18. Ember #2
His eyes flicked between mine. “I’ve never… Not since we were trying for Darby… I’m clean, I promise—”
“Please,” I begged. “Pleasepleasepleaseplease—”
He filled me up. One thrust, and he was buried inside me, stuffed so deep it stole my breath. He dropped his forehead to the pillow next to me and swore. “Fuck, but you feel good, baby. Better than my wildest dreams.”
I wiggled my hips, needing more. “Jack,” I whined.
“You want me to fuck you?” His voice was dark. He lifted his head and looked in my eyes, then flicked his gaze up to the T-shirt he had wrapped around his fist. With his free hand, he slid his palm up my side and squeezed my breast. Touching me like he owned me.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His eyes returned to mine and I saw that he was as lost as I was, carried out to sea on the riptide of…of whatever this was between us. This bright, electric, intense connection. Then he stared at my mouth and said, “Beg.”
“What?”
“Beg for it.”
Heat flushed through me. I wasn’t supposed to like this. I was a self-assured, successful, intelligent woman. And I was turned the hell on. “Please fuck me,” I whispered.
He hummed, shifting his hips minutely. He was still staring at my mouth. His eyes were nearly feverish.
“Please,” I whispered, desperate. My hips tried to roll, but he had me pinned in place. “Please, Jack.”
“Maybe you need to earn it. Maybe you need to have those lips wrapped around my cock before you get what you want.” His voice was black with desire, and his hips were still making tiny movements.
I nodded, wild, desperate.
With anyone else, in any other situation, this would never have happened. But Jack was the man who’d given up love to be there for his daughter and his family. He’d agreed to his grandmother’s schemes because it was what was best for Darby. He worked himself to the bone for his brother’s company.
He was caring, big-hearted, and he put everyone else ahead of himself. He was hurt and protective. And most importantly, I felt safe with him. I trusted him.
And I was white-hot with desire for him.
“Is that what you want, baby?” he asked, voice so soft and calm, completely at odds with the darkness of his eyes and the tension of his body.
“You want me to fuck your face so you can earn my cock?” He thrust deeper, and I clamped my lips shut on a moan.
“Or are you too impatient for it right now?”
My walls were stripped away. My brain had left the building. That was the only reason that I gave him the bare, unvarnished truth: “Jack. I just want you.”
There was a short, electric pause. Jack stared into my eyes, and I saw an ocean of yearning in his. It was perhaps the first time that he’d let me see to the very core of his soul.
And he looked like I’d just given him his deepest, most secret desire.
Something snapped between us. Jack thrust into me so hard I gasped, and then he swallowed my moan with a kiss.
He kept my arms pinned above my head and drove himself into me, his free hand sliding down to feel all the contours of my body.
And he kissed me again, and again, and again.
The kiss deepened, transformed, and then we weren’t just having sex anymore.
His movements slowed until I felt like I was losing my mind with the intensity of it.
With a flick of his hand, he ripped the shirt off my forearms and slid both his hands to my hips. “Put your hands on my body,” he grated, his lips near my ear. “Want to feel them on me.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice. I slid my hands over his strong shoulders and into his hair.
I tugged lightly then felt the ripples of muscle over his back.
I ran my hands over his stubble and turned my face so I could kiss him, one palm holding his face as the other slid over his neck and down his spine.
He was so warm and strong and solid, and he kissed me like I was the only sustenance he’d ever need.
My orgasm was a slow, rolling, unstoppable thing. It grew and grew and grew until my entire body was shaking with the force of it.
“Fuck, you’re pretty when you come,” Jack told me, pulling away slightly to watch my face.
His gaze slid down my body and lingered where we were joined.
He swore as I fell apart beneath him, his eyes almost frenzied, his muscles stark in the lamplight of my bedroom.
A moment later, he joined me at the peak.
He said my name in a desperate rasp, clinging to my hips, searing our bodies together as he came. I felt it all.
It was the hottest moment of my life.
JACK
I had to go back to my own room soon. Darby was thirteen, but she still sometimes woke up at night and came looking for me. I needed to be in my own bed in case she did.
But Ember was asleep with her head on my chest, and moving her was out of the question. I trailed my palm over and back along the forearm she’d thrown over me. Her skin was so soft, her bones so delicate. I willed time to slow down so I could have as many seconds here as I could get.
A little sleepy mewl fell out of her, and she stirred herself awake. Blinking owl-eyes at me, she gave me a shy smile. “You’re still here.”
“Did you expect me to leave without saying goodbye?”
She bit her lip. I watched the blood drain from the area and then fill up again when her lip slipped free of her teeth, and I knew I would never get enough of this woman.
I also knew the answer to my question was yes, but she hadn’t wanted to say it out loud.
She reached up to push my hair off my forehead, and then she ran her fingers through the short hair at my temples. I groaned in pleasure as my eyes fluttered shut. I loved it when she touched me.
Finally, she asked, “What’s the plan?”
“For what?”
“For us.”
I cracked my eyes open. She was biting her lip again. Worrying. Thinking too much. I shifted, pulling her fully on top of me. Her eyes flared as my thumb slid down between her legs, where she was slick and wanting already.
“The plan is I make you my wife,” I said, and watched her breath catch.
“Jack,” she chided. “I’m—” Her words died as I found her bud. So responsive. So ready. I wrapped my hands around her hips and lifted her so I could fit myself inside her. “I’m serious,” she finally finished, then let out a whimper as I pulled her down on top of me.
I loved the way her eyes glazed when I was inside her. The way those lush lips fell open. The way her pussy clenched and sucked, as needy and desperate for me as she was. As desperate as I was for her.
“I’m serious too,” I said, sliding my hands over her waist, her tits, her hips.
I guided those hips to rock on top of me, loving the way her breath stuttered and her eyes fell shut.
Her palms pressed against my chest, against the rapid beating of my heart.
She was made for fantasy, and she was all mine.
“We file that paperwork and make official what we already know.”
Her lids fluttered. Eyes fastened to mine. “And what’s that?”
I surged up and slid my hand into her hair.
I tugged lightly, watching her eyes flare with pleasure.
My other hand was still gripping her hip, controlling the pace.
Here, like this, she was pliant and perfect.
So different from the human hurricane of intelligence and wit and stubbornness that I’d come to admire. I loved all facets of her.
I loved her.
“That you’re mine,” I said, and it came out harsh. Too harsh. “That you’re my wife, and this is exactly where you belong. By my side. In my bed. On my cock.”
She sighed, pure release. I felt her pussy clench around me, and I smiled. A harsh, possessive, victorious smile.
She shook her head. “Why do I love it when you say things like that to me? I shouldn’t like it at all.”
“Because we’re right together. Because we fit.”
And then I showed her just how perfectly we fit together. Until I was sure she understood.