chapter Fourteen
Ivy didn’t set the alarm. She had worked two split shifts the day before, leaving the senior center at two in the afternoon and arriving at Children’s at four where she’d put in six hours spread through various pods, providing break coverage. It was midnight by the time she got to bed, and then she had lain awake thinking about Jake. Okay, fantasizing, really. She was right when she told him that by Saturday morning she would be hurting for him. Her body remembered every one of his intimate touches and needed very little prodding from her brain to hit simmer.
She heard it again. It wasn’t the bleating of her alarm clock. But it was intrusive, peeling back layers of sleepy fog to get her attention.
Knocking. Someone was knocking on her door.
She sat up and pushed back the summer quilt. The light outside her windows revealed a muted dawn. This close to the water, mornings were always cloud-covered.
The knock came again, soft but insistent.
“Ivy?” It was Jake and his voice was a husky rumble through the solid wood door.
She answered it.
She was wearing white cotton boy shorts and a green tank top. But from the way Jake’s eyes moved over her, possessive and fiery, you’d think she was naked. Her body responded. Her core tightened and her nipples puckered. Jake noticed, the heat in his eyes snapping.
He was wearing fatigues, a white t-shirt that outlined his muscles, and his dog tags. His jaw was unshaven and Ivy could see fine lines of weariness around his eyes.
She pushed her hair back and lifted her face, drawn to his warmth. “Hi.” Her voice was thick with sleep.
He took a step forward, brought his body flush against hers, wove his hand into her hair, and held her for a kiss that was deep and searching and so hot it scorched.
Damn, he felt good. She loved the strength of his arms, the solid wall of his chest against her soft curves. There wasn’t space for air between them. His chest lifted with breath and rubbed against her sensitive breasts and Ivy moaned her pleasure into his mouth.
Jake broke the kiss but only so that he could nibble at her lips. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”
He was undeniably hard, his thick shaft pressing against her belly.
“Hmmm, and I thought that was a pistol in your pocket.” She smiled against his lips and felt his laughter rumble through his chest.
He kicked the door shut behind them.
“I’ve been like this for days.” He slid a leg between hers, lifted her hips so that her sweet spot received attention, and slid his hands up her rib cage so that he could caress her beaded nipples with his thumbs. Ivy’s head fell back as she savored the sweet sensations and Jake lowered his mouth to the soft skin behind her ear. “You’re incredible. Everything about you.” He began moving them toward her bed. “But I especially love this—“ He nipped softly at her ear and was rewarded with the sharp intake of her breath, the mewling sound it pulled from her throat. “Your response. So open and honest.”
He lowered her to the mattress. “Open your eyes, Ivy.”
Ivy did as he asked, watching him pull his shirt over his head.
But she didn’t want more of the same, not that there was anything wrong with what had happened here a few days ago. But she wanted to give. She wanted control. And she wanted to watch Jake as he received every one of her intentions.
“I don’t think so, Jake,” she said, standing up. “Last time was all about me.” Every time. She hooked her fingers through his belt loops and pulled him closer. “Remember all that talk about equality being good for a relationship?” She lowered her head and sank her teeth into his nipple. It beaded in her mouth and she laved it with her tongue. “I believe you, Jake.”
But he was shaking his head. “Next time,” he promised, but Ivy wouldn’t be denied.
“Talk is cheap, Captain.”
“Lieutenant,” he corrected. “And, ah—“ his words slipped away inside a sigh as Ivy’s hand curled around his shaft. She rolled to her toes and licked at his G-spot, then dragged her teeth across the sensitive flesh. She was rewarded with the thickening of his cock and a long shudder that shook his body. “Really, Ivy—“ he began again.
“Really,” she assured him. “It’s going to happen Jake.” Her fingers tangled in his waistband, slipped the button through its hole. “I’m going to take you in my mouth.” She lowered the zipper and pushed both pants and briefs down his hips. “I’m going to finish what I started in your truck Tuesday.” She gazed at her target. He was a big man, broad shouldered and thick in the chest, so it was no surprise that his penis filled out with equal promise. She applied just her fingertips, tracing the scalloped edge of his crown. He jerked in response and Ivy murmured, “I love follow-though, don’t you, Jake?”
She lowered herself to her knees and Jake buried his hands in her hair, tilted her head up so that their eyes locked.
“I will come, Ivy.” His voice held warning, but Ivy welcomed it.
“That’s the idea,” she said.
“If you don’t want to swallow—“
“I do,” she assured him.
“This won’t last long,” he said. “I’ve been needing you—” His voice broke and his hands trembled but held her firmly in place.
“Hmm,” she hummed her agreement around the head of his shaft as she took him in. She circled the velvet tip with her tongue, teased the ridge, tasted his spice, and pulled him deeper into her mouth. She felt Jake’s hands tighten in her hair, the jerk of his hips as sensation ripped through him, and then their smooth, easy pump as he gave in to her demands.
“Is this Okay?”
She could hear the shredding of his control in his voice. It made her wet. That sensual coil tightened inside her. Her bud ached for touch. She reached under her shorts and pressed her fingers to her *oris. The pleasure was so sharp it made her gasp, her back arch, which brought him even deeper into her mouth.
And then it was over—a sudden disconnect that left Ivy confused and frustrated and wondering how the hell she’d ended up on her back in bed with Jake over her. He took her face in his hands and sought her gaze.
“I can’t. You’re hurting as much as I am.”
His hand found her, the pads of his fingers perfectly rough. They circled her *, delved into her wet folds, and returned to tease open the petals of her passion.
“Mine,” he said. “All mine.”
But through the sexual haze Jake was building in her, Ivy felt a keen disappointment. Her hands bunched into fists and she pushed against his shoulders. “I wanted that,” she complained. Oh, how she’d wanted it. To make him lose it. She could almost cry in frustration, or scream, but then Jake’s hands were pushing up her shirt, lining her body to his, pulling her against him, and the look on his face at contact was far more emotional than sexual. The tension eased even while his cock remained a rigid reminder of his need. He pushed her shorts down and swept them off her body and then kicked out of his pants. Flushed with passion, muscles flexing as he sought control, his fingertips began a light caress over her fevered skin.
“Just like this, Ivy, OK? Just for a minute.”
His hands stroked from her shoulders, down her arms, to her bottom. He cupped her thighs, holding her to him. His cock nestled against her stomach.
“Damn, you feel so good.”
He felt good too. She relaxed into him, absorbed his strength and heat. She opened her hands and ran her palms over his shoulders, down the sinewy muscle of his biceps and curled her fingers around his wrists.
“I’ve missed you,” she confessed. She’d missed the husky timber of his voice, the spicy scent of his skin, the confidence he exuded. She could tell right now that he was vulnerable, that he had an emotional need as well as physical, and both were intense. She’d seen a similar shadow in his eyes on the side of the road almost a week ago. He had covered it well then, not so much now. And maybe he wasn’t trying to. She lifted her hands and smoothed her fingertips over the five o’clock shadow on his jaw, the tension relaxed from his lips. Encouraged, her fingers drifted to his temples where she swirled them in a light massage. His eyelashes fluttered closed. She smoothed the line between his eyebrows with her thumbs and then delved into his hair. It had grown some and she pulled lightly on the strands, rubbed his scalp and then shaped it with her hands.
His breath shuddered across her forehead, followed by his lips in a soft, barely-there caress.
“You’re good for me, Ivy,” he whispered. His lips reached her ear and his tongue flicked out to stroke the sensitive curves there. Her nipples tightened. His cock stirred in response. “I’m going to make love to you,” he promised. “Slowly. I want to touch every inch of you.”
Ivy felt the tension begin to build again, a smooth slide from her chest to womb. She shifted restlessly and Jake brought his leg up to pin hers gently to the mattress. The thin spattering of hair on his thighs rubbed against her silky skin, causing a delicious tremor to start in her limbs.
“Not too slow, Jake,” she said. She sank her teeth into the tendon on his neck and then sucked the flesh into her mouth. Jake’s breath came thicker. She skimmed her fingertips over his shoulders, traced the scalloped edges of his spine and then filled her palms with the tight cheeks of his ass. She tried to pull him closer, to shift so that his burgeoning length was between her thighs, but he wouldn’t allow it.
“Let me love you first,” he said.
Ivy wasn’t deterred. Her hands grew bolder, following his cheeks to the sensitive skin of his thighs and then further still, until she had his balls cupped in the palm of her hand. She squeezed lightly, stroked deeply so that her fingers played along the ridge on his shaft, and lifted her lips so that she could graze that sweet spot below his ear. Jake’s cock grew to an impossible thickness. His breath hit the back of his teeth and his whole body clenched.
“Ivy, no,” he grunted.
Ivy felt the moistness gather between her thighs. She moved her body, trapping his erection against her belly, rocking against him so that the friction she created centered on his crown.
“Condom,” he gasped.
But those were in the bathroom. And if Jake wasn’t going to let her pleasure him with her
mouth, then she would do it like this. She increased pressure and pace, felt his hands fall away from her shoulders and gather fistfuls of sheet as he fought off what she was determined he would have, what she wanted to give—an orgasm as powerful as the many he’d given her.
She moved then, sliding down his body until his shaft was between the cradle of her breasts. It shattered the last of his resolve. He loved her breasts, lavished attention on them every chance he got, and she knew that this was probably somewhere on that bucket list. She tightened the channel she’d made for him and felt his hips jerk reflexively.
He was flushed, engorged, and as they moved, his seed began to spill from the velvet tip and bath her in a heated pool.
Jake was watching too, his jaw clenched, heat surfacing in his cheeks. The fire in his eyes turned liquid and seared hers when he found her gaze. When he was finished, when Ivy had milked him for all he had, Jake lifted a hand and smoothed his semen over her breasts.
“That was not enough,” Jake mumbled. Ivy was spread over his chest, his hands tangled in her dark hair. As his testosterone calmed he began to fill with recriminations. “You didn’t come,” he said. He never made love to a woman without her coming first and coming often.
She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes. Hers were soft, sincere. “Sometimes, Jake, you have to let a woman give. It’s what we do. What we need to do.”
He detected a slight irritation in her tone and remembered how she had coiled away from him in that moment, when he had pulled himself from her mouth and made a play to regain control of their progress. Damn, that had been a screaming success. He’d wanted to return the focus to her, but she’d been so determined. And he’d ended up coming anyway. Neither of them had gotten what they wanted. Because he had tried to control the outcome.
“I didn’t let you have that,” he said.
“You did, for a moment,” she conceded, and a smile curved her lovely lips. “I want to know that I move you as deeply as you do me.”
“Sweetheart, there’s no doubt—“
But she interrupted him. “I need to give equally. To be a partner,” she impressed upon him. “You want me to trust you, Jake, but that’s a mutual necessity.”
And he knew she was right. But she was asking the impossible, because it wasn’t her he didn’t trust, but himself. And so he always held himself a bit aloof in the clinch. That, too, was becoming impossible. He’d never been so challenged before. He’d never wanted to give in so badly. It would have been a glorious freedom, to tumble head first into Ivy and thoroughly enjoy himself, but what would that have done to her? If he’d lost all restraint, bucked against her as that wild rush built, he would have hurt her.
It was unacceptable. The thought had shaken him and he had removed himself from her mouth, from temptation.
He felt her fingers at his hairline, stroking his temple, and opened his eyes.
“A man’s passion should never be fully unleashed,” he told her.
“Bullshit.”
“What?” It wasn’t her language that surprised him, but her simple and confident reply.
“How old were you when you crashed that car?”
“Seventeen.”
“Don’t you think thirteen years is enough time spent behind bars? I mean, no one was hurt, Jake. You said so yourself.”
“It wasn’t just the car.” Though that had been his wake-up call. “I was on a self-destructive path. I had a history of bad decisions. Out of control behavior.”
“How much history can a seventeen year old have?”
She sat up, facing him, and pulled the sheet over herself demurely. And that really bothered him. He didn’t like her covering herself from him. He didn’t like that she felt she had to.
“Plenty, if you start young.”
“Don’t you think you’ve matured some over the years?” she challenged and her tone was becoming not a little antagonistic.
“What’s the problem, exactly, Ivy? Am I not pleasing you?”
“No, you’re not.”
And that sank into his jugular. He actually felt the blood drain from his head.
“Not today,” he agreed. “But I intend to fix that.”
“I’m not talking sexually, Jake.”
“The hell we aren’t.”
“Well, we are, but I’m going a little deeper here. You want to explore the possibility of a relationship between us,” she reminded him. “You’ve pointed out how well we communicate, and I agree, we’re really good at it. So why throw up road blocks here? Why don’t you just tell me what you’re afraid of? Is it the physical aspect of getting that close to me? Or is it the intimacy itself?”
His body stilled. He felt caught but refused to examine it too closely. For him, it was always about safety—but what if she was right, and it was about keeping his distance? He turned the tables on her, remembering her hesitancy, her insistence on regarding them as an affair and nothing more. “Since we’re talking about intimacy,” he began, “why don’t you tell me what you’re afraid of, Ivy? Why insist we’re sex only? ”
She froze, her eyes shifted from his face and she shrugged uneasily.
“Now who’s not trusting?”
“I was afraid you’d hit me,” she admitted, and lifted her gaze. Her eyes blazed with the effort of meeting his challenge. “I know you won’t, because I know you better now. But that’s the fear that goes through my head whenever a guy catches my interest.”
He ignored the guy part, because that was definitely past tense as far as he was concerned, but he latched onto the violence and he felt sick.
“Did your ex-husband hit you, Ivy?”
She maintained eye contact and nodded. “He beat me.”
More than once then. Jake felt everything inside him tighten, like his whole body was clenching into a fist. His sweet, lovely Ivy.
“Not me,” he said. “I will never harm you.”
“I know. I trust you,” she emphasized.
“This is different. I’m a big man, Ivy. If I let all that loose on you, I couldn’t promise you I wouldn’t hurt you. And it would kill me if I did. I won’t risk it.”
“Have you ever surrendered control to a woman, Jake?”
He shook his head. “And just a few minutes ago was the closet I’ve ever come.” It was like fading out. Like falling into that final dip on a roller coaster. Everything except climaxing had become unimportant to him. Almost. “It’s selfish and irresponsible.”
She stroked a finger down his chest, turning a dog tag. Jacob L. Emerson. He caught her hand and lifted it to his lips.
“I think you’re afraid of intimacy,” she asserted. “I think that’s what’s holding you back.”
“Control isn’t always about a fear of intimacy.” But her words resonated inside him.
“I know that. But this time--" She lifted her shoulders again, in a gesture that was more sadness than agitation “—that’s what it feels like.”
“We have to be clear on this, Ivy,” he pressed, pinning her gaze. “Are you going to be okay with that? If I never completely give you control?”
“I don’t know.”
And he heard the doubt in her voice and watched it shadow her eyes.