can’t take the teasing anymore.
He hums, like he’s finally content with the state of desperation he’s put me in. He takes my hands and pulls me out, retrieving one of the large, fluffy towels.
Adam takes his time to dry me, tenderly patting every part of my body.
Then, in a swift motion, he picks me up and places me on the marble counter of the vanity, framed by a gilded three-way mirror.
We’re surrounded by the image of us, me completely naked, him still fully dressed. The contrast, the way I’m revealed to him, fuels the fire burning beneath my skin.
In the silent room, the sound of his zipper echoes, and the anticipation adds to the arousal.
I want to touch him, to feel his hard warmth in my palm, but he holds my wrist.
“Hands on the counter, baby.” He leans in and kisses me. Deeply. His hands trail over my knees, spreading me wider. “You’re going to take what I’ll give you.”
He pulls me closer to the edge, and I feel him. His length slides over my pulsing center, slicking himself. Growing harder with each stroke.
I’m at his mercy, head back, every touch pulling at the tension building within me.
His lips drag along my jaw, and when they finally land on my mouth again, he fills me up in a swift move. It’s so intense that my eyes roll in the back of my head and I latch on to him, nails digging into his shoulders.
One hand anchors my ass, while the other is firm in my hair as he thrusts in an even rhythm, not fast enough, not deep enough, but I can’t protest as he devours all the sounds I pant out with a relentless kiss.
When he touches me like this, it’s the closest thing I’ve felt to forgiveness.
It’s intense, and it pulls at a wire strung too tight. But he won’t let it snap.
I bite his lower lip, and he jerks back.
“I need you to go faster,” I plead.
“We’re not rushing this,” he says, as he drags himself in and out so slowly it makes me want to claw at my skin.
“I thought I didn’t deserve sweet.”
He shakes his head, then drops his forehead onto my shoulder.
“You deserve everything.” It’s muffled, but I still catch the strange inflection in his voice. “Let me show you.”
That breaks something in me. The tender way he treats me makes my heart ache. Tears sting the back of my lids.
I want to cry. I want to kiss him until he believes I want to give him everything, too.
I fall into pace with him, allowing myself to feel it fully. Stretching the moment and drowning in the pleasure.
He holds tighter, brings one of my legs over his shoulder, and picks up the pace. The mirror rattles, and when I glance in the side mirror, I almost shatter at the sight of us, raw and primal, his face twisted in pleasure, my body at his disposal.
His palm grips my chin, forcing my eyes onto his. Sweat lines his temples as he huskily groans over my lips.
“Fuck.” It’s practically a growl.
“That’s it,” I pant. “Come inside me. I want you to fill me up.” My moans become louder. “I want all of you. I—”
The vanity rattles with the force of his thrusts. The words lodge in my airway. He lifts my other leg, too, and everything tilts. I’m ungrounded. The way he stretches me, hitting that perfect spot, rips wails out of me that I barely recognize.
His hips hit my flesh sharply, the sound filthy and wet. Adam finishes with a sound that goes straight to my center.
He keeps moving until I go still, ears ringing. Then it unravels in sharp waves, and I break into pieces in his arms.
We cling to each other, breathless.
The silence and comfort crack my chest open, and regret pours out, together with longing and a soft desperation for him.
He doesn’t let go either. And maybe that’s what finally undoes me. Not the way he made me break apart. But how he holds me like he’s still afraid I’ll vanish.
I shouldn’t say it. Not now. It’s the worst possible time. But the question presses past my lips. “Do you think we could… give us another chance?”
His jaw works, an unreadable emotion flickering across his features. Silence stretches, dense and suffocating, broken only by his ragged breaths.
“Jackie…” His eyes screw shut.
Then he says it. Quietly. Almost apologetically.
“I want to give you the answer you’re looking for.
” He lets his head fall into the crook of my neck.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he groans.
“I still need you like crazy, but …” A shuddered breath.
“I don’t know if I can be with someone who believed the worst of me. I need some time.”
His words hang between us like heavy mist.
I don’t push it. But something in my chest folds in on itself. I didn’t realize how much I was hoping for a yes.
Raised voices drift through the open French doors of the little courtyard as Adam and I exchange worried glances.
“I’m not signing such—” Carter’s voice cuts off, swallowed by the echo of his footsteps ricocheting off the high stone walls.
“Be reasonable,” Eliza pleads.
“Did my mother put you up to this?”
“No, Clara had nothing to do with it. I just want you to be sure…”
“Let’s give them a minute,” Adam says, his hand finding mine as he steers me away.
We slip through a narrow hallway into a secluded nook overlooking the canal, where morning light cascades through tall arched windows onto red and gold velvet cushions.
Adam settles onto the windowsill and draws me gently between his knees, his palms resting on my hips like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Never thought I’d see those two fight,” he says with a wry grimace. “Feels wrong, doesn’t it?”
When we woke up this morning, we just laid there, facing each other, the tips of our fingers barely touching. I left without saying too much. Slipped back to my room to change, to breathe, to collect myself. But when I stepped outside, he was already waiting by my door.
“I tried to tell her,” I sigh, shaking my head. “She’s still horrified someone might think she’s in it for his money.”
I wish the entire world knew the Eliza who brews a special tea for me when I’m down. Who’s so absurdly sweet and caring, I sometimes want to bubble wrap and hide her in my safe, so nobody can ever hurt her.
“Would you make me sign a prenup?”
Adam laughs, but there’s a flicker behind it. A test.
The retort flies out before I can stop it. Too easy. Too reflexive after years of throwing daggers at each other.
“Well, that would mean I’m crazy enough to marry you, so clearly I couldn’t be trusted to manage my own assets.”
It was supposed to be a joke.
But I see it, the shift. The light in his eyes dulls, and suddenly the ground tilts under my feet.
Shit.
“That came out wrong,” I blurt.
I didn’t mean it. God, I didn’t mean it like that. “I’m sorry.”
He pulls his hands away from me like I remind him why he’s never safe around me. And that’s the problem with us, isn’t it? I don’t know how to be vulnerable with him unless I’m half naked.
“You asked me last night,” his voice is rough, coming out on the cusp of an exhale, “while I was buried inside you, if…if we could be something.”
He stands abruptly.
My knees buckle, and I sink onto the cushions, paralyzed by dread.
“Make up your mind,” he says, voice frayed, looking over my shoulder through the window. “I’m too old for games.”
He spins on his heel, then hesitates, with one last glance over his shoulder. “I’m trying my luck on the terrace,” he says, barely a whisper. “It’s been quiet for a while.”
His footsteps echo on the stone floor, each one striking like a hammer in my ears. I watch him disappear until the silence rushes back in.
My heart is crawling up my throat. The room feels unsteady, dizziness setting in while I’m gasping for air.
The echo of his words is still alive around me, and I can only stare at the spot where he just stood, wondering how I’m already messing things up—when he hasn’t even agreed to give me a second chance yet.