Chapter 12
Twelve
My heavy-lidded eyesroamed Jordan’s face as I lowered the dish towel and held the block directly to her heated skin. The chunk of ice melted against her cheek. Droplets of icy water trickled down from her neck to her cleavage.
Her breath caught at the cold touch, and her eyes pulsed shut.
Tangled, messy hair fell in spades over her slender neck and bare shoulders. My gaze followed the water, and I moved her hair out of the way for better access. She smelled so fucking good. All I wanted was to lean in and smell her straight from the source. To lick the water running from her pulse point to her chest.
Fuck.
The alcohol had gone straight to my head, and my honorable intentions for the night went out the window.
She shivered as I traced the ice along the column of her neck. When her eyes closed, I leaned closer. My tongue darted out to swipe the cold water lining her throat. I closed my mouth over her pulse and sucked.
She jumped as if a jolt of electricity shot through her. Jordan set the wine glass on the coffee table with a thump and sprang to her feet.
“I-I should go,” she stammered, desperation lacing her words like tendrils of smoke seeking escape. She searched for the heels she had taken off at some point.
I stood to my full height. “No.”
“I. Need. To. Leave,” she gritted out, her previous sadness suddenly replaced with indignation.
I was angry, too, and just as inebriated from the numerous whiskey neats. I refused to let her slip through my fingers again.
“No,” I growled with unyielding determination, stepping closer until our chests bumped. “You aren’t leaving. Nor will you go back to him. Ever.”
Jordan tried to sidestep me, but I was at her heels. With firm fingers wrapped around her arm, I turned her to face me.
“Did you know he never planned on having children with you?” The words were out of my mouth before I could reel them in. It was the only thing I could think of to make her stay.
She appeared perplexed. “What?”
“Henry had a vasectomy years ago,” I informed her unapologetically, unable to suppress my scoff.
Jordan was thirty-seven. A natural pregnancy for her wouldn’t be viable for long, and my father knew it, too. Henry never told her about the procedure, intentionally robbing her of what she wanted the most in this world—motherhood.
“No.” She staggered, trying to rip away from me.
My grip tightened. Letting her go the first time was hard enough. After kissing her, after touching her, I knew I couldn’t do it again.
“No,” she said again. Denial was the only defense mechanism she had left to explain her wasted years with Henry.
“It’s true,” I ground out, forcing the truth to collide against her clash of wills.
Amidst our heated exchange, the harsh truth had been exposed. The confession pierced through years of deceit, digging into her like barbed wire.
Despondency returned to her eyes, and I hated myself for causing it. But Henry’s deceit and her desire to be a mother were the only things I could exploit to make her stay with me. To possibly guarantee a future with her, too.
“He duped you, Jordan,” I pressed. “He had been running out the clock until you could no longer have children.”
Eyes filled with furious, unshed tears stared at me as her defenses crumbled entirely. Her resolve to escape me wavered under the painful reality, and she stopped trying to pry my fingers off.
The moment she displayed an ounce of assent, I backed her against the nearest wall. She was too distraught to protest when I moved the hair off her shoulders and kissed her throat.
I pressed my lips against her and murmured, “I’m not like him, Jordan. I’ll give you children. I’ll give you everything you want. I have money now, so you don’t have to be concerned if that’s the issue.”
Jordan stilled. “I told you that I’m not for sale,” she stated in a cold voice.
“I’ll take care of you,” I continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Our children, too. You don’t have to worry about a thing,” I added, breathing her in and feeling lightheaded with lust. “All I want in return is you…in any way possible.”
I’d give her a houseful of babies if I had my way. Then, she would never even think of a life with anyone else.
Even if it was too late and she could no longer have children, I didn’t care. I’d forego having a family because the idea of having one without her had always felt hollow.
“Whatever you’re doing, please stop,” she begged. “This is beyond inappropriate.”
I didn’t move; I couldn’t. “Your eyes closed,” I said instead, trailing kisses across her collarbone even as she pushed for space. “Every time I touch you, you close your eyes. You want me just as much, Jordan.”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” she grappled for an excuse.
I pulled back and glared at her. “Or were you finally letting your true feelings show?” My thumb swiped over her bottom lip. “You act like it repulses you but secretly enjoy my touch.”
She stared at me like she had no idea what to say.
My lips collided with hers before she could counteract my advances. Her reluctant mouth didn’t move with mine, but I didn’t let it deter me. This hunger had resided inside me for years, and there was no more holding back. I cupped her cheeks with both hands and kissed her with abandon until she trembled in my hold.
My fingers tugged at the straps of her gown, pulling it down.
“Please, Xander,” she breathed between kisses. “We have to stop now. This is getting out of hand.”
I couldn’t stop. For years, I tried to control the insatiable way I craved her, only to discover that resisting her was futile.
I was done trying.
Letting the dress fall to her ankles, I dropped to my knees. She gripped my hands when I grabbed the waistband of her black panties.
“We need to stop,” she protested between bated breaths.
“No, we don’t.” I shoved her underwear down.
My mouth was on her before she could push me away. Her taste exploded on my tongue, and it was better than any feast I had imagined. It was better than everything I had dreamt of all these years.
“I knew it,” I uttered in between licks. “I knew you’d taste this perfect.”
“Xander, please, fuck,” she moaned, face tipped to the ceiling.
My tongue bore into her, searching every nook and cranny. “Fucking addicting,” I groaned.
Her fingers laced into my hair, stuck between pushing me off and pulling me closer. She writhed, stating words of protest in between moans.
“We shouldn’t—oh, God.” Jordan resisted once more, wrestling with her guilt and desire.
All thoughts finally left her when I sought her entrance. Her tight walls greeted my tongue, and her knees nearly caved from the impact.
“Fuck.” She trembled against my mouth.
Her knees shook, but I held her against the wall with my hands wrapped around her curvy thighs. Wedged between my tongue and the wall, she had no choice but to come in my mouth. Her guilt vanished when pure bliss seized her in a chokehold. Trembling thighs shook around my head as Jordan let go with a shout.
I gripped her ass and laid her on the ground, eyes transfixed on her. Licking my way up to her chest, I ripped off my white dress shirt, unzipped my pants, and dragged them down. I didn’t have the patience to take them off entirely, much too consumed by the woman underneath me.
Jordan panted heavily from her climax. Gripping her hair, I yanked her head back, forcing her to arch and serve up her breasts for me on a silver platter. The perfect globes with dusty pink areolas were my undoing. I latched onto them, biting her breasts in between sucking her nipples.
I leaned forward to kiss her, but my lips landed on her cheek when she turned away. I shook her slightly, trying to rein in the frustration.
This need for her had spiraled into something past animalistic. I dragged my tongue across her collarbone instead, leaving a wet trail in its wake. With my weight pinning her down, I showered her face with feverish kisses like a man possessed.
Her eyes fluttered in an erotic way that was almost tangible.
I took the opening and turned her to face me. Pressing my lips firmly against hers, I tugged on her bottom lip with my thumb and index finger.
My tongue slid over her lips, letting her taste herself. Without meaning to, Jordan parted her lips and granted me access to her warm mouth.
I caressed her neck, my fingertips grazing her silky skin, but it was too much. Everything with this woman was unbearable yet heavenly all at once.
My head was in a daze, and she was still drunk. A better man would’ve waited until she was of sound mind. However, I checked my conscience at the door the day I realized I’d fallen in love with my father’s wife.
I was lost in the softness of her skin and the heat of her pussy. A breathy moan tumbled out of her lips when my fingers slipped inside. It was all too much, and I wasn’t even inside her yet.
It elicited a shudder from her. “God.” She let out a barely audible moan, her eyes screwed shut.
“That’s it, baby. See how fucking happy I can make you?”
Removing my fingers from her clit, I freed my cock from my trousers and ground against her.
She gripped my wrist. “I’m not on birth control,” she choked.
“I assumed, baby,” I whispered against her temple.
She might have gone off birth control in hopes of having a baby, but she had no idea which man planned on giving her one. The idea of planting a flag inside her womb, like I had conquered Mars, made my cock stir. I didn’t care how many times I knocked her up.
“I’ll give you everything he denied you, Jordan,” I vowed. “All you have to do is reach out and take it.”
I grabbed her thigh and pulled her leg around my back for better access to her center. My cock slid against her tight, wet cunt.
“Oh God?—”
I felt her toes curl around my torso. My fingers massaged her breast, my thumb brushing over her nipple.
“Fuck.” A gasp fell out of her mouth.
The friction from a different angle was her undoing. Her nails dug into my biceps, her back arching off the ground. She came again with a cry on her lips.
The sound sent jolts of pleasure through my body. Gripping her wrists, I held them by her head.
She only sobered when my cock pressed against her opening. With a hand over mine, she whispered, “We can’t come back from this.”
“And I don’t want to.” I thrust inside her wet heat, shuddering at what felt like coming home.
I should’ve let her get adjusted. Instead, I showed her no grace and slammed inside her with brutal force.
I fucked her as if it was a sacred ritual. The need for her was drowning me in shallow water. Her lips parted, but I couldn’t tell whether it was in protest or ecstasy. As her pussy clamped and trembled around me, I knew she was close. Liquid gushed out of her, soaking me, as the initial discomfort quickly turned into intense pleasure. Her thighs shook around me, but I didn’t stop. I took and took until she cried out once more. I found my release with a final shove, pulling her into the deep ocean with me.
“God,” she sobbed, too drunk and lust-high to care about morals.
A tear slid out of her eye. It was acutely reminiscent of the one she had once shed while bidding me goodbye.
This time, the lone tear had brought me back to her, back to heaven. It was exactly where I belonged, and I had no plans to leave again. Because what foolish man would give up his place in heaven for a second time?