18. Ember
EIGHTEEN
EMBER
I knew he would come to me, but it still sent a shock through me when I heard the quiet knock on my bedroom door. I set my reading aside and padded across the room. The doorknob was cool under my fingers, the hinges silent as I opened.
“Yes?” I said.
Jack stood in the doorway, his arm propped above his head as he leaned on the frame. His eyebrow quirked. “That’s all I get? Just ‘yes’?”
He looked so handsome. It almost hurt to look directly at him, especially when his hair was slightly mussed and his eyes were so soft. He looked tired, like he’d had a long day and all he needed was to wrap his arms around me to make it all go away.
That right there would be my undoing. That look on his face. That tone of his voice.
After dinner, I’d scurried up to my hidey-hole in the attic and tried to get my head on straight again.
I told myself again and again that I couldn’t fall for him. That yes, he’d cared for me when I was sick, but that was just a mix of guilt and duty on his part. He was devoted to doing the right thing.
And the things he’d said to me in the kitchen…
You couldn’t believe the things a man said to you when he was trying to get in your pants.
But try as I might, I couldn’t get myself to believe my own lies.
I wanted him. I wanted a life with him here, in this house, with his daughter. I wanted the fresh air and the rabid raccoons. I wanted the ring on my finger. I wanted him to look at me just like that, every day for the rest of my life.
My pride demanded I put up some sort of resistance. Some last fortification in my mind told me this was a dangerous path, and I, as a rule, did not like danger. I forced myself to hold his gaze. “Do you need something, Jack?”
He prowled forward, and I had no choice but to take a step back. The door closed behind him, and we were alone. “Yes, I need something. I need you on your back with your legs spread. You think you can do that for me, Ember?”
Yes.
My pulse fluttered. I could feel it in every corner of my body, pounding heavily between my legs. “I’ve been thinking,” I started.
His hands slid over my jaw, and he tilted my face up to meet his. His eyes were dark, dark blue, the color of the sky a moment before the last light of the day ceded to night. “Less of that,” he murmured.
“Less thinking?”
His smile was wicked. It turned my insides molten.
He chose that moment to kiss me, slow and thorough, and he didn’t stop until my hands had curled into the soft fabric of his sweater and a soft whimper escaped my lips.
He hummed, hands coasting down my sides until they dipped under the waistband of my pajama pants.
His thumbs pressed against my hipbones, fingers splayed over the soft flesh covering my hips.
I rubbed my thighs together, needy, already losing control.
He pulled back enough to grin at me. He knew.
“You’re going to have to try to be quieter than you were this morning,” he said in a low voice, bringing one hand up to cup my jaw. His thumb pressed my bottom lip. “Can you do that for me?”
“I don’t think we should be doing this,” I whispered.
“What did I say about thinking?”
“Jack—” I inhaled sharply as his hand dipped beneath my pants and between my legs.
He groaned at the slickness he found there, dipping down to kiss me again, licking into my mouth as he slid his finger inside me, then two. I was already halfway gone, and it had been about thirty seconds.
“Missed you today,” he said softly, nose tracing the pulse on my neck before he pressed a soft kiss just below my ear. “Such a clusterfuck to deal with at work, and I still spent half the day hard at the thought of you bent over the counter for me.”
Pleasure rolled through me. He’d thought of me all day. Then he did something with his fingers, and a whimper slipped out past my best defenses. I wasn’t sure how I was still standing. “You didn’t find whoever smashed your company cars?”
“No,” Jack growled, voice so low it was barely more than a rumble, “and I should’ve cared about that.
” He pulled away. Looked into my eyes. “I should’ve cared, Ember, but all I could think about was you.
Counting down the hours until I could touch you again.
Thinking of all the things I didn’t get to do to you this morning.
Quiet, baby. I know it feels good, but I need you to be quiet. ”
Yes, it felt good. It felt way too good. My legs were jelly. I moaned, clenching my teeth to bite back a cry.
“And then I came home,” he continued, eyes so dark and bottomless as he watched me. Watched what he did to me. “I came home, and I saw my daughter looking happy. Food on the table. A warm house. A beautiful woman. We ate together, the three of us, and it felt so fucking right—”
My pants were on the floor and my butt was on the edge of the bed. Jack was on his knees between my thighs. How had that happened?
He stared at the center of me. His palms were hot on my inner thighs, thumbs stroking my folds. It looked like he was staring at a three-tier cake made just for him. The most delicious treat he’d ever seen.
His eyes slid up my body, reached my face. Lingered on my lips for a moment before he met my gaze. There was something in his eyes that was more than heat. More than desire. It was vulnerable. “I don’t want you to leave,” he said, his voice raw.
My chest went hollow and achy. I inhaled—
And Jack fastened his lips to my bud. A surprised gasp tore out of me, and a moment later his fingers slid inside me once more.
But this time, it felt fuller. I was spread open for him, his shoulders pressing my thighs wide, his head bent over me.
I hadn’t even realized I’d made a noise until his other hand clamped over my mouth.
He lifted his head, lips glistening, and regarded me with black eyes. “If I take my hand off your mouth, can you promise me you won’t make a noise?”
I blinked. Shook my head. No.
His thumb stroked my jaw. I expected him to pull away. To slow down.
Instead, his eyes went intent. “I’ll have to help you, then,” he said, and lowered his head once more.
His fingers tightened over my mouth, muffling the noises I couldn’t control.
And I couldn’t control them. Not when he kept my legs spread, when he ate me out like I hadn’t even known was possible, when he pumped his fingers in and out of me until I’d just about lost my mind.
And he got his way, because there was no thought in my head. Nothing except yes, and please, and more. My orgasm felt like liquid fire. I screamed against the gag of his hand and arched clean off the bed.
When I went limp, Jack pressed a kiss to my inner thigh, gathered me in his arms, and deposited me in the middle of the small bed.
Little fireflies of pleasure flitted through me, making me twitch.
I watched as he stood next to the bed and slowly, methodically, stripped off every item of clothing on his body.
He was unhurried but utterly focused. An unstoppable force.
And I was the target.
By the time he was done, tension was coiled tight in the pit of my belly again. All that hard flesh and golden skin. All that strength and focus. His cock bobbed between his legs, hard and weeping, and he ignored it.
“Shirt off, babe,” he ordered.
I nodded, struggling to sit up enough to peel my shirt off. My arms were wet noodles, and my ab muscles failed when I was halfway done with the task. I fell back on the bed, my arms extended above my head with my soft cotton tee wrapped around them.
His lips quirked. “This is familiar.”
I huffed, clawing at the fabric. It would come off a lot easier than a wet sports bra, but I just had to—
Jack reached over my head and grabbed the fabric stretched between my arms. I relaxed, expecting him to wrench it off, but instead he twisted the cotton around his fist and locked my arms in place. My breathing sped up as I watched him scan the makeshift restraints.
His gaze was hot. Hotter than I’d ever seen it. His eyes seemed to consume me, my body on fire wherever his look touched. When he met my eyes, I had to remind myself to breathe. “This okay?” he asked.
In the absence of conscious thought, all I had to rely on was feeling.
I was adrift in a rickety little boat without a paddle, at the mercy of all the emotions I’d tried to lock away.
So when he asked me that question, there was no calculation in my mind.
No automatic chain of thoughts that assessed and analyzed the situation.
No explanation for why I wanted this or what it meant—for me, for him, for us.
All that existed was the overwhelming feeling that yes, this was okay, more than okay. It was everything I’d always wanted but never realized. It was my overanalytical, relentless brain throwing up its hands and giving up.
Jack was safe, and I wanted him, and this was what I wanted him to do. I wanted him to hold me here and fuck me like only he could.
I nodded.
The restraints tightened around my forearms as he flexed his fist. “Need your words, babe.”
“Yes,” I breathed. I bent my knees and let them fall open. “Please.”
He grunted like I’d punched him in the gut. “Fuck,” he said, hips dropping. I felt the heat of him between my legs. “You look so good, babe. So fucking good like this.” He thrust against me, and the pressure of his cock against my clit made me buck. “Need a condom. Hold on.”
I pressed my thighs against his hips, pinning him in place. “I’m on the pill. Just—please—Jack—”
If he didn’t do this now, right now, my brain would start spinning.
If I lost the weight of him on top of me, stopped feeling the tightness of the fabric around my forearms, I might lose my nerve.
I’d start thinking about all the reasons this was a bad idea, and I might actually convince myself to stop.
Stopping right now felt like death. Like I would literally die if I didn’t feel him inside me. I would go the rest of my life with the regret of having played it safe when I should’ve risked it.