Epilogue
JACK PRIDED HIMSELF ON BEING A MAN OF HIS WORD.
NOT that it had been difficult to keep it, this time.
Just the two of them, somewhere with privacy, no sisters or friends or coaches or parents, no one to interrupt them, no one to overhear, at least no one who cared at all who they were or why they were there.
Indiana walked ahead of him into the hotel room, her long blond hair loose.
He took in the smooth skin where the open back of her shirt dipped nearly to the waistband of her shorts, the long length of her legs bronzed by the sun, down to pale ankles and feet that were normally covered by her socks and tennis shoes; he chuckled to himself because he even found those tan lines hot.
The door clicked shut behind him as he watched her disappear through the gossamer curtains onto the balcony, the view a line of beige and taupe clay-tiled roofs spreading into the bright azure blue of the Mediterranean.
Saint-Tropez was beautiful and he was looking forward to exploring it a bit, but he had a promise to keep first. Not that it would be a chore. In fact, if they never made it out of the hotel room, he’d have no regrets.
“Do you like your surprise?” he asked, stepping up behind her on the balcony and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her back into his chest. She melted into him, the usual tension she carried disappearing. He loved that he could do that for her.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered, her hands coming up to stroke gently against his forearms. “I just wish I kept up my end of the deal.”
A breeze kicked up off the water, briefly cooling off the hot July air swirling around them.
“Yes, Indiana,” he murmured, dipping his head and trailing kisses against a sensitive spot at her neck, “a tournament win, a Wimbledon wildcard, and losing to the ultimate tournament champion in your first two months on tour. A terrible start to your professional career.”
She laughed and the sound drew a smile from him, so he nipped his teeth gently against her skin.
The laughter caught into a soft, gasping moan.
Her fingertips dug into his skin, blunt nails scraping lightly.
He took that as his cue and went to work, his mouth sucking a bruising kiss just behind her ear, his arms loosening their grip on her only to trail one hand up to cup her breast, the other dipping gently into the waist of her shorts, and as his fingers spread, he found her already hot and wet and ready for him.
“Holy shit,” he cursed, and then bit down a little less gently on her shoulder. How long had she been like this? Since they left London that morning? On the plane? In the taxi ride from the airport?
“Always,” she managed as two fingers slid beneath the elastic band of her underwear, and he realized he must have asked his questions aloud. “Whenever I’m with you, I’m always like this.”
“Wish I could say I was sorry,” he said, letting the press of his thumb between her legs and a not-so-gentle grip of the fingers of his other hand against the firm tip of her breast let her know exactly how he felt about it.
He started to back up, to pull her with him into the room, but her hand gripping his suddenly stopped him.
“No, here,” she demanded. “Get me off.”
Here. He glanced around. The balcony was relatively private but in the open air, just like their first time.
Jack knew the other rooms also had balconies, where anyone could walk out at any time, where they could be heard and seen and possibly caught on camera.
A fire licked through him at the thought, so he pushed her forward instead, lifting his hands to guide hers toward the wrought iron railing. “Hold on tight.”
And then he bent to his work, his hands mapping every intimate part of her, his mouth busy at her neck while his hand slipped back into the front of her shorts, fingers working between her legs, cataloging every twitch of her body and every desperate sound he pulled from her throat.
It didn’t take long, barely a few minutes, before she was arching back against him, her knuckles white from her grip on the rail, her breath ragged as he ground his hips into her ass, needing to find some friction himself, desperate to get her there first but not until he had her begging.
She threw her head back against his shoulder, her body pressing against his hand, trying to get herself off if he wouldn’t do it for her.
“Please, Jack,” she pleaded, and a thunderclap went off inside of him.
With a final press of his fingers, she tensed and then shook against him and a frenzied moan tore from her throat.
It echoed over the rooftops, the sound he’d been desperate to hear for weeks but was never free to draw from her until now.
A true and complete undoing.
Spinning away from the balcony, he swung her up into his arms and carried her back into the hotel room, the curtains blowing gently around them.
Indy bounced and laughed when he tossed her onto the bed, pushing up onto her elbows, her blue eyes dark, her hair flowing in a long blond curtain behind her.
Her expression was nothing but pure want, laced with a challenge.
Raising an eyebrow at her, he pulled his shirt up and off, tossing it aside.
Indiana’s eyes flicked over him from head to toe and back again. She bit her lip. “You are truly outrageous to look at.”
“Have you walked past a mirror recently?” he asked, toeing off his shoes as she kicked her flip-flops to the floor.
She was outrageous. Jack had never really had a type; he found most women beautiful in different ways.
But Indiana? She lit something inside of him, something base and feral, something that had always been there but that he’d never examined too closely, afraid of what it meant.
But he’d found a match in her. She wanted him the way he wanted her.
A little rough, a little wild. She loosened the tight leash he kept himself on in every other facet of his life.
Reaching out, he grabbed for her ankle and tugged just hard enough to draw her down to the mattress. His hands went straight for the button of her shorts as she made quick work of her tank top.
“Fuck,” he cursed as he pulled her shorts off, dropping them to the floor.
There was a dark, damp spot on the silk of her underwear that had him groaning before she wriggled out of it, too.
Yeah, he couldn’t wait another second. He crawled onto the bed, her legs coming up over his shoulders as he buried his face between her thighs, determined to stay there until he heard that scream of hers again.
He didn’t tease, didn’t draw it out, simply reveled in the response of her body against the pleasure and the sweet suffocation of her soft skin around his ears, drowning out everything else except the taste and scent of her.
Her fingers dug into his hair, twisting into the strands and then holding him in place as he found just the right spot and exactly the right rhythm.
And there it was, muffled a bit as her thighs pressed together, but as her body shook beneath him, it was the best sound he’d ever heard, even the second time around, as it reverberated from the tiled floors to the ceiling.
He didn’t wait for it to end. They had the room for two more days. He could take his time later. Right now he was going to give her what she’d been begging him for.
She was still coming down from the high as he stood and stripped off his shorts and boxers and bent for his wallet to pull out the condom he’d stored there.
When he stood again, sheathing himself quickly, he tilted his head in surprise.
She was up on her hands and knees, looking back over her shoulder at him, waiting, that challenge still there in the form of a knowing smirk, her hair a riot, every inch of her skin glistening with a light sheen of sweat.
Her grin fell away as soon as he moved into her, replaced by a keening moan that harmonized with the rumble from deep in his chest as he slid home, her body hot and tight around him.
This was all he ever wanted, just him and her together.
The rest of the world could fuck off. He leaned forward, his chest to her back, his hands beside hers braced on the mattress, and he let his hips do the work as his mouth latched on to the spot where her neck met her shoulder, wanting to leave a mark, knowing she loved it when he did.
Her body was shaking, pulsing around him, but he was far from done.
Rising up to his knees, he wrapped his arms around her and drew her up to his chest, his tempo slower, shallower, but his fingertips finding where their bodies were joined, reveling in the gasping desperation in her voice when she said, “Jack…”
“C’mon,” he half demanded, half pleaded as he teetered on the edge as well. “You wanted this, you begged for it.”
She was everywhere, her touch, her scent, her taste, and his body finally gave in to it, losing its rhythm, mindlessly shuddering into oblivion just as he felt her lose it one final time.
Her release was nearly silent as she collapsed back into him, sliding down his body until he caught her and wrapped her in his arms before gently letting her fall to the mattress.
And as soon as he was away from her, disposing of the condom, the tile floor cold against his feet, the light in the bathroom too bright with the afternoon sun shining through from the balcony, the doubt crept in, just like it always did.
He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and shook his head in reproach.
Had he been too much? Did she really want this, or was he deluding himself ?
It was too good to be true.
But then she was there behind him, arms slipping around his waist, pressing a kiss into his biceps and resting her head on his shoulder. Her reflection’s gaze met his in the mirror, and she smiled. She was a mess, but so was he. And he was hers.
“You don’t get to escape that easily,” she murmured.
The knot in his chest loosened, and she pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade.
She had once accused him of being a coward and had been more right than she would ever know. Because he loved her, he loved her so much.
But he was going to try for her. He was going to be there for her. And one day soon, he’d be brave enough to tell her, but until then, he was determined to show her.