20. Campbell #2
The air in the room shifts. It grows thick, charged with a strange, invisible energy that makes the skin on my arms tingle.
It’s awkward, but it’s also the kind of heavy, profound discomfort that settles in your belly when someone finally drops the mask entirely.
Jake is letting me see him. His feelings. His thoughts. His fears.
“I like you,” he whispers, his voice trembling a fraction. “I more than like you.”
My breath catches, and my fingers curl tighter into his shirt. “You . . . you more than like me?”
Jake nods once, a quick, jerky motion, looking entirely exposed under the harsh light of his own kitchen bulb. He looks like he just called a high-stakes pitch and is waiting to see if the ball sails out of the park or nicks the corner of the plate.
“Yeah,” he croaks, his grip on my face softening, his fingers tracing the line of my jaw with a feather-light touch that sends goose bumps down my spine.
“I more than like you a lot. And I don’t care how it looks to the front office, or what Kevin thinks, or any of the arbitrary rules we were supposed to be following.
I’m tired of holding back, sneaking around.
I’m tired of pretending you’re just the girl who handles the media, even if that’s not your job anymore.
Just stay here. With me. Be mine, Campbell.
We can be an us. Let me take care of this part. ”
The dam breaks.
Everything I have been carrying—the sickening betrayal of my father using me as a pawn, the terror of walking away from my dream career, the adrenaline of facing down Jake’s family in that back yard—all collapses under the weight of his words.
He is offering me shelter in the middle of a war zone, and I am entirely out of armor.
I don’t answer with words. I couldn’t. Instead, I lean down and seal my mouth to his.
The kiss isn’t sweet; it’s desperate. Jake lets out a low, ragged growl in the back of his throat, his hands sliding from my face down to my shoulders, tugging me into his lap until I straddle him completely on the narrow couch.
We are an unyielding collision of lips and tongues that taste like salt and heat.
My hands fly to his hair, gripping the thick, dark strands, pulling him closer until there is no space left between us.
I need to be closer. I need to fuse myself to his skin until my last name doesn’t mean anything anymore.
“Campbell,” he rasps against my lips, his hands tearing at the hem of my blouse, pulling the fabric up and over my head in one fluid, impatient motion.
He tosses it blindly onto the floor. His palms find the bare skin of my waist, fingertips scraping deliciously against my ribs, making me shiver against him.
I reach down, my hands clawing at the waistband of his jeans, tugging at the button with rabid hunger.
His hands do the same, working my jeans and panties down my hips until I lift myself enough to push them away.
Our movements are clumsy, driven by hurried need, a desire that feels as much like lust as it does survival.
The secrets are gone. The corporate rules are dead.
We are fully locked into this moment together. And I need him like I need oxygen.
Jake shifts his body, his boots digging into the hardwood floor as he lifts me effortlessly against his chest, rising from the sofa without breaking our kiss.
He carries me the dozen or so steps to his bed, then flattens my back on his mattress, lowering himself over my body and caging me between his arms.
The sheets are cool against my back, but Jake’s body is a furnace.
He pins me beneath him, his heavy thighs framing my hips, his hard cock digging into my center.
The ambient light from the alley window catches the sharp lines of his face, the dark sweat dampening his hair, a protective hunger in his eyes.
“You’re mine,” he growls, his voice thick and rough. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I whimper, my words a breathless confession. “Jake, please.”
He sits up enough to kick off his boots and strip down his jeans, kicking them from the foot of the bed before settling back between my thighs.
To know he’s been wearing nothing under those jeans all night somehow makes me wetter.
At any point, he could have pushed me against a wall and pulled out his cock, driving it into me. I would have let him. I’ll let him now.
Anywhere. Whenever. However.
His hands find my hips again, and they aren’t gentle.
They’re possessive, anchoring me to the mattress as he leans down to bury his face in the crook of my neck.
His mouth is everywhere, his lips biting gently at the sensitive skin of my collarbone, his tongue tracing a path of fire to the valley between my breasts.
I arch into his touch, my fingers digging into the muscles of his back. Every touch feels more urgent; every gasp echoes in the small studio like thunder.
When he slides his hands beneath my thighs, lifting my knees to his shoulders, his eyes never leave mine. There’s a vulnerability in his gaze that numbs me, a silent, desperate plea for me to see him, to accept everything he is offering.
“Look at me,” he whispers, his breath hot against my lips.
I lock my eyes onto his as he lifts himself just enough to hold my gaze hostage. My fingers tighten their grip on the bedsheets, balling into fists as I breathe deeply, my body defenseless, willing.
He hesitates, and I realize he’s waiting for me. To know if we need to rifle through his drawers and pockets, my purse, for a condom. I shake my head and utter, “We’re good.”
I got an IUD last week. For me, not for . . . only this. Though, the benefits of feeling his hot skin against mine, no barriers, is definitely the added perk.
He pushes the tip of his cock into me, then halts. The sudden stop leaves me breathless, and I let my eyes plead with him as his lips form a taunting sneer.
“Ask for it.”
“Please,” I whimper, my legs locked down over his shoulders, the weight of his pelvis holding me in place, my pussy pulsing with need as he barely gives me a taste.
“Please what?”
I whine, arching my back but not doing anything to force him deeper.
“Fill me, Jake. Fuck me now, please,” I moan, my voice loud and my wish clear.
His cock sinks into me at an agonizingly slow pace, and I moan through every inch.
“Watch me fuck you, Campbell,” he commands, urging me to lift my head enough to see. His hips pull back, and his slick shaft leaves me entirely.
He’s dripping with my arousal, and it takes little effort for him to sink into me again, rocking his hips back once he’s as deep as I can handle. I bite my lip, loving the way his cock looks covered in me, slipping between my legs, driving into me.
Then he drives into me harder.
A choked gasp tears from my throat, my eyes widening as the sheer, consuming fullness of him stretches me open.
It is an intense, almost spiritual release of tension.
The friction is a burning, exquisite ache that centers me completely in my own body.
Jake pauses for a fraction of a second, his muscles trembling under the strain of holding himself back, his forehead leaning against mine as we both breathe through the sudden, overwhelming wave of sensation.
“Campbell,” he groans, my name a plea against my mouth.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper, lifting my hips up from the bed to take him still deeper. “Jake, don’t stop.”
He doesn’t. He holds his weight above me, one hand braced on the wall behind my head, the other gripping the back of my neck as his thrust grows needier.
The bed creaks with every stroke, the plain, metal headboard knocking against the brick wall.
Every pump feels like a physical manifestation of his promise to protect me, to keep me safe from the storm outside these walls.
To be my home.
I lose my mind in the darkness of his studio.
The polished professional with a squeaky-clean image I have spent my entire life building completely dissolves, replaced by a woman who is alive.
The heat in the room rises until the air feels sticky and thick, our skin sliding against each other’s, glued together by sweat, saliva, my arousal.
Jake’s pace quickens, his breath turning into short, ragged gasps. His hand leaves my neck, sliding along my arm until his fingers find mine, locking our hands together against the mattress as his thrusts become relentless. Finally, he punishes me so deep that it makes my entire body go taut.
“Jake—” I scream his name, my voice breaking as the first wave of my climax hits me. It rips through me in a shattering explosion that starts in my belly and radiates outward, paralyzing my muscles and sending glorious, blinding heat through my veins.
Hearing my cry breaks whatever control he has left, and he lets out a low, primal sound.
He buries himself inside me one final time, and my entire body warms with his cum.
His body goes rigid, the muscles in his back and arms locking like iron as his chest shudders against mine.
He pours everything he has into me, and I take it all. I want more.
For several long minutes, the room is completely still save for the sound of our panting, desperate lungs trying to find air.
Jake doesn’t move. He stays buried inside me, his heavy weight a comforting blanket that makes me feel safe.
I can feel the rapid thudding of his pulse against my skin, gradually slowing to match my own, the redness that crawled up his neck and into his cheek fading to his normal color.
Jake rolls to the side, pulling out of me before maneuvering my body so that I’m tucked securely against his chest, my back flush against his stomach. He reaches down and pulls the tangled comforter up over our shoulders, shielding us from the cool air of the room.