Chapter 20
ELLIE
Lost in the dreamy space between sleep and awake, I stretched and wriggled, engulfed in warmth, too comfortable to get up.
Last night had been emotionally taxing, but talking about Noah’s father, finally sharing that part of my past with Jake, left me feeling lighter than I had been in years. The judgement I’d feared for so long never appeared, and Jake’s comfort and support only made me want him more.
I couldn’t fight that any longer. No matter how many times I tried to push it beneath the surface, it always floated back to the top.
I want him.
Desperately.
But how was I supposed to live with that? Ignoring it was one thing, but—
Something—someone—hummed in pure contentment behind me.
My eyes popped open.
The living room draped in darkness wasn’t my usual view first thing in the morning, but neither was the huge, solid body tucked against my back.
I froze, even as a thrill rolled through me.
I might’ve had little experience, but that was definitely Jake’s cock pressed hard and insistent and enormous against my ass.
Oh my god.
Struck with a white-hot burn of arousal, I held myself still when Jake’s large, warm hand landed on my waist. He gripped me there, patting and squeezing, letting out a satisfied groan that made my breath catch thinking about what we could do to draw out that sound again.
This was dangerous.
This was everything I wanted and more.
He fingered the strip of bare skin between my pyjama top and bottoms before he swept a slow, curious path down the curve of my hip and along the outside of my thigh. Twice.
We’re just friends.
I repeated the mantra, a needy reminder, because the urge to place that hand on my breast and force him to tease my nipple didn’t feel like just friends.
I wanted to beg him to slide it lower too, work those strong fingers inside me and around my clit, let me rock back against his hard cock, and see what he would do next if we gave in to this again.
We’re just friends.
But it was hard to remember when it felt so right tucked in his arms, when he held me like I was precious, and listened while I unleashed all those languishing fears about Noah’s father last night.
It was hard to remember every time he made my son smile, and clutched his tiny hand, and did everything to make him happy, like his own happiness hinged on the sound of Noah’s laugh.
My heart ached. I wanted so much more from this man, so much more than he’d ever give because this slice of life wasn’t real and this situation was still very temporary.
We’re just friends.
“Morning,” I said, somehow managing to keep my voice casual despite the very un-casual way we were snuggled together.
“Morning,” Jake replied, voice deep and croaky. “We must’ve fallen asleep watching the movie.”
I wondered if he’d been awake as long as me, if he remembered the touching and groaning and hums of content, or if he’d simply been lost in dreams. And if he was, who had he been dreaming about?
I hope it’s me.
“Yeah. I know we saw the third wedding, but I don’t remember seeing the funeral.”
Jake’s soft, sleep-laden laugh rumbled through me, and I closed my eyes against the sharp joy of it. There was nothing worse than feeling something you’ve longed for, knowing it was minutes from being snatched away.
He shifted behind me, and his head popped up to look around the room. “Wait. Hang on.”
After some manoeuvring, he managed to free his arm to check his watch. “Ellie, it’s only one in the morning.”
“What?”
He flopped back, his deep chuckle vibrating between us. “It’s still nighttime.”
I peered around the room again, and maybe I did have to squint a bit in the darkness. “Oh. My bad.”
He crushed me closer. “You’re so adorable to me.”
“I don’t want to be adorable,” I grumbled, mostly thinking out loud.
Jake smoothed my hair, his breath a warm brush on the back of my neck as he traced the shell of my ear with his fingertip.
I didn’t know a touch there could feel so arousing.
“What do you want to be?” he whispered.
I wasn’t sure what did it.
Maybe it was the need woven through his tone, the genuine interest in my answer, or knowing I didn’t have to look him in the eye, but I felt comfortable to admit, “Sexy. Hot. All those kinds of adjectives.”
The silence roared, long enough for the cringe of my confession to slink into my awareness. I shifted, intending to shoot to my feet, but Jake held me tighter, locking me in his arms.
“Ellie,” he murmured, and there was a different edge to his voice now, a new intensity. “You’re aware that’s my erect cock pressed against your ass, right?”
I couldn’t believe the blatancy of it, the way he tossed the words like dice in the air, waiting for them to land, but they landed right inside my pussy. It was a hot jolt of sensation I wasn’t remotely prepared for.
“Yes,” I said tentatively, trying not to clench my thighs.
“And it’s not actually morning so this is not just, you know, physiology.”
“What is it then?” I whispered, my pulse racing, needing him to say it out loud.
“It’s me finding you hot and sexy and all those other adjectives, although that doesn’t need to be said given what happened a few weeks ago.”
“My brain needs you to say it because sometimes it lies to me. Sometimes it makes me think one thing when something else is happening.”
“Then it’s me wanting you, Ellie. It’s me wanting you so fucking much.”
His confession sank into the darkness and slipped between my thighs. My breathing quickened and the adrenaline surged, and I turned in his arms to face him before I lost courage and changed my mind.
His gaze was magnetic and lust-filled like this, face shaded in dark and shadows, and I bathed in the power of it.
Directed at me.
I’d barely formed the words in my brain, barely opened my mouth to speak, before Jake growled and slammed his lips against mine.
I choked on a gasp and a chorus of finally, then moaned at the twirl of our tongues—a hot, wet dance of sensation that drove me out of my mind.
As if we weren’t already close enough, Jake wrenched me closer, grabbing, yanking at my thigh, hooking my leg over his until I was splayed tight against the hard wedge of his cock.
I tossed my head back, breaking our kiss, and moaned out his name.
“Fuck,” he gritted out, “I can’t cope hearing you say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re wet and needy and desperate for my cock.”
He rocked that hard bulge right against my pussy over and over, a lust-driven rutting, his eyes flaring every time he hit my clit.
I clutched at his shoulders and arms, brazen and begging, needing more more more.
“What if I am?” I whispered against his mouth.
Addicted to the sinful twist of it, I drew him back in for another kiss, sucking on his tongue. I searched for his waistband and yanked, pulling his joggers down over his ass until I met firm, warm skin.
Jake groaned and pulled away, palming my jaw to look at me properly while I patted and palmed the delicious solid globes of his ass.
“Ellie, are you sure?”
“Yes.” I nodded for good measure.
My pussy throbbed. Everything was hot and swollen, and the needy ache was the right side of uncomfortable, but it wouldn’t be for long. Despite my lack of experience with other people, I knew my own body. I was a whisper away from an orgasm. A few swipes at my clit, and I’d come.
I needed relief and I needed it now.
“Just kiss me, Jake.” I wasn’t sure where all this courage came from, but I’d had a taste now and I wanted more, and it was finally sinking in that Jake wanted more too. Maybe it wasn’t real and maybe it was temporary, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t have tonight.
I couldn’t believe the realisation had taken me so long.
“Kiss me and take me to bed, and let’s not think about anything else,” I told him. “Not tonight.”
“That’s usually my line.”
“Then why aren’t you saying it?”
Jake searched for any doubts. Ten seconds later, he sank to his knees on the floor.
“What are you…”
Words failed at the wicked heat in his eyes, the way he wrenched me to a seated position. A fresh wave of lust near-drowned me at the raw power of it, the ease in throwing my body around, arranging me exactly to his liking.
I was his, any way he wanted me.
My pulse grew erratic and there was a heartbeat in my pussy, a desperate throb throb throb as Jake grabbed my waistband and said, “Lift.”
I followed his demand so he could drag my pyjama bottoms down my legs.
His palms swept up the sides of my calves and outer thighs until he reached the scalloped edge of my plain, lemon coloured high-cut brief. There was nothing sexy about them, yet Jake fingered the material with a lusty reverence that almost stole my breath.
I’d never been touched there by anyone else, not like this, and I jerked at the feel of his fingertip tracing that laced edge down the crease where my hip met my thigh.
“Lift again,” Jake whispered.
I gave him the space to peel off my underwear until I sat before him in nothing but my pyjama top. I expected to feel exposed like this, naked from the waist down, but all I could think about was the desperate look in his eyes and the warm weight of his touch against my skin.
“Show me,” he demanded.
“What… What do you want me to show you?”
“Your cunt.”
“Oh my god,” I breathed out, that one word electrifying my entire body.
“Has no one ever told you to show them your cunt, Ellie?”
I shook my head slowly, unable to look away. “You know they haven’t.”
“Fuck.” His grip tightened, and somehow, impossibly, that excited him—the knowledge that he was my first in some ways.
I let that power wash over me and spread my thighs.
The noise Jake made was roughened and animal. He knelt in close, took a meaty grip of one thigh and dragged his mouth up the other, and I trembled at the warm gush of his breath against my pussy.
He stroked the wet seam of me, and my whole body tightened as he eased one finger inside.
“Jake!”