Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Sheridan
Jasper’s weight pressed me into the couch, and I had my legs wrapped around him.
We were both still dressed. Our beer and plates remained on the table.
It was like he’d read my mind, and as soon as he stood and pulled me up from the chair and into his arms, he went right for the living room instead of one of the bedrooms.
His tongue danced with mine. I tasted our meal—the one we’d made together in one of the most romantic evenings I’d ever had. He’d come here to check on me, he’d cleaned cupboards that weren’t filled with his loved ones’ things, then he’d walked me through cooking a real meal.
Leaving my mouth, he kissed a path down my neck. I arched back, giving him more room. He used it to roll my shirt up and drag it off. Breathless anticipation was in every breath. I did the same with his and flattened my hands on his chest.
His knee was between my legs, and he propped his other foot on the floor. I curled up to undo the clasp of his jeans, but he beat me to it. Before he pushed them down, he took out his wallet and withdrew a three-pack of condoms.
“I put these in here just for you.” He tossed his wallet on the floor.
“All three?”
“It’ll have to do for tonight.”
Oh god. He was serious. I wasn’t inexperienced, but marathon sex? That was out of my wheelhouse.
He gave me a lopsided grin and stood to shove his pants down. “I’ll talk you through it.”
My stomach fluttered, and heat filled my body until I was pushing my shorts down. Should we be doing this? We’d been working up to it, but there was a faint alarm in my head.
He yanked the throw blanket off the back of the couch. “Can we use this? I plan on making you nice and messy.”
Only my bra was on, but my brain struggled to catch up. “My dad gave her that. She liked bears.”
I cringed. Why did I say that and not yes?
He folded it nicely and laid it across the back of the couch. He found his shirt and shoved it under my ass.
“No.” He was too much. Too kind and considerate. During sex? He couldn’t be real. “You can’t get your shirt all gross.” We could move to the bedroom, but this was spontaneous. This was now. I couldn’t risk chickening out.
“Boss, what I have in mind is far from gross, and you’ve got a washer and dryer.”
When he put it that way…
He didn’t take my bra off, but he tugged down the cups until my breasts spilled out. “Close enough to being naked.”
He settled between my thighs again, only this time it wasn’t denim or his swim trunks scraping against my skin.
His warm body spread my legs wide, and he looked his fill.
Even as he stared, ready to devour me, he still made me feel cherished.
A combination I hadn’t gotten much of when it came to sex.
“I knew I wasn’t imagining how pretty you are.” He lifted his gaze from my pussy to my face. “All over.”
That blush he’d mentioned earlier warmed my entire chest. My cheeks burned. Sunlight poured through the window, but I didn’t have the urge to hide around him. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
He propped a hand by my head and licked around a nipple.
I arched, but I didn’t want to miss the show.
If I didn’t spend as much time as I could admiring his broad shoulders and his strong back, I wouldn’t believe that I actually did this.
In five years, one year, or even one month, I’d summon this memory.
Sadness wanted to press in, but I shut my mental door in its face. I was in the moment, and I’d stay in it. Jasper was here with me.
He sucked one of my nipples into his mouth, and shivers racked my body. Instead of moving farther down, he cupped my pussy with his hand. Desire cartwheeled through me. “I’m going to watch you come apart and then I’m going to clean you up with my tongue.”
He put his thumb on my clit, and I nearly shattered. “Jasper!”
“Look at me.”
I followed his gaze down to his straining cock between us.
The outside world retreated, and it was just us.
This alone was worth the risk to the heart that had already been let down by any hopes and dreams I’d had of Jasper.
There was nothing for us, or he would’ve already tried.
The man kept his heart locked up, and so I would do the same.
I would do the same and enjoy what he did want to give me.
Pulsating energy filled me with each swipe of his thumb. “Yes.”
At my exhale, he pushed a finger inside. The sweet invasion wasn’t enough. He filled me, but he didn’t. The full weight of his body wasn’t on me, and the difference was staggering. I had to know what he felt like fully blanketing me.
Something inside me was reaching for the stars but falling short. I was going to detonate before I lifted off. “Jasper. More.”
He threaded in another finger. I rolled my hips into the thrusts of his hand and the rough scrape of his thumb on my clit.
The pressure flashed outward, and I exploded. More pleasure than I could possibly survive rammed into me, over and over. I clawed at his shoulders, shaking on the couch, pulling him down to me. My only anchor. “Yes. Oh god, yes.”
“Give me all of it,” he said gruffly.
I did, turning myself over to him until I thought my heart would stop. I clamped his arm, my body growing so sensitive that even when he wasn’t moving his hand, electricity still shot through me. He only grinned and lowered himself between my legs.
“What—” I had to catch my breath. “What are you doing?”
“Licking up everything that’s mine.”
I tensed, frantically trying to prepare for the onslaught of pleasure-pain, but he kissed the spot over my clit and, ever so softly, lapped me up.
Relaxing, I was swept up in a slowly cresting wave of desire.
I dug my hands into the silky strands of his hair and held on, trusting him with my body.
He knew exactly what to do. Was I that easy to read?
Within minutes, he coaxed me into another orgasm.
“Jasper,” I gasped, tugging on his scalp.
He reared up, his jaw a hard slash and his eyes glinting.
He grabbed the condoms and ripped one out.
After shoving it on, he placed the tip of his cock at my entrance.
I was just coming down, but I gripped the cushions of the couch and held on.
I was blissfully exhausted. Two orgasms?
The best dessert ever. But I could not miss having him inside me.
He paused, his body vibrating. “Are you ready?”
“God, yes.”
He pushed in, threading an inch at a time, slowly, exquisitely filling me until he was seated fully inside.
There. It finally happened. We were connected.
“Jesus, Sheridan.” The tremors in his body grew. He was holding back. The man had gotten me off multiple times, and it had cost him.
“I know.” I was panting, holding myself still or I’d wantonly rock against him. “Go ahead, Jasper. Fuck me.”
His fingers dug into my legs, but he pulled back and thrust forward. I moaned and matched his pace. Despite the climaxes, my arousal wasn’t depleted. It rose and swelled, and as he pumped, he took me with him.
It was my turn to watch him fall apart. I was doing this for him. So much more powerful than head in the shop. He moved inside me, hitting all the right spots like he was formed for my pleasure only. When he went taut, it was like he was cut from granite.
“Fuck,” he grunted, kicking his hips one final time. “Fucking perfect.”
It really was. Us together was just right. I swallowed the emotion behind that thought and held him as he shook through his orgasm. All that energy he’d been restraining was loose and transferring into me, encouraging another sweet orgasm from me.
When he collapsed, I sighed and cuddled into him. With him on me like this, I wasn’t floating away. I wasn’t flying through my days, trying to drag in enough air to keep going. We were tethered to each other—for now.
That was what Jasper had been like since I’d met him. He was a tether. He’d been that for me personally and professionally.
I wrapped my arms around him as another thought rose above the rest. The dreary idea that he also showed me that it was very much just me. That, despite how well we connected, how we got along, I needed his support. But he didn’t need me.
Jasper
I dragged soapy water up Sheridan’s stomach, and she laughed, turning her head into me.
She was sitting on me in her little bathtub.
My knees stuck out of the water, and she was nestled between them.
My dick was in a steady state of half arousal.
We’d burned through two of the condoms already, and I was saving that third one like it was the best piece of cake, but if I used it, I’d find another piece of cake that I’d have to miss out on.
Our bath was like that treat. The condom was on the edge of the tub if we went that far. For now, I was enjoying having complete access to Sheridan. I got another side to her that was more than work, chatter, or sex. Intimacy. I should’ve left, but I’d lap all this up while I could.
Her damp hair was planted on my chest. She rested her arms on my knees, and her feet were on the wall by the faucet. When the water got chilly, she’d turn on the hot water and warm us up.
“A soaking tub would be nice,” she murmured.
“If I ever build a house, it’ll have one.”
“Mmm.” She trailed her fingers in the water. We’d have to drain some or risk splashing it over the sides. “I’m thinking of renting this one out.”
“You are?” I stopped scooping warm water onto her chest to keep her from getting cold. “You want to move?”
“No, I just thought of it.” She swirled her fingers in the water, displacing bubbles. “I’m not sure. I’m not attached to it, so I could rent it. What if I could get an income for it for weeks or months?”
“Would you be paying for your own place, though?” My meal crawled its way up my throat.
What if renting the cabin was the first step in distancing herself from the resort?
Would leaving her mom’s old house make it all easier to sell and move?
She had the heart to save this place, but she was also a realist deep down.
I was stretching, but the “what-ifs” bothered me that much.
“Yes, but I don’t need more than a bedroom and bathroom.
” She carefully sat forward and opened the drain.
Goose bumps lined her arms when she turned the hot water on.
“I think someone would even rent this place for the winter. Three bedrooms? A full kitchen.” She vibrated with more excitement as she went.
“Fishermen. Hunters. Families in the summer. I could make a lot more on this house than I would pay for an apartment.”
My reflux calmed down. She wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t selling and moving. Yet.
“When I was cleaning earlier, I was thinking about what you said. What makes this resort better than a bigger, more commercial one? The restaurant makes us stand out. But people keep coming back. They want more room, and they want to stay longer, but it’s not financially feasible to rent two rooms for a week. ”
“You’d get more money for the two rooms.”
“They end up paying more and not getting that much more space. The next time, guests might look for a different place to rent. What if they paid that much for a house and decided they’d stay longer?”
“Like a cabin.”
She turned the water off. “Yep. There aren’t any cabin rentals around the lake except for the state park, but I remember people talking with Dad.
They’d complain about having to pack everything to be gone for a long weekend or a whole week, but then they needed bedding and towels too.
I’d only have one cabin, but if I can’t buy the property, then maybe I could build another place. A small one.”
She could. There was space on the property around her house. “I could help with that.”
She twisted in the water and snuggled against my chest. “Maybe. At some point, I have to quit relying on you.”
Nothing about that statement increased my contentedness. I loved watching her shine, and caring for her was its own special reward. It wasn’t because she was needy. It was because she didn’t do it for herself. “I work for you. So you can rely on me.”
She lifted her head and faced me as best she could, water sloshing along the sides. “You want to be a maintenance guy for a career now? Lack of benefits aside, you want to work with no guarantee that Bishop’s Landing will stay open once the new place goes live?”
“I haven’t thought about it.” She’d been thinking about it, though. Because Sheridan didn’t coast through life. “What if I tried talking to Linda? I mean, there’s a ready-made cabin sitting there.”
“She’s made a decision about selling?”
“I haven’t asked yet.”
“I can’t bank on it. She owes me nothing, and it’s clear she’s waiting out the stipulations. Planning an expansion when I’m already struggling requires facts.”
“I get it.” Sheridan was slowly writing me and my family off. I didn’t want her dependent on me, but what other reason would she have to be around me? If I wasn’t useful, what would she see in me beyond a good orgasm? What did I have to give her? “I really am sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s a big decision, and your siblings might be happy, but we would’ve been going into a marriage planning for divorce. That has to mess with the mind.”
“Yeah.” Especially when I’d been left at my lowest already. “I don’t think getting divorced by you would feel good.”
“Don’t know about that. My exes all moved on really fast. In fact, two of them were married before the year anniversary of our breakup.”
I clicked my tongue against my teeth. “So you’re telling me that I did myself the biggest disservice? I would’ve found the love of my life after we said ‘I don’t’?”
She built bubbles into a pyramid. “Yep. Now we’re just messing around. But don’t worry. I’m sure once you find that dream job you’ve been waiting for, your boss will be a single woman dying to sleep with her employee.”
I laughed despite how much I disliked her talk about other women and being done with me. What was I to her? What could I possibly be? I’d keep this light, but she wasn’t some woman, and I wasn’t just another employee. “Is that my type? My boss? No wonder I’m single. Lily got to Eliot first.”
She giggled. “You snooze, you lose.”
My smile faded. I had snoozed on a lot. Including the woman in the bathtub with me. The same woman I had not-so-jokingly proposed to. The woman who’d turned me down regardless.
I’d done it for her. So she could meet her own goals. But… Had I taken too much time and missed out on something that could’ve been really good? Could we have gotten married and ended up like my siblings? Blissfully happy and planning our own family?
I struggled to swallow. There was the other ending. Divorce.
Sheridan was right. What were the odds that all six of Annie Duke’s grandkids would’ve found love because of that damn trust?
Well, I’d made sure the odds weren’t one hundred percent.