Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jonah
I entered the house after moving half a mountain of snow. The valley was serene and beautiful and blindingly white. Stacked mounds surrounded the buildings on my property. Hopefully we’d get a warm spell to melt some of those inches before we got any heavier snowfalls in early spring.
Summer had been out helping earlier. We’d coexisted without much talking in the three days since I’d walked away from her in the garage storage closet.
We took turns making meals, and we ate separately.
She’d spent much of her days in the guest room.
Once she’d been awake before me, and I’d caught her folding blankets on the couch.
An hour ago, she’d gone inside. From the savory smells coming from the oven, she must’ve thrown something in for dinner.
I took off my hat and held it up. The fabric was wet and heavy from all the sweat of shoveling and pushing the snow into piles with my skid steer. I’d moved snow yesterday too, digging out the driveway, slowly making a path down to the country road the crews hadn’t gotten to yet.
I shrugged out of my jacket. The smell of sweat rose up. I stank. After gathering all my snow gear, I went to the bathroom and dropped my load on the floor outside the door. I’d shower and add the clothes I’d been wearing.
I stripped in the bathroom, but cracked the door and dumped my dirty clothing on top of the rest. A warm shower helped unknot my muscles.
This time after I dried myself off, I wrapped the towel around my waist. I’d dress after I started the laundry. But when I opened the bathroom door, the pile was gone. Light speared the hallway from under the door of the laundry room.
She was washing my shit.
Irritated that she had to be so damn helpful, so damn compliant when I missed her fire, and so damn sexy when she was in baggy, oversized sweats, I went to the door and pushed inside.
Fuck. My breath whooshed out. Summer had on the oversized sweatshirt I’d loaned her and that was all. She was hopping on one foot, trying to pull up the baggy, black sweatpants she used when her other clothes were in the wash. Her legs were curvy and toned and bare.
Then she yelped and looked over her shoulder, her eyes wide, and the garment drew up, giving me the most sinful glimpse of rounded ass cheeks I’d ever seen.
“Jonah!” She wobbled and tried to put her foot down to balance herself, but she was caught in all the fluffy material. She toppled.
Shit. I darted for her as she hit the side of the dryer and clambered for a hold, but her feet slid sideways.
I caught her and went down with her. My left leg went out, breaking our fall. My shoulder hit the side of the dryer and my right knee slammed into the floor. I didn’t care. I had a hold of Summer’s warm, slight body. So damn real. The fantasies I’d been harboring hit my brain like a nuclear bomb.
I twisted so my ass hit the floor and drew her on top of me. My pulse was jackrabbiting. “Are you okay?”
“Me? Are you okay?” She wiggled her sweet ass on my thighs as she tried to evaluate my knees. Her long legs were bent in front of her.
I couldn’t think. My brain was devoid of blood. She wasn’t wearing pants or underwear and she was sitting on me. The towel hadn’t fallen off my hips, but it was hanging on by a whisper that was getting told to shut up.
“Summer,” I gritted. My erection throbbed with growing pain. It was flaccid one second and harder than it’d ever been the next.
“Oh my god.” She pressed her fingertips into the flesh around my neck, and it was like a direct line of electricity ran to my cock.
“I owe you another massage. What about your shoulder?” She twisted around to inspect my front, but her gaze landed on my bare chest. Those pink lips of hers parted.
She finally realized the position we were in.
A sexy flush highlighted her cheeks. Her hair was tousled and still damp. She must’ve taken a quick shower and waited for my stuff to start laundry. I took a silky strand in my thumb and forefinger.
Christ, she was soft everywhere. Paradise was in my lap. No barrier. “You should get off me.”
Hurt flashed on her face. Next was shame. “I’m so sorry.” She scrambled to get off me.
Goddammit. I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck and drew her toward me until she fully faced me. I’d put that hurt there. I’d made her feel embarrassed. I’d smothered her fire while she’d been under my roof.
I had to do something to put the passion back into her, to watch her bloom with energy, radiant and beautiful.
“Don’t be sorry.” I drew her closer. She was straddling me, and disbelief was in her bright eyes now. A fuck ton better than earlier.
Her gaze dropped to my mouth. I liked the way she looked at me. She hadn’t asked if I was okay because she thought I couldn’t take care of myself. She’d asked because she was terrified she was responsible for my pain. And she was.
But with her on my lap, I had a hard time blaming her. I had a hard time moving beyond the sheer pleasure she could produce by being herself.
“Jonah?”
“I really want to kiss you,” I said gruffly.
Her gaze dipped to my mouth again. “I’m not stopping you,” she murmured.
“You’re naked.”
“I have your sweater on.”
The growl that emanated from me was more beast than man. I could devour this woman and not leave a single morsel behind. She’d be consumed.
We stayed like that. My exhales turning into her inhales.
I closed the distance between us just a hair. “I can feel your heat seeping into my skin.”
Her pupils were dilated and the heat on my leg bloomed.
Lust kicked me in the groin. My erection waved between us. It’d probably escaped the towel.
“Are you wet for me, sunshine?”
“I’ve been wet for you a lot over the years.”
Fuck. I yanked her to me until she was flush to my chest and smothering my dick between us. My lips crashed onto hers and I dove into the warm depths of her mouth with my tongue.
She was there with me, clutching at my shoulders.
Summer Kerrigan was in my arms. She was half naked and on my lap.
Warning bells went off in my head, but I didn’t fucking care. I’d convinced myself I didn’t want her, and I might’ve succeeded had I not seen her in her wedding dress and wished she was saying her vows to me.
A low rumble left my chest and I tightened my embrace. I stroked my tongue along hers, tasting the sweet orange juice she must’ve had before her shower.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be touching her. But why did it feel so right?
She wiggled on my lap, needy. Her tongue slid against mine, warm, sweet, and demanding. The rest of my towel’s restraint broke. Her wet heat was against me, inciting a primal need to take her.
Yet I’d been thinking about her so long, I had to take my time. I had to savor her. As much as I wanted to revel in a woman who acted like she couldn’t get enough of me—me, not the pleasure I could give—I couldn’t let her go without returning the same.
I flattened my palms on her smooth thighs. Electricity ran between us, making my erection throb harder than ever.
She was so close. Just fucking take her.
I wouldn’t. I brushed the fingers of one hand toward her center. So fucking warm and wet. Desire pounded my insides, storming between my brain and my dick. I was filled with nothing but stark need to see her get off. To feel her come on me—like she was mine.
Like she’d always been mine.
I slipped a finger through her soaked seam. She whimpered into my mouth and ground down on my hand.
I had to break the kiss. “Fuck.”
She met my gaze, her lips puffy from mine, and rotated her hips on my hand. “Jonah?”
“Christ, you’re close.”
“Jonah,” she whined again and I knew this woman hadn’t been treated like she deserved—inside or outside the bedroom.
The old Jonah from twenty minutes ago might disagree, but there was no lying to myself when her pussy was in my hand and her climax was mine. My name on her lips was so damn right.
“You’re going to come for me, aren’t you?”
She nodded, her eyes glazed, her hips jerking erratically. “Yes.”
“This orgasm is mine.”
“Yes.”
I slid a finger through her folds and pushed inside. Tight, hot heaven greeted me. Her walls rippled around my digit, the convulsions growing stronger as I circled her clit with my thumb.
I had to taste her, but I didn’t dare break the spell. This thing between us had been simmering for too long, right or wrong.
Then she reached between us and gripped my shaft.
A groan punched out of me. I was getting jerked off, and it wasn’t my hand doing the work.
I drank in her wanton features. The way her eyelids fluttered when I timed my circles with my finger thrusts. The delicate column her throat made when she tipped her head back and moaned.
I hadn’t even seen her breasts. I hadn’t seen the pretty pink of her pussy. The feel of her was enough.
Yet when she stroked her gaze over my face, taking in the scar, I should’ve thrown her off. I should’ve stopped what we were doing, but I could no more stop than I could lift the house off its foundation.
She grounded me. Here in this moment. The past threatened to wedge between us, but with her, I was blissfully guilt-free.
“Yes,” she hissed, her hips rocking in time with the rhythm I set. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Energy coiled at the base of my spine, tightening around my balls like a knot. Her fevered hand stroked me up and down while I pushed in and out of her.
“Jonah.” Her eyes flew wide and her kiss-swollen lips parted.
“This is mine,” I growled for no damn reason. My heels were pressed into the floor and I fought off coming. I didn’t want to miss a millisecond of her release, but her grip cinched around my length, and I fucking exploded. The way she was moving, her pussy bumped against where she had a hold of me.
“Fuck! Summer!”
She shook in my arms and rode my hand while I jetted cum all over her hold. We were crushed so close together, our releases mixed.