Chapter 4 #2
And as I looked through what I felt were pages and pages of Jack’s memories, I couldn’t help but notice an empty space on the display shelf. Like a sketchbook had been moved. Like it had been tucked away moments before I arrived. Hidden.
And I was very interested in the pieces that Jack didn’t think were worth putting on display. And why.
It didn’t take me long to spot.
There was a sketchbook stored on a shelf just above my eye level, beneath rolls of completed portraits. Jack likely anticipated that the sheer volume of other works and supplies would keep my attention away. But I’d made my living looking for things that were out of place.
I turned to Jack as I slipped my fingers beneath the rolls, slowly pulling the sketchbook from its hiding place. He stiffened.
The subject matter was sensitive then. Good.
“That one,” he crossed the room, his presence hot against my side as he reached for my hand, “is not my best work.”
I pulled the sketchbook out of his reach. “That’s exactly why I’m interested.”
Jack reached for the book, but I shifted it out of his reach.
“If you keep this up, I’m going to think there is something in here you don’t want me to see. And you of all people should know that will only make me want to look more.”
Hand still extended, Jack exhaled. “It’s just…” I noted the reluctant surrender in his expression, the slackening of his frame. He was going to let me have my way. Even if the idea made him uncomfortable. “Fine.” He returned his hand to his side. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Because I was a well-adjusted adult, I didn’t showboat my success. Even though I really wanted to. Instead, I laid the sketchbook out on the shelf, and flipped open the contents as Jack stood hovering over my shoulder.
For the first few pages, I was disappointed. Everything was good. Just as good, or better, than his previous sketches. There was nothing bad, nothing embarrassing.
But I kept flipping. “I don’t know why you—”
Holy hell.
I knew why Jack didn’t want me prying.
The sketch was a close up of a hand, a man’s hand, clasping a woman’s stomach. Jack’s hand. My scars. My stomach.
It was undeniably erotic.
Heat flushed my cheeks. I’d never felt this charged looking at art before. Perhaps because of how personal it was. How intimate. How I could feel Jack’s hand, lying flat against my stomach. Craving. Comforting. Claiming. Accepting.
Jack closed the sketchbook over, his hand on mine.
His breathing changed, coming in short and shallow huffs. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
Slowly, I turned to face him, my back arched against the shelving, the wood of the display shelf pressing into my waist.
“If you didn’t want me to see it, you should have hidden it better.” Something strange coursed through me, which felt an awful lot like desire. “You could have locked it in your office.”
Jack’s hand was still splayed over the book behind me. If he took one step forward his body would be flush with mine. And I couldn’t help but think that is what I wanted. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“It’s a memory. Not a fantasy.”
There was something about watching his chest heave that made me want to slip under his shirt and drag my teeth against his skin. To taste him.
“I thought of you, you know.” He leaned forward, not quite closing the gap between us. The familiar dark citrus scent brought a flutter to my chest. “Couldn’t get you out of my head.”
“Just thought?” I was very aware of how firm, how heavy, my breasts felt, rising and falling against the fabric of my dress.
“I have been working on my self-control.” Jack bit his lip. He noticed. Just like I noticed the sudden strain against his pants. “It just hasn’t been going very well.”
Every thought in my head melted away. Every piece of me replaced with flames and lust. There was tension in the air. Need pooling between my thighs.
“Fuck it?”
“Fuck it.” Jack closed the gap between us, pressing into me. The tension snapped like an elastic band, as our mouths met. Sweet and salty. Hungry. Real.
Jack’s tongue ran along of the seam of my lips. I opened readily, wanting to give. His tongue swirled around mine, then plunged deep. Like he was trying to reach my throat. Like it was territory he wanted to discover.
Holy hell.
Needing to hold onto something, part of him, I wrapped one of my hands into his hair, and slipped the other between us.
He was solid. So deliciously solid.
I ran the heel of my palm up his firm length. He moaned into my mouth before stealing his lips away from mine to breathe hot and heavy into my neck, “Fuck Delilah.” His knuckles turned white as he gripped the table, bucking against me, my hand.
He ran his open mouth along the slope of my neck. His teeth occasionally scraping against my skin, like it took everything he had to keep himself from biting. “I love the way you taste.”
My head was spinning with heady, delirious, pleasure. I needed more of him, needed to feel his hard lines against my softening frame, needed him between my legs to pierce through the throbbing ache of it all.
I stroked him harder. “If you keep saying things like that I—”
“If you keep moving your hand like that, I’ll—”
He jerked his hips away, hissing as he sucked air through his teeth. He swallowed down a handful of shuddering breaths, hands fisting on the table, as he tried to regain control. Something he’d told me more than once he wasn’t good at. Not when it came to sex.
But seeing him work, how much he had to fight how I made him feel, how close I had gotten him—it tasted like victory.
Jack’s pupils were dilated. “That was fucking close.”
“I’m more than happy to keep going.”